The Snowshoe World Cup week is solidly under way, and the pro race bike checks are starting to trickle in. While the DH double header may be the star attraction of the program, there is still plenty to be seen on the XC side as well. While taking a look at Lars Forster’s Scott Spark, Jordan noticed a peculiar setup at the brake levers…
At the end of what appears to be a SRAM Level Ultimate lever, the hose on Lars’ brakes angles up instead of straight out like the current Level brakes. It’s quite possible there have been other changes to the lever (the Ultimate doesn’t include a tool-free reach adjust aluminum brake lever for instance, but for the post part the change looks to be an attempt to tidy up the front end of the bike. 
The angled hoses allow them to hug closer to the bar, keeping a portion of the cable nest behind the number plate. It seems like this would be more beneficial on bars with bigger backsweep numbers which could be welcomed outside the racing world as well.
From the outside, the Level brake calipers appear to be unchanged, and Lars is running the new HS2 brake rotors.
It’s hard to tell what’s going on at the TwinLoc lever, but this is certainly not the same triple TwinLock lever you’ll find on the new Scott Spark. Or at least, not without some modification. Complicating things is that Lars’ training bike and race bike have different setups. The training bike shown above uses a mechanical dropper post meaning that lever setup above does function as the TwinLoc 3, but with a different lever setup. His race bike uses an AXS wireless dropper, so where’s the remote?
If you look closely, that appears to be located on the right side of the bar using a SRAM Blip set up. When we’ve seen this before, it’s required the use of a SRAM Blip Box tucked somewhere in the build.
Now that the Blip Boxes are smaller, it appears that they can be taped right to the lever. Then a short length of cord is wrapped around the bar with the Blip secured under heat shrink tubing.
We’ve seen a lot of pro-only Black Box Powermeter cranks and Lars’ bike is no different. The 175mm SRam XX1 Eagle Dub SL Black Box power meter has a massive narrow-wide ring and powers a SRAM XX1 Eagle AXS drivetrain.
Maxxis’ Test Pilot hot patch indicates that these are not your off-the-shelf tires.
The race bike is one of the new Scott Spark RC World Cup AXS builds with 120mm of travel from the hidden rear shock.
- Frame: SCOTT SPARK 120mm TRAVEL
- Fork: ROCKSHOX SID ULTIMATE RD3 AIR/ BLACKBOX RACE DAY DAMPER 3 MODE, 120MM TRAVEL, 44MM OFFSET
- Rear Shock: ROCKSHOX NUDE 5 RLC3 TRUNNION, 45MM LOCKOUT-TRACTION-DESCEND MODE SLOW SPEED COMPRESSION ADJUST
- Remote: SCOTT TWINLOC 2 TECHNOLOGY, 3 SUSPENSION MODES
- Handlebar Stem: SYNCROS FRASER IC SL WC-40° / 90MM / 700MM
- Seatpost: ROCKSHOX REVERB AXS 100MM, TITANIUM BOLTS
- Saddle: SYNCROS TOFINO REGULAR SL CHANNEL
- Grip: SYNCROS FOAM
- Pedals: HT COMPONENTS M2
- Rear Derailleur: SRAM XX1 EAGLE AXS/ 12SPEED
- Shifter: SRAM XX1 EAGLE AXS
- Crank Set: SRAM XX1 EAGLE DUB SL BLACK BOX POWERMETER, 175MM
- Chain: SRAM XX1 EAGLE CHAIN
- Cassette: SRAM XG-1299 EAGLE/ 10-50T
- Brakes: SRAM LEVEL PROTO
- Wheels: SYNCROS SILVERTON SL2-30MM, 29″
- Tires: MAXXIS ASPEN 29×2.40WT 170TPI EXO/TR TEST PILOT
- Bottle Cage: TOPEAK SHUTTLE CAGE CARBON
- Computer: GARMIN EDGE 130
