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Cervélo ZFS-5 Full-Suspension XC Bike Steps Up for World Cup Racing

2023 Cervélo ZFS-5 carbon full-suspension XC mountain bike, Cervelo ZFS XCO MTB race-ready
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Following up their hardtail mountain bike debut last fall, Cervélo is back with an all-new full-suspension ZFS-5 short-travel XC bike just in time for this weekend’s cross-country World Cup racing kick-off. So far, we’ve just got a sneak peek of the bike that will see its racing debut under two Dutch riders of Jumbo-Visma, Fem van Empel and Milan Vader in Nové Město na Moravě – and we’ll take a deeper dive this coming weekend.

What do we know so far?

Cervélo ZFS-5 carbon full-suspension XC mountain bike

2023 Cervélo ZFS-5 carbon full-suspension XC mountain bike, Cervelo ZFS XCO MTB race-ready, complete
all photos c. Cervélo

Cervélo’s all-new Z-series mountain bikes got a little bit of a jilted start in 2022, as their ZHT-5 hardtail had been originally set to debut last spring on the World Cup under Milan Vader. But the Jumbo-Visma racer had a life-altering crash – fracturing vertebrae, collarbone, shoulder & more during the Tour of the Basque Country road race just days before the first XCO race of 2022. He literally spent half a year in rehab, but was surprisingly able to return to racing on & off-road last year – debuting the Cervélo hardtail in October.

2023 Cervélo ZFS-5 carbon full-suspension XC mountain bike, Cervelo ZFS XCO MTB race-ready, Milan Vader

Now he is back on the World Cup, joined by new teammate and current Cyclocross World Champion Fem van Empel, both set to race the new fully on the notoriously techy Nové Město XCO course this weekend.

So, onto the bike…

Tech Details & Geometry

2023 Cervélo ZFS-5 carbon full-suspension XC mountain bike, Cervelo ZFS XCO MTB race-ready, wet berm riding

Yes, Cervélo is going all-in with XC mountain bike racing aboard the all-new ZFS-5 full-suspension bike. Official details remain thin on this XC race bike for the time being, but we’ve got plenty to go on…

2023 Cervélo ZFS-5 carbon full-suspension XC mountain bike, Cervelo ZFS XCO MTB race-ready, angled detail

Described as a “Progressive But Racy” bike, the ZFS is a classic full-carbon single-pivot mountain bike with flexing seatstays and a horizontal linkage-driven shock under the top tube. Cervélo says they chose to “keep it single, stupid” with a simple suspension design that is “tried and true, and very tuneable”.

2023 Cervélo ZFS-5 carbon full-suspension XC mountain bike, Cervelo ZFS XCO MTB race-ready, descent

That ‘progressive’ geometry of the bike is a bit more slack-for-XC than the ZHT hardtail to handle rough modern technical cross-country racing, with a 67.8° head angle in its shorter 100mm travel setup, paired with a nice and steep 76.2° seat angle to get back uphill. And for riders looking to go slacker, they can shift to a 66.6° headtube in the 120mm variant.

2023 Cervélo ZFS-5 carbon full-suspension XC mountain bike, Cervelo ZFS XCO MTB race-ready, floating rear brake mount

One trickier bit in the suspension, Cervélo describes the post mount rear brake as ‘floating’ as it attaches to the chainstay and then the axle, to isolate it from the suspension flex around the drop-out and lower-end of the seatstay.

2023 Cervélo ZFS-5 carbon full-suspension XC mountain bike, Cervelo ZFS XCO MTB race-ready, main pivot & threaded bottom bracket, BSA BB

The carbon full-suspension bike sticks with a threaded bottom bracket for usability, a 30.9 seatpost with stealth dropper routing, full internal cable routing through the 1.5″ headset, UDH compatibility with the latest direct mount SRAM Eagle AXS Transmission derailleurs, and gets two sets of bottle cage mounts inside the main triangle.

2023 Cervélo ZFS-5 carbon full-suspension XC mountain bike, Cervelo ZFS XCO MTB race-ready, 100mm or 120mm geometry

One more interesting detail though is that Cervélo have shared two sets of geometry for two different travel options – 100mm or 120mm, presumably for cross-country or marathon racing. While it’s not uncommon to slap a longer fork on an XC race bike to slacken it out for more comfortable long-distance mountain bike racing, the 120mm geo is slacker BUT shares the same bottom bracket drop. That suggests that there is either a flip-chip somewhere that we haven’t been able to spot, or there might be 2 different linkages for the separate travel options, which could also allow for rear travel variation too.

2023 Cervélo ZFS-5 carbon full-suspension XC mountain bike, Cervelo ZFS XCO MTB race-ready, riding

For sure, I’ll find out this weekend!

Cervélo ZFS-5 – Options & availability

2023 Cervélo ZFS-5 carbon full-suspension XC mountain bike, Cervelo ZFS XCO MTB race-ready, muddy complete

For now, pricing hasn’t been set for the new full-suspension Cervélo ZFS-5 XC bike. But we do expect it to be offered in multiple build kit options, and both 100mm cross-country or 120mm marathon travel. What we do know for sure, is that you will have to wait a few more months for pricing and build details when the new ZFS-5 XC bike becomes available this summer 2023 through your local Cervélo dealer.

Cervélo.com

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Paul
Paul
10 months ago

Isn’t it just a rebadged Santa Cruz Blur?

Daniel
Daniel
10 months ago

Am I only who sees repainted Santa Cruz Blur on photos? Rear stay is a bit different, but front triange and rocker looks same. It would make a sense to share developement as both brands are owned by PON Holdings

Rick
Rick
10 months ago
Reply to  Daniel

I was thinking the same thing!

Richard
Richard
10 months ago
Reply to  Daniel

Maybe a future 2024 Blur, but not the current one. Same ‘design language’ as they often say, meaning likely same designer/team reusing ideas in the designing of aspects where they already know strength/design/construction, such as tube profiles or how to build pivots etc. but the details of the frame show subtle differences in a most places, and some major ones in others (i.e. this has headset routing cables, the blur does not).

Jake Carlin
Jake Carlin
10 months ago

Cannondale has been whining and crying about this since they caught a glimpse when PON brought them into the fold

Andrew
Andrew
10 months ago

With the exception of the rear axle pivot, this almost looks like my 2017 Rocky Mountain Element!

Looks good though….IMHO, better than the Pinarello XC bike released today too. My only complaints are aesthetic…. the weird downward curve to the seatstays and the long swing-link!

Hamjam
Hamjam
10 months ago

This is great. It seems like middle aged men are trading in their enduro bikes for fast pedaling bikes.

Brian
10 months ago

Hi Corey, thanks for your article. Just a comment on the comments. As an engineer, especially a design engineer in the industry when a company such as PON acquires other brands it will naturally consolidate various business elements. The issue with consolidating design teams across brands is that all new designs are simply an evolution of a base model. This is what is described as designing within the bubble.
The boundary of the bubble restricts the:
“imagine different, think different, design different, engineer different = INNOVATION”
If you look at the history of truly innovative design within the industry it always derives from the small backyard designers who are free to imagine outside of the bubble.
Thanks

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