PressCamp 2014: Pivot Cycles Mach4 Carbon

Chris Cocalis was at PressCamp to launch his new Mach4 Carbon. The Mach4 was Pivot’s first bike, launched back in 2007. Now, fully redesigned to take advantage of Pivot’s carbon experience. With a stiffness akin to Pivot’s popular 429 Carbon model, the frame comes in at 5.1lbs and a complete bike with XX1 is 22lbs.

The new Pivot Mach4 carbon. Long and low.

The bike has also been designed to be as future-proof as possible – with XTR Di2 cable routing options, a lot of clever cable ports that can be blanked off (if you’re running 1×11) or swapped out to run electric gears, or cables or whatever.

This Di2 battery fits right into the base of the seat tube, with room for dropper cable too.

The Mach4 with (pretend) Shimano XTR Di2

The Mach4 carbon was originally going to be a 100mm 26in bike, but Chris tried the newfangled 27.5in wheels and played with different levels of travel, eventually deciding that 115mm rear travel gave the right combination of uphill and downhill efficiency and fun.

115mm of 27.5in ness.

Blanking cap in place on the 1×11 bike

Carbon protecting armour too with more cable guides

Moving across the room, we get a glimpse at Pivot’s Phoenix carbon DH bike. It’s being raced on the World Cup circuit under Bernard Kerr and the Pivot DH team. They’re running prototype Reynolds carbon wheels and the bikes are coming in around the mid-30lbs. This particular bike has SRAM’s XO1 DH groupset, an air shock and a few light bits and pieces, but still dual ply tyres (more of them in a minute) and nothing too mad – and it comes in at 30.8lbs. Not bad for a downhill bike…

We’ve seen hard tails that weigh more than that.

The proof machine.

A stock, 35lb Phoenix Carbon.

Fitted to the Phoenix we spy a low profile Maxxis downhill tyre. Coming to a World Cup race course near you.

Looks very exciting. Maxxis, let’s see more.

Said to be lower profile for more speed on less soft courses.

Chris Cocalis – better at designing frames than being a teapot.

And now some more pics of the Mach4 carbon. Pivot supplies a sag-o-meter with two zones – one for racing and one for more fun.

The fun-o-meter

Close up of the rear mech cable port and the replaceable dropout.

This is where your Di2 battery will go – when you buy some XTR.

Trail or Race – Red pill or blue pill?

Chipps Chippendale

Singletrackworld's Editor At Large

With 23 years as Editor of Singletrack World Magazine, Chipps is the longest-running mountain bike magazine editor in the world. He started in the bike trade in 1990 and became a full time mountain bike journalist at the start of 1994. Over the last 30 years as a bike writer and photographer, he has seen mountain bike culture flourish, strengthen and diversify and bike technology go from rigid steel frames to fully suspended carbon fibre (and sometimes back to rigid steel as well.)