Male Speaker: Over the years, I've ridden quite literally hundreds of different mountain
bikes and components. As a result I've ended up adding some particular ones to my collection,
once I feel quite relevant and important. Like this Norco Shinobi, which is actually
about 10 years old, and somehow it's still relevant. Before we delve into deeply with
this, let's set the scene a bit. [background music]
Male Speaker: Now, as you may well know 26-inch wheels and tires are really where mountain
biking started. It was 26 for a very long time. This wasn't because it was a bespoke
size. It already existed. It was a more suitable method of having a wheel that's going to be
strong, light, robust, et cetera, for mountain biking rather than 700C which was the road
size at the time. For a long time, different designers experimented
with varying different wheel sizes, even 650b's. It was British designer Geoff Apps that actually
discovered a set of Nokian tires. I forget the name but they're pretty much as snow and
ice tire. They were 700 by 45, which I think is about a 28 by 1.25, well, near enough a
very slim 29-inch off-road tire. He was in touch with Charlie Kelly and Gary
Fisher who started the mountain bikes brand. Essentially, they hit it off and Geoff sent
them a set of those tires. When they tried them, I think they were universally just blown
away by what the bigger wheels could do and they initially started experimenting. Gary
was absolutely sold on their ability early on. He was a bit of a visionary really. He
could understand the potential in anything in mountain biking, be that products, be it
wheel sizes, be it different geometry. Gary Fisher really was ahead of his time in every
respect. It's Gary, alongside the field designers admittedly,
but it's Gary really pushed WTB to make the first proper mountain bike tire. That was
called the Nano Raptor. That came in a 29 by 2.0. 29 is first surfaced in the late '90s.
They were pushed by the underground and to a degree laughed at by the mass-market who
dumped them as well off-road road bikes and unsuitable for use and not necessary, and
all the rest of the stuff. It was when Gary Fisher actually launched
some dedicated 29er mountain bikes, The Mt. Tam and the Pro Caliber. This is the bikes
on screen in his 2002 range that people started poking up a bit. Then, quickly in 2003 he
had the Sugar 290. It's a 290 version of their Sugar full-suspension bike. It was quite a
popular platform at the time. That really did show what the capability was for a bigger
wheel size, but still people didn't quite latch onto it. If you cross-country [unintelligible
00:02:34] understand the concept of the big wheel's simply going to roll faster. As technology
came on, the tires got lighter, the wheels got lighter, and it started becoming more
applicable to have 29-inch wheel bikes. Let's have a look at some of those earlier
29-inch XC bikes. I'm just going to flash through them here just so you get the point.
A quick look at the Norco again, there you go, you see the Norco on screen. It looks
quite long. It looks fairly slack. It's got a bit of room on it. You can tell it's got
big burly fork on it and a bit less travel on the rear. First up, Giant XTC. This is
it on screen. A very admirable cross-country bike back then, but very different, bearing
in mind it was out the same year as the Norco. Next up, BMC Teamelite, then we're going to
go, there's a Kona on screen there. The same thing, tow overlap, extremely steep head angle
on them. Trek Superfly, again, a really nice-looking bike but very different from what was going
on in the 26-inch world. Even Breezer, one of the originators of the mountain bike, look
how steep their head angle is. It's more like a dirt road bike than it is what was going
on in the 26-inch world. Specialized, they made a four-inch travel
XC 29er. There was nothing like what the Norco was. Norco really was a very different bike.
Actually, I feel a bit of a shame that they didn't push it, and they didn't pursue it
too hard because actually it was a really, really quite an important bike.
The Shinobi dates back to 2010 . That's when I first saw one of these things, a first [unintelligible
00:04:02]. I was at a Press Camp for a different model of bike by Norco, which was a 26-inch
wheel bike. I had one of these popped up in the back of the room, not really having any
attention. I think they'd left it there deliberately. They weren't that interested in pushing it
at the time because of the fact that the jump to 29er was a big thing and people just weren't
going other than the XC enthusiasts. They were really starting to see the benefit
of the bigger wheels better to roll over stuff. It meant they can have super-lightweight hardtail
bikes and still have the benefit of that rolling capability. As a result, no one really paid
attention to this bike. Actually, the bike was so much more forward-thinking that anyone
realized at the time. I still think people don't realize now.
Let's look at some of the standout features of this bike and why it was so important.
First up, it's 120 mil travel outback with a 140 front. At the time, most other 29ers
were running hardtails very race orientated. They're running 80 or 100 more travel forks.
This 140/120 was a bruiser straight out. It runs the ALT system. That's Norco's proprietary
rear suspension system based around the 4-bar linkage. This is a very active rear end. The
whole thing with the ALT system is very plush and very responsive to small bumps. Very grippy,
very active the whole time. One of the problems you tended to see with
early 29ers was the room to incorporate this suspension travel outback, which is why you
see this curved seat tube design. The only problem with that means there's no seat stay
bridge here. The problem of that, of course, is the fact this can be flexible. That is
something that the Shinobi 100% is not. Get around is by having a brace on the front of
the seat tube here. Unlike some lighter weight bikes that lack this, it's got a bit of meat
here. That back end is really, really stiff. It's also one-piece rocker welded down the
middle here, running that Fox RP 23 high volume shock on there. I've got to say, it still
feels quite plush today. It's quite surprising. Of course, it's going to be responsive as
well with that low main pivot and the horse linkage on the back there.
Outback is something particularly interesting bearing in mind that at the time most mountain
bikes were running 135 mil rear ends. On occasion, you'd see the 135 [unintelligible 00:06:19]
This has got a 142 back end on it and it's the X-12 by Syntace. It's a bolt-thru system.
It's actually got a few cool things up its sleeve. One of which is the breakaway bolt
design of the rear derailleur hanger. This is really quite smart.
Normal hangers bolt onto the frame, they bend, you can replace them, that sort of thing.
These are a little bit different. It's actually the bolt that's designed to shear if you smash
your rear derailleur. You might be thinking. How'd you get that bolt out if it does shear?
It's got a three mil internal bolt. Really smart design, so even with the head gun just
use your three mil and you wind it out. You might be thinking where'd you get a replacement
bolt. They keep one on the frame right down here.
If that happens out on the trail, if you're riding the bike in a way that this should
be ridden and that happens, you can get around that. I think that's a really, really cool
feature. I actually think more bikes should have a feature like that on them today. I
really rate the X-12 system. Of course, these days were up to boost 148, which gives a bit
more bottom bracket room. To be fair, this is pretty spacious down here. There's a lot
of mud clearance. This is a 2.25 rear tire. It's running a one-by on it. I think I had
a double when I first rode here and then I converted it to one by. I've had a chain guide
on it as well because it has ISCG05 chain guide mounts. I think that's very telling
of what this bike was for. Another feature the bike had is cable routing
for a dropper post. Back then in 2010, '11 and '12, we didn't really have internal stuff.
Is always external hose. This is one of those original RockShox Reverb seat posts. Cable
routing, it is really neat, really tidy on the external of the frame, just like the external
cable routing it runs on downtube there. Really nice to follow, and, to be honest, it looks
great and it functions. I almost can't fool the bike now.
Angles is something quite interesting as well. It's got a 74-degree seat angle, which isn't
uncommon these days granted things have got a slightly steeper, but it's definitely up
there with modernized frames. On the front you've got 68.5-degree head angle. Now, whilst
this might sound coarse steep to you it's more where cross-country bikes have got to.
At the time, cross-country bikes was 70. Sometimes steeper than that. This was actually quite
a slack design and very, very revolutionary. Also, running a very short stack head tube
on there. It's ready for a tapered steerer tube. Lots of different crammed-in features
for a different bike that just didn't exist at the time. There are some drawbacks to a
bike like this. At the time, there wasn't a very good selection of stiff enough wheels
available. There were barely any tires. Something of note that this bike came with, which is
quite nice, is handset of WTB brands in tires on there.
They didn't work particularly well locally for me in the mud so I ended up changing those
tires. The cool thing about the WTB 29er tires on here. It's this a little bit of a nod to
the very first set of WTB 29-inch tires which were the first 29-inch tires available specifically
for a mountain bike. They were called the Nano Raptor. Now available just in 29 by 2
inch and that really is thanks to Gary Fisher really pushing them to make that tire, and
then accordingly the industry follows making other products.
On this bike I've got set Crossmax ST wheels by Mavic. At the time, I will tell you there
was barely anything available with a wide rim. These got 19 mil internal rim reel, which
is tiny. Given how stiff the frame is, it's really hard to get stability on the tires.
I'm running a set of Maxxis UST tires on here. It's got mini and DHF on the front in the
2.5 in an ardent and a 2.25 on the rear. Now, note the fact that those are UST tubeless
on them. They don't make these tires anymore. The UST tubeless was licensed in accordance
with Mavic who developed the system back in the day, which these wheels feature. That
is the true system for tubeless. It's a pretty cool design looking at it, but laughable looking
at those tiny rims now. You wouldn't have rims that thin on a cross-country bike. In
fact, my cross-country bike has got 28 mil rims, but, nonetheless, pretty cool. You got
24 spokes on the front, 20 on the rear, the zicral spokes. You might notice it's got two-cross
design on the non-drive side on the ring, it's called radial design. That's to basically
keep the stiff under-braking, the stiff under-power transfer, considering how minimal and light
they are. They're pretty stiff to be fair, but nothing by today's standards.
There's not many other standout features worth talking about on the bike. I've obviously
mentioned that RockShox Reverb dropper post. I think that might be of 100 mil drop, actually
one of the earlier ones, the later went 125, 150, and then all the way up to 175 now. It's
got a 780 mil Crankbrothers handlebar on that, a 50 mil Renthal stem. It's got a pair of
SDG lock-on grips with MBUK custom collars. Of course, this was a bike I had when I worked
at MBUK Magazine, and a bit of a mismatched drivetrain. It was a test-bench bike. I had
the frame or fork setup to test other peoples' products on.
The fork's interesting though. It's a Fox. It's also the Kashima coated 34, 140 mil travel.
It's got the fixed system in there. It's not a bad fork by all accounts, although, again,
nothing by the standard of today's forks. The small bump sensitivity on this at the
time was incredible, but almost laughable compared to the 36. I've got my Nukeproof
Reactor today. You also might notice it's non-boost. That's 100 mil spacing at the front,
rather than the 110 that you get on today's forks. Again, it looks spindly. It just looks
out of place. As a result, the whole combination of things makes the bike look very short,
tall and steep, but, actually, it's not. We're going to have a little bit of a comparison
with some of that geometry as well. This is where things get interesting. Now, I'll say
it again, the Norco Shinobi, this one is basically the same geometry as the 2010 model. It's
a decade old, nothing has changed on it. I'm going to put this directly against a brand
new Pivot, a 2020 model bike. This is the Pivot Trail 429, gorgeous-looking bike. Look
at the thing, it looks so fast. Such a lovely looking bike. I'm not comparing them in terms
of the modern quality. The Pivot is leagues ahead, it's got all the modern standards on
it. It's a much stiffer, much more applicable bike.
However, on screen now is a super loose chart. Wheel travel, the Norco Shinobi, 120 on the
rear, 140 on the front. It's the same on the Pivot. Top tube, on the Norco Shinobi, these
are horizontal measurements for both. 650 versus 660. This is in the same extra-large
frame size, by the way. Seat tube, 533 versus 497. Of course, the modern mountain bikes
do have a shorter seat tube to accommodate a bigger dropper post in that, but that was
so far ahead, and that's only really just happened.
Now, this is where it gets interesting. The head tube, 120 and 119, so very similar there.
Chain stay length, 453 versus 429. I've always liked a longer chain stay, especially on a
bigger bike. Some people will always tell you they prefer a shorter chain stay. I do
think there's a preference, but I do think the slightly more length in the chain stay
is slightly better especially on bigger bikes. Wheel base, not too dissimilar. 1201 and 1211,
very similar. Ten years apart, remember here. Reach, 466. Admittedly, it is not the biggest
bike, but nothing was back then. The Pivot, this is a brand new bike and the reach is
480. That's not that big. It's a good size, don't get me wrong, but it's not crazy, it's
not like my Nukeproof Reactor in the same equivalent size. That's 515, that's a massive
bike by comparison. Just to say, there's only 14 mil in that. It's not a lot of difference.
Then, BB height, 335 versus 343. The Shinobi was actually a lower BB, which is one of things
I loved about riding the bike. It felt slammed, it's so good in the corners.
Head angle, 68 versus 67.3. We've come back slightly and, of course, the offset and the
other things will have changed. Don't get me wrong, the newer bike is a much better
bike. It's going to have super boost or boost on the rear. It's going to have boost on the
front. It's going to be stiffer. The suspension is going to work leagues better, but a decade-old
and it's not that far off the mark. It doesn't mean to say some modern bikes aren't that
good, it just means that this one was a bit of a blue-flame special. It really did come
out of nowhere. They didn't really know what to do with it at the time, and it was held
back, I guess, by componentry. Now, that things have moved on though, it's
really exciting to see where Norco are, because some of their latest bikes with the incredibly
steep seat angles on them, very relaxed head angles and extremely aggressive geometry.
Really quite interesting bikes. We're going to be making a few more videos
along these lines on GMBN Tech. The next one is another bike that I've managed to drag
out the loft. That really is the bike that's responsible for the change to modern geometry
as we know it. Keep an eye out for that one on GMBN Tech in coming days and weeks. I'm
not quite sure when it's going to get together because I'm making that one myself as well.
If you love this video and you love this styling of it, I'd love to hear from you. Any feedback
is great as always. As always, hit that subscribe button and, well, over and out.
[00:15:20] [END OF AUDIO]