Treated myself to Roadrat frame and fork on my birthday (on the 2nd), picked it up sat morning and spent all day building her up –

Cotic Roadrat

(By the way – anyone know how to embed a OneDrive photo on the forum? I did use Photobucket but it’s a pain and my camera auto uploads to OneDrive…)

Most bits came off my 26″ Cannondale Badboy, with the hope wheels coming off my second MTB for now – may build up some new wheels for the MTB or just sell the frame and forks as it’s not been used for ages.

It seems about the same weight as the Badboy, but rolls faster, seems comfier/springier and handles like a rigid 29er MTB – I like it! 🙂

I wasn’t sure about the yellow, but it looks nice in the flesh, even with the blue hubs/spoke nipples.

The trekking gears (48, 38 , 26) kicked my arse a bit yesterday on some steep hills, you can really tell a difference compared to the same gears on the 26″ wheels. I may have to lift my no granny ring ban! Or just man up until I get stronger..

Still some jobs to do on it – shorten the rear brake hose, replace the cable ties with black ones, find a better way to mount the rear guard to the seat tube, possibly a new narrower (black) pannier rack, chop down the mudguard stays and fit the caps, and maybe flip the stem and cut the steerer down.

Oh, and convert the front hub to 9mm through axle as it’s a pain to get in and out with the closed dropouts. The rear is 10mm bolt in so no issues with getting the rear wheel out.

For £350, I think it’s an excellent frame and fork package. Highly recommended so far. 🙂

(“View Original” loads a .jpg image which you can link as normal 🙂 )

Lovely looking bike and build!
I’ve always fancied one of these with a bigger set of tyres.
Can you feel any frame flex whilst riding?

(I use tinypic to host)

With the pannier on, and if you really honk on the barends up a steep hill, you can feel a bit of flex in the rear triangle, but only just. Maybe with two fully loaded panniers it would be annoying, but I only want to use it for commuting and some very light touring.

Thanks Big Dummy.

It looked pretty sweet with the 26″ wheels and big tires on –

More pics now I know how! –

Ze flying banana!!