Mr Love, formerly of this parish, dropped by via the back roads of Calderdale. ‘You look like Jeremy Corbyn with that stem!’ cried our Benji. Cue much excited jabber about geometry, back road meandering, and the merits of planning your bike rides around top notch bakeries. We entrapped James in the office just long enough to grab some photos of his customised mile munching Cotic Cascade.
James’ goal is to avoid roads, but cover the miles to the next bakery at speed if necessary. He’s also got his bike commute to work, so he doesn’t want to be hanging around for that – and he needs his bike to be reliable. He doesn’t want it to be terrifying on descents, and he likes comfort. As well as the shorter commute, he’s been doing some long distance tours to. There’s no distance too far when it comes to quality baked goods.
This is the XL Cotic Cascade, a ’29er adventure bike’ designed to be used with either drop bars or flat bars… or in James’ case wavey bars and a whole pile of stem. These are Ritchey Coyote Bars, with 27° sweep.
This Discord Chromo Peeper stem adds a whole pile of stack – 125mm of it – on a short stem. James say this puts him where he wants to be, particularly on steep descents. And before you think it looks mad, check this out:
That’s Benji’s test bike form Orbea, side by side with James’ Cascade – the bars are basically at the same height. So perhaps James isn’t quite so crazy?
James wanted a range of different hand positions to ease fatigue on long rides, so he’s got foam grips in two different places, plus these Togs, which allow you to move your thumbs so you’re still holding on and in control, but giving your hands a slight shift in position. A change is as good as a rest and all that.
A pair of King Cage bottle cages is mated with Wolf Tooth B-Rad double bottle adaptor to make sure he’s kept hydrated, even after the saltiest of pretzels.
Spares are carefully stowed on the bike too, and there’s space on the downtube for more luggage if needed.
He’s also got a top tube box from Tailfin – handy for snacks – and a Wizard Works frame bag.
This is no dropper – it’s a suspension seatpost from USE, plus a Brooks saddle. A little bit of cush for James’ tush.
Is it a mountain bike, is it a gravel bike? Who cares, James is a flat pedal rider and these are Deity T-Mac pedals. Good enough for Red Bull Rampage, good enough for Calderdale.
A Shimano Deore XT groupset for covering the miles, putting up with the commute, and stopping when needed, with oval chainring upgrade.
Don’t get all funny, but James has a tan wall tyre at the back and a black wall up front. Both looking like they’ve put the miles in now, on Hope hoops.
A touch more grip up front, with the RockShox SID taking the sting out of the trail.
Possibly taking Cotic’s ‘chameleon character’ claims for the Cascade to extremes, it’s very much a bike built for how James uses it and wants it to be. Is it inspiration for your own build, or do you think you’ve already got your set up nailed? Share it with us here and maybe we’ll feature it too.
