Bikerumor Podcast #013 – Pivot’s Chris Cocalis goes off about mountain bike design

Written by Tyler Benedict May 20, 2019 5:08 p.m. ET

interview with Pivot founder Chris Cocalis about pressfit bottom brackets and mountain bike geometry and design

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Pivot founder Chris Cocalis has some strong opinions about mountain bike design, and it shows through in the tight tolerances and high precision construction of his bikes. But how and why does he love pressfit bottom brackets so much when they’re the bane of many riders’ existences? Why does he thing we should be riding smaller frames? It’s all here in this very entertaining episode, recorded from the launch of a new bike launching May 23!

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Tyler Benedict

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Tyler Benedict is the Founder of Bikerumor.com. He has been writing about the latest bikes, components, and cycling technology for almost two decades. Prior to that, Tyler launched and built multiple sports nutrition brands and consumer goods companies, mostly as an excuse to travel to killer riding locations throughout North America.

Based in North Carolina, Tyler loves family adventure travel and is always on the lookout for the next shiny new part to make his bikes faster and lighter.

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VeloFreak

4 years ago

Very informative, knowledgeable, very nice. But still, press fit will give problems because of the mentioned tolerances not done well by most manufacturers, so I will always want to get a BSA threaded BB in my next bike, also because I’ve never had a press fit BB bike, never experienced those problems, and with a BSA I will never have them. And about super boost, sounds awesome, but being a cross country rider, I appreciate those narrow q-factor cranks. But for a dual suspension with higher travel, bring it on, I bet many brands will have it, better jump on it and skip Boost altogether when buying a new bike.

DingDang

4 years ago

Reply to VeloFreak

Or you could just buy a Pivot……just a thought. They can hold those tolerances, and they ride fantastic.

Jim

4 years ago

Reply to VeloFreak

Press fit doesn’t give you tolerances, manufacturers that won’t hold tolerances or ham-fisted mechanics that don’t know how to press bearings give problems. Even with BSA, there is still a press fit bearing. It is just pressed into a different piece by someone else other than your framebuilder. My question is why would anyone spend the money on a bike that is high enough end (i.e. not from Wal-Mart) to have a press fit BB from a company that can’t hold the tolerance on a BB shell? How good is the quality control and tolerances on the rest of the bike? Where else did they cut corners?

Jim

4 years ago

Reply to Jim

Ooops! Should be “doesn’t give you problems, “

Noah Sears

4 years ago

Reply to VeloFreak

I’ve now owned TEN Pivots with pressfit BBs. Ironically, the only time I’ve had a BB creak in one is when I used a thread-together BB. Took it out and pressed in a Shimano XT-level BB92 and it went away. Prior to Pivots, I had a couple BHs and, before that, Salsas. All used BB92, none had issues.

How come nobody hates on pressfit headsets? 🙂

Hurricane

4 years ago

My main three bikes have PF BB’s, road,Cannondale Exo-BB30, gravel/ cross, Dedacchi Supercross-PF 92 and a Turner RFX- PF30. I never had any BB problems with any of the my bikes I’ve listed.
As far as the Pivots are concerned, they are great bikes and use, in my opinion, the best rear suspension platform, the DW link. Chris is also a great guy.

CHSAD

4 years ago

So is the new bike Mach 4SL super boost or boost 148?

Tim

4 years ago

Reply to CHSAD

I would assume regular boost 148. The goals that are achieved using super-boost aren’t really the goals for an XC bike. If they were trying to allow this bike to run 27.5+ then maybe, but I doubt it. Especially as this will be targeted at an XC crowd who likely already have a boost 148 wheelset ready to go.

Chader

4 years ago

The media industry hate in Chris is strong. I find his general view that the media is driving the long/low movement a bit It comes off like we (bike riders/buyers) are a bunch of lemmings with no thoughts or experiences of our own.

It ignores the reality that people buy and ride these bikes, and in some cases, actually lead the charge in changes to bike design. People were sizing up with larger frames, shrinking stems, and putting DH bars on trail bikes years ago.

It’s a bit of the chicken/egg scenario as there may be limits on how far consumers can push with the need to borrow or adapt, which can then drive manufacturers to make changes as well. I think the current movement to Long/Low is worthwhile as the old school stuff that many of us started with in the 1990’s to even the mid 2000’s have been properly surpassed with modern bikes.

But it is entirely possible we are seeing the end of the pendulum swing in that direction. We may find a middle ground in design that is a proper blend of the current manufacturing capabilities and geometries. The abilities we have at our fingers (bikes that climb and descend nearly equally well) is impressive. It may be that we are getting close to the ideal and will see slower progress with smaller steps to the “ultimate” in bike design. Of course, that also hinges on the use of the bikes and what customers demand, which can shift the design to follow those needs… all in a nearly never-ending cycle. But that is just my limited guess.

4 years ago

To everyone complaining about the press fit bottom brackets… I have ridden pf bbs on every single bike I’ve ever owned (pivots) the simple solution is super glue, to ensure the bb’s don’t creak just super glue it together…. now before I get flak for putting glue in the bike, how do you service it blah blah blah, just know my bbs never creak… so have fun ripping me a new one threaded bb people but I’m finna hop on my super boost XC bike with a press fit bb and love life

Hamjam

4 years ago

Reply to Al

I just hit mine with a torch and melt it in place. No creaks ever.

4 years ago

So he went all that way to describe being bullied into longer reaches and steeper seat angles. He even goes on to mention that effective seat angle varies by rider height. And yet he still can’t make the leap to varying seat tube angles and chainstay lengths by size to make bikes fit a range of riders properly?

I totally agree with his position on PF BBs. Do it right and there’s no reason for it not to work, just like headsets.

TimE

4 years ago

Great interview and I agree with all the comments Chris hasn’t offered. Long bikes don’t work for riders on Dre’s small to medium. They promote inefficient riding texhniques in order to get the front end weighted correctly.