Bike Check: Haley Smith's Norco Revolver - Val di Sole World Cup XC 2019
The past few seasons have seen Norco's Haley Smith steadily rise up through the results sheets, a progression that earned the Canadian her first World Cup elite podium at the Nove Mesto round earlier this season. Smith and the rest of the Norco squad are on the all-new Revolver, a platform with modern geometry that can be had in either 100mm or 120mm flavors. The latter is aimed at marathon and stage racing, and it's the shorter-travel FS 100 that you're looking at here.
There's a 100mm-travel SID on the front of Haley's bike, as well as an ultra-light carbon cockpit from German brand Beast.
The old and new Revolvers look pretty similar if you're a few feet away and the sun is in your eyes, but the new bike is an entirely different animal in the geometry department. Up front, Norco's given it a 68.5-degree head angle with a 100mm-travel fork, and the large-sized bike gets a roomy 490mm reach. Smith's small measures 430mm.
Smith uses a Grip Shift lockout lever to firm up both ends of her bike at the same time.
Carbon and gold sure do look good together.
The white and red-sparkle team bikes run a SRAM 12-speed drivetrain and RockShox suspension, and Smith uses a Grip Shift lockout lever to control both ends on the fly. It wouldn't be a World Cup cross-country bike if there wasn't some exotic German lightness on it, though, and this time it comes from a company called Beast that manufactures their own stuff in Dresden. Smith's 740mm wide handlebar is said to weigh 140-grams, and the stem comes in at around 125-grams. You'll also find their 148-gram seatpost on her bike, and while there's no word on how much the entire ready-to-race package weighs, it's probably not much.
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As for the chainstays, the way Norco used to do it (not sure if they still do it or not) was by moving the BB shell forwards in the frame. Effectively slackening the set tube angle and leaving the seat in the same position regardless of the chainstay length. Shortening it when going down and riding standing up, but not doing anything for seated riding. So you still had a bad bike for going up the hill (too much weight over the rear axle).
All of this is an XL specific problem (problem of tall people), but we are talking about long reaches, so there is some logic in limiting to those sizes here... M and shorter L size riding people don't have much issue with geometry these days.
I wouldn't go so far as to say steeper head angles. Not sure if that would be a good think if i'm honest.
But yes, having the same suspension layout and the same actual seat tube angle on an XL frame as on the S is just stupid (but makes sense money/production wise...).
Watch part two of that series too, he gives a really good physics-based explanation of FC:rc ratios and how they affect handling.