All you need to know
FAQ
Design and configurations
All else being equal, there is no inherent difference between the braking ability of a cable brake and a hydraulic brake. The hydraulic does however feel firmer because of the cables ability to cushion the load.
It is a popular belief that hydraulic brakes provide better braking effect than mechanical, but it is really a reaction to the difference between single and double action that most people are comparing. Double action calipers are considerably more efficient because they are grabbing the disk evenly from both sides instead of deflecting the disk from the one side in towards the second brake pad.
We have chosen double action cable because, despite being more expensive than the hydraulic options (yes more expensive), they are much easier to service and maintain and therefore better suited to everyday wear and tear in an urban environment where they need to perform day in and day out in all kinds of weather. They need to do so without you having to worry about bleeding them, temperature changes, or kinks in the tubing due to people having treated them roughly while parked on the street. Cable is just easier to service and maintain on the go and therefore we believe it is more appropriate for urban bicycles.
All of our urban bicycles are kitted with internal gears and a Gates Carbon beltdrive for ease of maintenance and a smoother ride. Belt drives provide silent power transfer, last up to four times longer than a chain, can never rust or smear oil on your pant leg and so you are guaranteed years of low-maintenance riding in all conditions. Only maintenance needed is an occasional rinse with water and a soft brush. Simple as that.
Despite the illusion, there is no reason that large wheels are any faster than smaller wheels. Actually it is easier to get smaller wheels up to speed and that means they accelerate faster. Maybe the best example of this is that the 200 meter flying start World Speed record is held by a bike with 17” wheels – and it has been so for the past 33 years. All else being equal, smaller wheels accelerate faster than bigger ones and that means they are much better suited for urban riding, where one often has to stop at lights and stop signs.
Another reason we designed with 650B’s is that the bike has a pretty sporty front end geometry and the 650B’s reduce the percentage of radial instance of toe overlap. This makes the bike a lot easier to handle without compromising the very sporty feel.
So, what are the disadvantages of smaller wheels? In extreme cases, smaller wheels give a harsher ride on rough terrain like cobble stones, but that is not an issue for a frame like the Erik, which has a natural ability to absorb road vibration.
Coh&Co’s stock bikes are assembled with mechanical group sets because they are a solid, time proven and serviceable solution. Combine all of this with being cost effective and a tinge of traditionalism and it seems like the natural choice. Having said this, we do recognise that “times they are a changin’” and that electronic group sets perform great. So for those who just love gadgets, we can offer electronic shifter set upgrades for our carbon road racing frames. Our WOOCA and Erik frames just aren’t designed for them – as of yet.
We offer our WOOCA bikes as frame kits.
All of our other models are sold as fully assembled bikes.
Yes.
For our urban models, we are offering the newly launched Erik Electric which has a rear hub electric motor and battery in one. It is automatically recharged and has an impressive range of up to 50 kilometers at 250W. The Erik Electric is lightweight, simple in its design, and easy to use.
Our VeloSled cargo bike is also offered with a high-quality rear hub drive from German NeoDrive.
Cargo bikes
Our rear hub driven, electric motor solution can be fitted to any sled, so that when the kids are old enough to ride by themselves, your sled can become yours again and be on stand by as the ”family wagon”. The VeloSled is designed to be modular so that the motor option can be swopped on or off throughout its life and the rack combination and accessories can be added or removed as needed.
Forks make plenty of sense when put on a traditional bicycle but as soon as we separate the front wheel steering axis from the handlebars and move the front wheel way out in front; then they make about as much sense as they do on an automobile. Some cars once had forks but they are neither necessary nor efficient. A lefty configuration allows us to make a stiffer composite frame assembly and reduce the height over the front wheel so that we can extend the bed without raising its center of gravity.
Two wheeled cargo bikes are long and can carry a lot of weight. This means that they present unusual challenges when it comes to dealing with frame twist. We chose our own StoneWeave material technology (carbon and basalt) because it is several times stiffer than aluminium and much better at withstanding fatigue than most other materials.
Additionally StoneWeave does not corrode which makes it well suited for the task at hand and is phenomenally tough and quite repairable.
We have designed our laminate with maintainability and reparability in mind should it ever be damaged.
The Coh&Co philosophy
Coh&Co is on a mission to raise the bar on how we experience riding, maintaining, and owning our bicycles. We have developed an ecosystem to keep bikes rolling and by your side for many years to come.
It starts at the design process where we push the limits of longevity with our sustainable material technology StoneWeave – and we close the circle with a transferable lifetime buy-back guarantee. We refurbish or recycle every registered bicycle returned to us when it has reached the final crossroads in its lifecycle.
This is the ownership and product ecosystem we call “Recapture”, and this is why we like to say that Coh&Co builds Bicycles for life.
The name ’StoneWeave’ refers to Coh&Co Copenhagen’s new and radical frame-building technology. Interweaving carbon and stone fibers, and fusing them in the world’s first recyclable high-performance composite resin, opens new doors for sustainable composite technologies as such – and for the utilization of composites for bike manufacturers in particular.
In addition to being the world’s first fully reclaimable composite bicycle, our StoneWeave technology lends itself to producing exceptionally tough frames at reasonable weights. Tough as can be and void of the corrosion issues so common to traditional urban frame technologies, StoneWeave frames are ideal for creating the low-maintenance high power ride craved by urban bike commuters.
Coh&Co’s Stoneweave technology is unique and it is producing the worlds first recyclable composite bicycles. As many of you may be aware, carbon fiber composites have a very high CO2 foot print and we can’t hide this – on the other hand they have the potentiel for a very long lifespan and they open the door for some really unique design opportunities. No one can deny the fact that when measured by the kilo carbon fiber composites have a CO2 footprint many times that of a material like steel. Fortunately we don’t need a lot of it to make a great bike. What Stoneweave is opening the door for is reutilising these materials so that their material lifespan has a proportionally lower material lifecycle footprint. We believe that in recycling Stoneweave we can reduce the materials CO2 footprint so that it becomes comparable to and even better than some metals while still offering the fantastic design opportunities that composites so famous for.
How is this done?
In short, we can dissolve the resin system back out of the retired frame. This is done utilising a controlled low energy chemical process that relinquishes near virgin fiber and a series of resin substrates all of which can be utilised in other areas in industry.
With our Recapture program Coh&Co is offering to buy back any Coh&Co branded bicycle after it has rounded ten years of service – either to refurbish and resell the bike, or to recycle the frame material and repurpose it. Customers can register for Recapture when buying a Coh&Co bicycle and ownership can be passed on, either to us or a new owner together with the buy-back guarantee.
As designers and engineers we are fascinated by materials and our pallete of material tools here at Coh&Co Copenhagen is quite broad. We began as carbonfiber and composite specialists in the marine industry and have since gained considerable experience in the design and manufacturing of different products, utilising everything from aluminium to stone, now also including our own developed material technology StoneWeave.
Given this background it is therefore not surprising that we at Coh&Co often get asked why we have chosen wood for our WOOCA bikes when we are so clearly open to other materials. Many assume that it is for aesthetic reasons, and although we are flattered by the complement, we believe that the beauty here is far more than skin deep. The beauty is in the ride.
Read the whole story in the article below:
WOOd+CArbon = WOOCA
General use and maintenance
For servicing, any good local mechanic would be able to take care of your Coh&Co bike. Our urban bikes are designed to be low maintenance with belt drive, internal gears and solid components, so if you take good care of it we believe you would have a solid ride for a good long while.
If you live in an area with a Coh&Co ambassador shop nearby, we would always recommend you to have any service done with them. Find a store or write us an email and we will direct you to the nearest service provider.
Maintenance guides online
When you buy your bike, we will ask you to register online where you will then have access to all the bike’s specifications, year build, links to service manuals, and so on. The online registration is also what provides you with the Lifetime warranty for the bike. Any custom components like our metal dropouts are modular and should they be damaged or worn, we can send replacements for you or your local mechanic to replace them.
We are all afraid of losing what we love. This also goes for our bicycles, especially ones that we have saved up for and invested ourselves in. Bicycles tend to live a tough life in the city and there is good reason to think about where and how you leave your bicycle.
We always recommend that if you do have the option to take your bicycle inside with you. In case this is not possible or if you’re out for groceries, we suggest that you lock it to a lamppost, signpost, fence, or whatever solid object is nearby using a “chain lock”.
All of us here at Coh&Co have fallen in love with the textile-based chain locks from TexLocks in Leipzig. They offer various lengths and all come with a soft, smooth surface feel leaving your bike unscratched. It even comes with a nice attachment to store the lock underneath the seat or you can wear it over your shoulder as the soft nature of the material makes it a comfortable way to ride.
or get one together with your Coh&Co bicycle.
As an added protection to your beloved bicycle, we also offer the ingenious N-lock – a multipurpose bike lock that works both as theft protection and clever storage in small spaces.