Cotic, a brand best known for its steel-framed bikes of kinds has, today, thrown us a bit of a curveball as it has been announced that there's a Cotic e-bike in the making. While techy stuff and information about the bike is pretty thin at the moment, we've got a few pictures to show off and some of the story behind the new e-bike.

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Cotic has an e-bike firmly in development and the move to create such a bike was made as e-bikes aren't going anywhere, they're part and parcel of our sport now. The brand has also recognised that it's been making bikes for a good 18 years now and that there may be some customers from its early years who might be getting to an age where riding a normal bike isn't possible anymore. Of course, there's also the bang for buck in riding time and the general accessibility that only an e-bike offers.

Some of you may be asking why it's taken so long for Cotic to make an e-bike but it comes with a pretty simple answer. Cotic wanted to wait for e-bike tech to mature a bit before getting to work on its own but with the current supply chain issues taking their toll, the process is a slow one anyway.

The elephant in the room is that Cotic's e-bike will be made from aluminium. We all know Cotic bikes for the rad steel bikes on offer but this time Cotic reckons that making a better looking bike with an internal battery from steel won't actually offer any of the benefits that the material offers. It also keeps the price a bit friendlier.

Cotic hasn't defined the e-bike spec just yet but we're told that it won't be an exact replica of one of the other bikes but rather, a variation. It does run Longshot geometry and Droplink suspension but one thing that we do know about the bike is that it'll come with a Shimano STEPS EP8 motor. 

Next for Cotic, is to nail down the drive spec and to get the Shimano kit on order. Then it's down to the team to play around with geometry and spec to get the frames on order ASAP.

At the moment, we can't expect to see production bikes until the end of 2023 at the very earliest but there will be updates on the bike as it goes through further development.

• www.cotic.co.uk

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