JAMES’S PIVOT FIREBIRD PRO
MONTH 1: With 10 days in the Alps, James isn’t messing around on the Firebird. Instead, he’s cut straight to the chase…
£8,200 • 29in • saddleback.co.uk
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Most riders like to begin a relationship with a new bike on local trails, taking the time to ease into things while feeling out the lay of the land. Not me. The Firebird and I started our time together with what can only be described as a baptism by fire. I picked up the bike from Saddleback HQ on a Thursday and drove straight to the Alps the following day.
With a ballpark set-up, the chairlifts of Morzine and Les Gets dropped us effortlessly into the sort of enduro trails and terrain the Firebird was designed for. Over the following 10 days I completed more vertical metres of descending than I will in the next few months. And given the high degree of resort traffic, the trails were more savage than any I’ll find in my local playground of South Wales. This in-atthe-deep-end approach really opened my eyes to the Firebird’s capabilities.
So let’s take a closer look at the bike. The Firebird platform is designed around being fast, capable and efficient; all desirable characteristics for a 29er enduro race bike.
Like all of Pivot’s full-suspension bikes, it runs a Dw-link design, albeit a version that features longer links and a change of pivot position that’s shared with the Phoenix DH bike. I really rate this design for its ability to provide an efficient pedalling platform without too much compromise to suspension performance.
On the latest version of the Firebird, travel has been upped from 162mm on the previous version to 165mm. Geometry is designed around a 170mm fork (although you could fit a 180mm if you wanted). The biggest change, other than the increase in reach and sizespecific chainstay lengths, is the shock position. It now sits in a vertical shock orientation that opens up space in the front triangle for a full-size water bottle. The shock is trunnion mounted, and as per the previous version the design is rated for both air and coil shocks.
With so much travel and with such a bonkers introduction, it really helped that Pivot made it super-easy to get a good baseline suspension set-up on the Firebird. With the Fox Float X2 shock, you know the recommended sag is reached when the O-ring on the shock body lines up with the end of the reservoir – no mess, no fuss, and no tape measure needed. Additionally, the online setup guide gives recommendations for compression and rebound damping as well as fork setup notes. Sure, I had to tweak adjustments from the baseline damping settings after the first few rides, but the rear sag setting was impressively accurate.
After 10 days of roots, rocks and braking bumps there are a few things of note. First the good stuff. The DT Swiss wheels and Maxxis Assegai tyres have held up impressively. The Fox Factory level suspension is dreamy and the riding position on the size L feels almost perfect for me. Now of the bad news. The cooling-fin pads in the fourpiston XT calipers rattle incessantly. The albeit excellent Pivot grips are wearing out rapidly and dust ingress has caused the Pressfit bottom bracket to start creaking. Hopefully all simple things to rectify and with the whirlwind honeymoon over, I’m back to reality. It will be cool to see how the Firebird handles a less relentless environment and whether it maintains its composure on longer, pedally rides too.
WHY IT’S HERE It’s a red-hot race bike