Norco brought out two new mountain bikes, the Sight 140mm trail bike and the Truax 180mm freeride bike. They also showed off their first-ever full carbon fiber cyclocross bike, the Threshold, and it’s quite the looker.
On the mountain side, the Sight (black, foreground) is a lightweight frame that’s taken their A.R.T. suspension design and chiseled out the linkage and tubes, but kept the strengthening features like a Syntace 142×12 rear axle, tapered headtube and hydroformed tubing. The Truax was announced a while back, but this showing makes it official…despite this particular frame still being one of the prototypes with some features that won’t make it to the showroom floor.
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The Sight’s frame comes in right around 5lbs without the shock, which isn’t too bad for an alloy frame with 140mm travel.
Their A.R.T. suspension design is a variation on the FSR. The hole on left side near BB is for a spare Syntace derailleur hanger bolt…handy since those are designed to breakaway in the event of a nasty wreck.
A new one-piece swing arm also stiffens up the frame overall. Price for the Sight 1 will be $5,465 with the 2012 XT Trail group. There’s an LE model with full XTR and better wheels that’ll be north of $7,500, and the 2 and 3 below it.
As shown, the Truax comes in around 37lbs, which isn’t too bad for something with 180mm of travel and a massive coilover shock and huge fork.
Above and below left, the internal cable routing won’t make it to the final production versions. Norco’s marketing guy Dustan Sept said there’s just too much travel for it to work properly that way.
Norco’s first-ever carbon fiber cyclocross bike is a thing of beauty. The headtube is simply massive, as is the fork’s crown, and the internal cable routing is some of the sexiest I’ve ever seen:
The internal cable routing has internal guides to reduce rattling and make install easier. The front derailleur cable does run externally along the bottom of the downtube, though.
Three price points, SL is top with higher modulus carbon at 2.9lbs, shares frame with the 1. The 2 will have a lower level carbon and be about 3.2lbs and slightly less stuff. Replaceable dropouts that use standard chainring bolts to attach. They’ll also offer sliding dropouts and the design makes it belt drive compatible.
All models are BB30. That hole on the seat tube will go away, it’s not a Di2-ready feature like I originally thought. To make it a bit more versatile, the Threshold has front and rear mounts for fenders, too. SL will be sold frame/fork/headset only, 1 and 2 are complete bikes. They’re waiting for Shimano or SRAM to develop a hydraulic option and standard before committing to disc tabs on the fork or frame.
Why not go ahead and make it disc ready? Dustan says they’re waiting for Shimano or SRAM to develop a hydraulic option and standard before committing to disc tabs on the fork or frame.
