Hannah gets a quick spin out on the new 2020 Norco Sight A2, before its official launch.
Norco, the Candian brand available in the UK through high street store and online retailer, Evans Cycles has been gradually working through its range bringing the models up to date with modern trends. Some of its offerings – like the Norco Fluid I tested last year – offer good value for money, while there are still the big bucks options for those with cash to splash.
We’ve previously tested the alloy Sight, back in 2018, but at the time I didn’t get to swing a leg over it. This then was my first opportunity to try out this big travel bike from Norco. It is, of course, also available in carbon, and in 27.5in wheeled guise.
This Norco Sight test bike arrived before any information about what the bike would be was available – so choosing it was a bit of a stab in the dark. I perhaps shouldn’t have been surprised to discover that the travel on it had grown by 10mm at either end compared to last year, making it a 150/160mm beast of a bike. I received the alloy 29er frame with mid-range build kit in a medium size, which revealed itself to have a reach of 455mm. Happily, since this has grown from 427mm reach on the 2019 model, this didn’t prove to be too much for my 175cm height – despite the fact that it is now longer than the previous size large.
Indeed, there’s heaps of standover and I’ve got a good length of seatpost sticking out – those with stronger upper bodies that like a more forward position may well find they’re able to size up.
The previous year saw a 66.5 degree head angle, and 73.9 degree effective seat tube angle. For 2020, that’s changed up to 64 degree head angle and a 77.3 degree seat tube angle. You could be forgiven for thinking that this is a completely different bike. Indeed, this does seem to be what Norco is aiming for – the old Norco Optic was given a similar all over changes treatment.
Norco Sight 2020 Specification
There are some nice little touches which may be appreciated by some. Two sets of bottle cage mounts inside the front triangle would seem to offer space for a bottle plus one of those frame mounted tool or enduro pouches that are becoming so popular – no need for any straps to rub your frame.
The shock and fork have a specific tune for the bike – as we saw previously on the new Norco Optic. To help you get the most out of your ride, Norco is launching an app: ‘RideAligned’. This will apparently help you set up your bike just right for your weight and ride style – but as it’s only launched on 30th October you and I will both have to wait to see how this works in practice.
What is the Norco Sight now then? A beefed up enduro bike? A mini downhill bike? I took the Sight A2 to the trails to find out.
On The Trail
Only having a short period of time to get out on it before it was released to the world, I took the bike out as stock. That meant the saddle that it came with, plus the inner tubes. It’s a tubeless ready set up, though you’ll need to provide your own valves and sealant to make the switch – something I will be doing for the remainder of my time on this bike.
We’ve had a succession of top-of-the-range carbon everything bikes through our test ranks of late, so I admit I did look slightly jealously at the rest of the test fleet as I pushed this alloy beast out the door and towards the hills. It’s not especially light – and weighs 15.47kg, or 34lb. However, the SRAM GX/NX Eagle gearing meant that as I spun my way up the hill to the start of the first descent, it wasn’t too much effort. Also, my gears were changing sweetly and smoothly from the get go – a relief as the GX (and NX) Eagle group sets do seem to be particularly sensitive to getting set up just so.
Initial impressions are that it’s a comfortable and easy bike to get on with – you feel suitably sat ‘in’ it rather than perched on it, and the length felt natural to me. It’s not a bike I felt I would need to ‘get used to’ before feeling confident.
I started with a descent I consider a good barometer of how I’m going to get on with a bike on more technical stuff. A steep rut, a sharp turn, a wriggle between some trees and a series of drops that’s a reasonable challenge in both dust and wet. There’s not a lot of margin for error and it’s an easy one to get wrong. Save from getting to the bottom and thinking things were a little bouncier than I’d like, the descent was entirely uneventful. No dabs, no squeaks or eeks, just confident control. I carried on my way.
I was definitely working for my climbs, not so much sit up an spin as get down and grind. But I still got my way up a whole pile of hills – and was rewarded with a heap of downs too. I did contour along long enough to find that over technical rocky sections I was able to push on through and over the kinds of lumps and bumps that would often have me caught up and coming to a halt – it was very satisfying to keep moving, keep picking rougher lines, and keep going.
Risking a few flying drops and jumps, all that travel makes for confident landings, though so far I’ve managed flight more when there’s an obvious take off to help with ‘sending’ than from the kind of little lumps that can lead to gratuitous popping and play on some bikes. I’ll be exploring this further on future test rides – can I get the suspension tuned to something more playful and slightly less planted? Or will the Norco Sight retain that plough through things feeling? With the Norco Optic sitting with less travel but a descent focussed spec, is that the bike for those that want a little lighter handling? Stay tuned to find out.
Overall
First impressions are that this is planted and confidence inspiring. The kind of bike and spec you can just get out and ride. It’s a clean looking machine and I’m looking forward to seeing what I can get out of it now that the RideAligned app is there to be played with.
Post-Script
Unfortunately, back injury (not bike related, ironically) caused me to be unable to continue the test of the Norco Sight. The only remaining questions I had were around what the ‘Ride Aligned’ app would recommend for me, and whether that might help improve the ‘pop’ of the bike.
I did get the bike set up according to the app, the most striking difference between it and how I had the bike before being that I removed the two tokens that were in the fork on arrival. Having set the fork up by sag alone, and with the fork usually coming from Fox with just 1 token, I was a little surprised to find two in there. Easily checked and easily changed.
Another difference was that the app recommended I be on a large. As I’d identified in my initial review, there’s room to size up – though you’ll want to stay forward over that front end. I suspect a large would be pushing things a little for me – it’s a whole 30mm longer in the reach – so I feel the medium is likely the better stock choice for me.
Don’t expect a complete idiot’s guide to suspension tuning – if ‘out’ and ‘in’ and counting clicks isn’t intuitive, then you’ll likely have to do a bit of cross checking of whether you’re going righty-tighty-lefty-loosey or in-out-shake-it-all-about. Given how thorough the app is – giving you tyre pressures as well as shock and fork settings – I’d imagine that a help icon for the lost might be possible to add in a future update. I’d see this as especially helpful in the UK where buyers may well have had their bike delivered to their front door, skipping the high street Evans store and its mechanics. So far as I can tell, it makes no difference whether you tell it you’re a man or a woman – it gave me the same suggested settings – including tyre pressures – no matter which I pretended to be.
How the settings translate to performance I’m afraid I can’t truly say. Rumbling round a local trail centre that’s more jumps and table tops than a steep gnar fest, it just felt like I was over biked. It’s a bike that needs to be ridden hard and over as much steep and rocky stuff as possible if it’s not to feel like overkill, and that’s just not about to happen with the current state of my body. Sad times.
Review Info
| Brand: | Norco |
| Product: | Sight A2 |
| From: | Evans |
| Price: | £2,995 |
| Tested: | by Hannah for |
