Pivot Lightens The LES

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Race one and you’ll get muscles like these

2020 Pivot LES SL launched.

Those Pivot folks in Arizona have just let us know that the new LES hardtail is getting a lighter and even racier version – the SL.

The Pivot LES already has a pretty good pedigree (an earlier model of the Pivot LES was ridden by Mike Hall on his record ride of the Tour Divide.) It was refreshed a few years ago to bring it up to date and now it’s time for a new version.

Weapon…
pivot les sl
Not just in blue

This model has been raced all year by the Stan’s Pivot Pro race team and it has already racked up a Short Track National Championship, a Leadville 100 win, and many others.

Pivot reckons that the new LES SL “is up to three-quarters of a pound (that’s 300 grams) lighter than its already svelte predecessor”

Race weapon

A few nudges to Ron at Pivot, and he has gone and weighed a frame for us: 2.3 lb./1045 grams for a size medium, which isn’t very heavy.

The LES SL has new carbon dropouts, an integrated headset and new layup schedule utilizing “Hollow Core Molding Technology and cutting-edge carbon materials”

“When I choose to race my LES SL, it’s an ‘all-in’ choice,” says Stan’s-Pivot Pro team athlete, Chloe Woodruff. “And it’s not only for climbing. At the Whiskey Off-Road this year, I rode my way from 5th to 2nd on the final descent.”

Less swoopy, more purposeful
Good to see the old blue chevron decals remain available

We’re sure that we’ll hear about the UK delivery dates and prices as soon as the Upgrade folks get to work… In the meantime, here are some fine close ups.

New fully carbon dropouts
Dropouts are (perhaps surprisingly) 148mm Boost
Neat cable ports for whatever you fancy

And hopefully, about now, this link will work too:
www.pivotcycles.com

The Pivot LES SL will come in Small, Medium, Large and XL.

Reach for those sizes are: 395, 414,  423 and 442mm respectively.

Room for chunky 29in tyres out back
The Pivot LES SL still has Shimano Di2 battery ports

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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.)

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Comments (1)

    Just had a look at the geometry charts for this frame and I’m quite surprised how conservative they seem: 69.5 / 72.5 head / seat tube angles and a 423mm reach in large. In the blurb this is referred to as ‘new school cross country race geometry’! Very nice looking frame though…

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