Norco Sight Carbon 9.2

THE NORCO SIGHT CARBON 9.2

Canadian brand Norco has a strong heritage in gravity. Founded in 1964, the company was on the cutting edge in the early 1990s and since then has gone from strength to strength with their dual suspension lines. The Sight was launched in 2013 and incorporated the company’s latest ART suspension system which came directly from their Aurum downhill bike (which I tested early last year). What I’m getting at here is that Norco have a great sense of what goes downhill well and what is fun to ride. With the launch of the new Sight Carbon it was going to be interesting to see what they could do by not only tweaking the frame but bringing in a new wheel size too.

The new Sight Carbon is planted in the Norco all-mountain range, with 140mm/130mm front and rear travel. The bike is capable but still is not as beefed up as the all new Range which has just been released. It sits firmly above its smaller brother the Optic, which has 110mm travel, and combines more gravity oriented geometry as well as more travel. In our case it also boasts the new 29 inch wheel size the bike has adopted for this year. 27.5” models are also available in the Sight, as they are in the Optic and Range too, with 10mm of more travel at each end than their bigger-wheeled counterparts.

INITIAL IMPRESSIONS

It might still be called a Sight, but this bike has been completely updated. The Sight Carbon 9.2 on test uses the latest addition of 29 inch wheels, as well as more relaxed geometry, Boost hub spacing and a suspension path that lessens the chain growth ever so slightly. The Sight Carbon arrived in a large box (always a good sign) and to my surprise there was minimal work to put it together. Bars on, front wheel in, front brake on, dropper connected, shocks inflated - done. Put together in under 20 minutes. One of the best bike builds from a box I have had, so hats off to Norco.

The quality of how the bike was put together was great too. My first pet hate with any test machine is the cables out the front of the bike - basically no one wants a bird nest up there, it just looks bad. For the first time since working with AMB these cables were perfectly neat out of the box which has to be applauded. The cables for the majority are internal which is always aesthetically pleasing. The internal system is great, with large holes in the frame to get all sort of cable or hoses through - perfect if you are trying to replace brakes, gear cables and droper hoses. The finish on the frame is really well done, with smooth paint and no markings or paint bubbles and although the paint is loud up close it’s a pretty cool scheme.

The Sight Carbon 9.2 sits second from the top and utilises RockShox suspension front and back with Shimano taking care of the shifting, brakes and rolling duties (hubs).

Key in the suspension is the addition of a new metric sized shock. With metric offering more bushing overlap this delivers a laterally stiffer shock which allows the suspension to work better through its travel when it may be under flex. The build is burly and to be quite honest very close to how I would build my own bike - downhill tyres, one-by chain ring and some wide handlebars. This added a new level of wanting to take this onto the trail.

Once the bike was together it was time to set up the suspension. The first thing you will notice is how the rear shock feels. Norco has utilised the new Deluxe shock by RockShox which does feel a little different, but as I will explain later it will make a huge difference on the trail. The bike out of the box feels quite progressive as the suspension ramps up at the end of the travel. Although Norco has made this one less progressive than the last Sight, it is still noticeable. Setting up sag was a breeze, 30% in the rear, 25% in the front and three tokens in the fork to give me the feeling I was looking for.

There were a few things on this bike I really wanted to check out. Firstly wondering whether it was going to overlap too much with their latest Range. The Sight Carbon uses angles and travel

ranges that are up there with what some of the EWS guys are racing on. The second was to do with the design of the bike. I have seen on previous Norcos that the chain growth is a lot and with the bike running a long cage rear mech the noise coming off the bike was going to be interesting. And thirdly I wanted to know how the 29er wheels were going to feel. Norco’s stated aim is to make the 29er versions of the Optic, Sight Carbon and Range Carbon have similar ride characteristics to the 27.5” models – but can that be the case?

ON THE TRAIL

We always get asked what size we want for testing and to keep things consistent I really try to stay on a medium - being 175cm tall I am bang on average height so I assume a medium should technically always work.

Norco also work to pretty standard reach and stack measurements, so if you fit a medium (like I do) on one of their models, you will on all of them. The sizing of the medium is comfortable - with a low stand over, long wheel base and short stem the bike feels gravity orientated from the get go. The use of the RaceFace 35 stem in 50mm is pretty short for an all-mountain bike, but on the trail with the larger wheels it really does work to give more aggressive handling. The bars come in at 800mm wide which I do think is overkill for an all-mountain bike. I had more than a few moments on trails with tight sections where the bars would catch - and even lost a bar plug from doing so on my second ride. This isn’t a big issue since you can either chop your bars down to suit