Norco spent five years racing its new Team DH before releasing it

Norco has spent the past five years chasing fractions of a second with its World Cup downhill team. Now the rest of us can buy the result.

The B.C. brand officially launched  the new Team DH this morning. According to Norco, development started with a straightforward goal: build the fastest bike possible to help build the fastest race team.

That’s obviously the marketing department talking. But the Team DH has spent a lot of time between the tape.

Greg Minnaar, Gracey Hemstreet, Danny Hart and the wider Norco adidas Race Division have all been involved in developing the platform. Norco says it went through countless design iterations and hundreds of test days over five years, with engineer Kirk McDowall giving the production bike its final sign-off after racing it himself at the YongPyong World Cup in May.

Five years of racing

Much of the Team DH’s development happened between Norco’s NEST facility in British Columbia, local test tracks and World Cup venues around the world.

“At this level, riders notice everything. A few millimetres, a small change in stiffness or the way the bike settles through a gnarly section can make a difference at the finish line,” Norco product development engineer Kirk McDowall said. “Having the race team involved throughout development meant we could make those changes, put them straight back on track and iterate on what actually made the bike faster.”

The result is a 200 mm travel downhill bike built around Norco’s High Virtual Pivot Six-Link suspension, or HVP6.

Endless adjustability

Norco chose to use their HVP6 linkage design on the rear suspension. They say this gives engineers more freedom than a four-bar design to independently tune all kinds of riding characteristics; axle path, braking characteristics and leverage curve.

There’s also adjustable suspensions progression. Flip chips at the shock eyelets offer two settings, P+ and P-. P+ increases progression by 2.5 per cent.

Using patented technology licensed from i-Track,  an adjustable idler gives riders another two settings for anti-squat. Moving from AS+ to AS- reduces anti-squat by 20 per cent.

Then there’s the adjustability in the headset. Reach is adjustable by five millimetres in either direction from the neutral position.

Built for everyone from Gracey to Greg

Norco needed the same bike platform to work for athletes with dramatically different heights. So it comes in five different sizes, S1 through S5. They’re designed to perform in a similar way throughout the size range. And every size is a mullet running a 29-inch front wheel and 27.5-inch rear. Travel is 200 mm front and rear.

Aluminum up front, carbon out back

They didn’t go with a fully carbon frame. The Team DH uses an aluminum front triangle and a carbon rear triangle. Norco says aluminum gave its engineers more flexibility while tuning geometry, frame features and stiffness. The lighter carbon rear end was tuned around traction and responsiveness.

There’s also some practicality built in. Oversized bearings, simplified pivot hardware, top-hat spacers and external cable routing all make the bike easier to work on. Norco says no special tools are required for routine servicing. Amen to that.

Three flavour options

Norco is offering two complete bikes and one frame kit.

The Team DH 2 Fox comes with a Fox 40 Performance Elite fork, Factory DHX2 shock, SRAM GX DH drivetrain and SRAM Maven Base brakes. They say the S3 weighs 41.9 pounds and will sell for $10,499 in Canada.

The Team DH 2 RockShox version swaps in a BoXXer Select D2 fork and Vivid Coil Base shock while retaining the GX DH drivetrain and Maven brakes. It also weighs 41.9-pounds in S3 and sells for $9,500.

The frame kit includes the aluminum front triangle, carbon rear triangle and Fox Factory DHX2 shock for $6,199 Canadian.

Norco Team DH Frame Geometry

Measurements are in millimetres unless otherwise noted.