Tag Archives: mbuk

The Norco Aurum 3 – High-end chassis with cost-cutting spec

aurum

The Aurum has been widely acclaimed since its release a couple of years ago, and is another bike with World Cup pedigree. The Aurum 3 is simply a budget spec version of the top-dollar bike that the Norco team hit the big races on.

Same frame, different paintjob, budget build. If Ben Reid and Bryn Atkinson can shred these up, surely the cheap build option should be good enough for the likes of us?

Ride & handling: Well-behaved rear end but suffers elsewhere

Size-wise, the Norco feels spot on. The 605mm top tube length (on our medium bike) is perfectly matched to the 50mm Spank Director stem and 760mm width Spank Spoon bar.

Read the full review at bikeradar.com

First Ride on the Norco Sight

Original post from bikeradar.com

We’ve spent a lot of time on the Norco Sight 1 trail bike this year.

Justin Loretz penned his thoughts in his first ride review, and now Rob Weaver, our senior mountain bike tech editor and downhill specialist, gives us his appraisal in this video.

Rob likes the bike’s performance on the downhills: “You can just keep pushing this bike when you’re descending,” he says. “It seemingly keeps gripping and gripping even with the minimally treaded Kenda Slant Six tyres.”

For the full review click on the video below

Once upon a time – A look Back at the Norco Shore Superbike

MBUK Superbike Feature

One of the original North Shore Machines
Words by Doddy/MBUK

Norco Bikes are a born-and-bred Vancouver company, dating back to 1964. They have very strong roots within the local riding scene, and the North Shore that it revolves around. The Shore boasts the wildest, most technical and punishing mountain bike trails on earth so bikes built to ride it need to be up to the challenge.
Early on, Norco supported the Horst Link design, rolling out their first Horst-equipped model – the FTS-1 – in 1995. This helped them gain notoriety on the North Shore, but it was the VPS 1 in 1998 that really put them on the map. This 100 to 140mm (3.9 to 5.5in) adjustable travel, box framed beast paved way for the VPS Shore, which was released in 2000, and is what you see here – a bike designed to take on the toughest trails on the planet. Based around the Specialized FSR licensed rear end, it was an efficient at pedaling as it was at taking drops.
The formidable riding around North Vancouver means long climbs to get to the top of the runs, so a speed-sapping design wasn’t an option. The FSR linkage rear end is incredibly plus, doesn’t react to braking forces and is resistant to pedal-induced bobbing.
Norco have used the design from the start and, aside from refinements to the pivot position and bearing types, they still use it today.

Built to drop
The Shore had Norco’s own VPS system at the rear end, which allowed for adjustable travel by altering the shock position without affecting ride quality. Huge drops and increased leverage from the development of twin crown forks saw riders constantly ripping head tubes off their bikes; with their rear end sorted, Norco set out to make the front end bombproof.
A huge box-section 6061 aluminium front triangle with a reinforcing boom down tub provided extra strength for hard landings. The seat mast allowed the seat to be will positioned for climbing, combined with a double-drop extendable seatpost so riders could get full saddle height without fouling the frame by lowering a full-length post.
The front end certainly had a ‘love-or-hate’ look but it won over all those who climbed aboard, and impressed anyone who dared to take it to the limits.

Versatile Steed
The North Shore movement quickly developed with companies like Norco at the forefront, but riders from other countries often didn’t get it.
In particular, many downhill riders would look at bikes like the BPS Shore and see the high bottom brackets, fairly steep head angles and short wheelbase, and dismiss them as poor downhill bikes. They were missing the point. Riding on the North Shore then was all about tackling ultra-technical trails on really steep terrain. Trail builders were building ladders over gullies and were incorporating fallen trees into trail features. The steeper head angle and shorter wheelbase of the VPS Shore allowed riders to tackle these features slowly and surely, even on seriously difficult obstacles – these machines stayed stable even when the riders weren’t.
The tight geometry kept the bike feeling nimble too, despite its fairly hefty weight. The VPS Shore could move with surprising agility, get airborne off drops that would make most riders shrink, and survive the landing again and again. Norco are still making incredibly good bikes today, and they’re not a million miles away from the VPS Shore – but then great design lasts…

To read more great articles like this head over to bikeradar.com or check out your local newsstand to get your own copy of the issue.

Norco Shore Superbike

Norco Shore Superbike

 

Opinion of the People – A Blogger’s perspective

We all check out the major websites and magazines for the latest product reviews. They after-all are  a great resource to find information on new products. There is something more authentic though about a small-time up-and-comers opinion. That in mind, it was great to come across this independent blogger’s review of the Norco Shinobi 1. Have a read and visit the full blog at muddustanddirt.wordpress.com for more great articles.

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Reviewing Norco’s Shinobi 1 29er

For this weekend we managed to get our hands on something a little bit special, special in the fact that this is the first bike we have been lent to review and not only that, this shinny pony is currently one of not very many currently in the UK. So after Doddy from MBUK had his share and done a real review for this bike we wanted to see what it was like for ourselves.

So we all know that the wagon wheel has been around for a while, but like most things it’s taken a while to get right. After a few of years of being nothing more than a novelty, I am confident that manufacturers have started to really refine the geometry and frame design to optimise and fully exploit the larger wheels. With this in mind I had high hopes for the bikes capabilities and performance and in my opinion, now is a good time to start considering these growth disorder laden steeds as a liable option if you are of gangly stature. Well, I wouldn’t exactly say that these bikes should be reserved for taller gentlemen, but I certainly know that they don’t compliment my riding style.

Lets move on to talking about the ride of this bike as this is a review. I must point out that I am a religiously sold and devoted 26″ man. Many people call me short but I come in at a handsome 5’10″ and before moving on I need to state the following fact; we know that stature correlates directly to the suitability of wheel size (small men small wheels, big men big wheels) makes sense right? Anyway, the bike we have here is a large which felt about right for me and my long legs but I may have been better off on a medium. The first time I mounted the bike I was impressed with its ability to consume and annihilate anything in its path, although this bike only had a conservative 120mm of travel it just bumped over everything (I understood the argument).

After deciding that the bike was a great machine and a massive advance forward in 29er technology I handed it to my test subject a much more appreciating and needing tall man of 6’4″Evans Cycles

As you can see the tall gentleman was perplexed by the normal sized wheels, he soon came around to the idea as he started riding.

Richard, my test subject solely for the reason that he is very tall quite frankly needed to come around to the idea of 29″ wheels due to his mammoth size. Unfortunately and unsurprisingly the bikes frame wasn’t quite big enough for him. My prediction was right in that tall people should really opt for a bigger wheels. See illusion below, A normal sized man on a small frame with 26″ wheels, or Richard’s ability to swamp any bike with his long limbs.Evans Cycles

The Bike is adorned with Sram components a Sun Ringle wheelset tubeless as standard and finished off with Easton’s Haven bars and stem.

Conclusion

Effectively what we have here is a Mountain bike for tall people who sometimes like to jump if they’re feeling brave. I fully understand and appreciate the bike as a great full sus 29er but I don’t understand why you would choose it over the 26″ competition. Prejudice and bias aside it’s really great and very rideable. The componentry selection and set up is spot on with a 2 x 10 set up and Sram components throughout making for a tidy cockpit setup and a fully integrated Sram experience. Moving on to the most important component of any bike the wheels, this bike comes with a nice set of Sun Ringle straight pull wheels and what I especially like about the wheels on this bike is that they come standard as tubeless. Not mentioning suspension in this review would be stupid so, the bike comes with Fox up front and rear the front bouncers utilise Fox’s FIT cartridge giving you more control over damping than you could ever want or care about. Best of all on the rear of this full bouncer we see what could only be described as a horst link which provides a familiar progressive stroke controlled by a RP23 with three variable compression settings. All in all a great bike with a playable head-angle great componentry and very capable suspension.

A big thumbs up from me and Richard.

Andy.

MBUK has their first ride – O Be My Shinobi

Norco has been making the Shinobi for two years now and it has become a bike of choice for any rider looking for a longer travel, burly 29″ wheeled bike. With a 120/140mm travel split, slack head angle and low bb the bike can tackle far more than you ever imagined on a big wheel. Have a read through the following article and hear what MBUK had to say about the complete bike package. If you would prefer a pdf, here it is.