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You don’t often see a brand unveil two DH bikes just months apart. But that’s exactly what Norco has done. On the eve of the much-anticipated Whistler World Cup, it feels fitting for the local BC brand to finally pull the covers off its long-awaited Team DH race bike.
Coming just months after the Torrent DH we tested earlier this year makes the launch even more interesting. The Torrent DH felt like it came out of nowhere. The Team DH, however, feels like the opposite, as we’ve been waiting five years for it.
Norco has done quite a bit of this bike’s development in the open over the past few years, and it’s been interesting to see how it has changed and evolved. We even got an up-close look at the bike when we visited Norco HQ last year, where the engineers showed us some of the prototype frames they had been working on.
As you’d expect from a high-end race bike that’s spent half a decade in development, there’s a ridiculous amount to cover in this first look. So let’s dive into Norco’s new Team DH.
Related:
- How to do Whistler Bike Park | Flow’s guide to riding Whistler, BC
- The Other Side Of Whistler | Navigating Whistler’s trails beyond the bike park
Norco Team DH Overview
The Team DH is an unapologetic downhill race bike. If you’re after a more rounded steed for park laps and general downhill riding, that’s where the Torrent DH sits in Norco’s lineup.
The bike features an alloy front triangle paired with a carbon rear end and offers 200mm of travel front and rear. This big rig rolls on mixed wheels across all five frame sizes, with each size getting its own geometry and a range of adjustments for both geo and suspension kinematics. We’ll get into those in more detail in the suspension and geometry sections below.
Interestingly, the Team DH uses fully external cable routing, just like the Torrent DH. While this doesn’t make for as clean a finished package as fully internal routing, it offers a practical benefit for a race bike: brake and drivetrain changes in the pits require far less faff.
Suspension Design | High Virtual Pivot Six-Link
The suspension layout is one of the more interesting aspects of the Team DH. Norco has been increasingly focused on high-pivot suspension designs in recent years, and the Team DH takes that concept considerably further. The bike uses a complex-looking six-bar suspension layout built around the i-Track design. Norco is calling this its “HPV6” suspension layout.
Norco’s Sight is also built around an i-Track system — albeit with a four-bar layout — as is the Velduro Rogue.
The fundamentals of a six-bar design are complex, with more variables that engineers can manipulate. While that makes the system more difficult to design and optimise, it also provides greater control over the kinematics and, ultimately, how it rides.
Adding to that, the upper shock mount sees a flip chip that increases progression by 2.5%, giving riders another way to adapt the Team DH to different tracks, rider weights and riding styles.
Progression flip chips aren’t out of the ordinary, but the bike’s adjustable idler positioning is far less common. The AS+ and AS- positions alter the bike’s anti-squat characteristics, with anti-squat reduced by 20% in the AS- position.
It’s pretty cool to see this level of adjustability, especially since Norco’s in-house Ride Aligned setup guide also recommends when to use each position. More on Ride Aligned below.
Sizing & Geometry
Norco’s Factory Race Team has included a pretty wide range of rider heights over the past few years, from Gracey Hemstreet, who is 160cm tall, through to Greg Minnaar, who stands 188cm tall. We mention this because it’s reassuring to know that both ends of the size range have been tested in the real world, at the highest level of World Cup racing.
Using its S-sizing, Norco is offering five frame sizes, each with size-specific front and rear centre lengths. Every size also comes with three reach-adjustment positions, providing 10mm of total adjustment.
On the Torrent DH we tested earlier this year, we installed an aftermarket reach-adjust headset. It’s certainly helpful to have this kind of adjustment built into the frame as a core feature rather than adding it aftermarket.
Unlike changing stem length, adjusting the reach also changes the bike’s wheelbase. That gives riders another meaningful geometry adjustment rather than simply moving the handlebars further away or closer.
As we’ve come to expect from modern DH bikes, the rear ends are relatively long. Useful for bike nerds like us, Norco provides rear centre measurements at sag, which range from 458mm on the S1 to 466mm on the S5.
It’d be interesting to know just how many variations of these sizes Norco went through before settling on the final geometry. When we visited Norco last year, the engineers showed us how they were effectively creating infinite sizing options for the team riders using lugged prototypes. This allowed them to easily test different sizing combinations before committing to the final production geometry.
Frame materials and features
Another interesting choice from Norco is pairing an alloy front triangle with a carbon rear end. According to Norco’s engineers, the decision came down to alloy giving them more options to refine the geometry, frame features and stiffness, paired with a lightweight carbon rear triangle to limit flex and increase responsiveness.
While it’s not exactly an apples-to-apples comparison, the Jackalope Kanga uses a more compliant steel front triangle paired with a stiffer alloy rear end. On this bike in particular, the different flex characteristics across the frame offer a noticeable benefit.
Given this bike’s high-performance tilt, it raises the question of how Norco achieved the right balance of compliance in the alloy section of the frame against the stiffness and stability of the carbon rear end. We’ll be at the World Cup this weekend, so if we get a chance to chat with a Norco engineer, we’ll add more info here. Stay tuned!
The Torrent DH focused heavily on simplicity and serviceability. While the Team DH is more complex in almost every other respect, Norco has carried that focus on ease of servicing across to its new race bike as much as possible.
Things like oversized bearings and external cable routing should all help keep maintenance straightforward while improving long-term durability.
Build kits and pricing
In Australia, we’ll see two options: a complete SRAM/RockShox build priced at $8,999 AUD and a frame-and-shock-only option at $6,199 AUD.
2027 Team DH 2 RockShox
- Frame | Aluminium front triangle, Carbon rear triangle, High Virtual Pivot Six Link i-Track suspension, 200mm travel
- Fork | RockShox BoXXer Select D2, 200mm, 52mm offset
- Shock | RockShox Vivid Coil Base, 250x75mm, Sprindex adjustable spring
- Wheels | RaceFace ARC HD, 29in front, 27.5in rear, 30mm inner width, DT Swiss 370 hubs
- Tyres | Maxxis Assegai 3C MaxxGrip DH 29 x 2.5in front; Maxxis Minion DHR II 3C MaxxGrip DH 27.5 x 2.4in rear
- Drivetrain | SRAM GX DH 1×7 w/ Praxis Cadet DH9 cranks, S1-S2: 160mm, S3-S5: 165mm, 36T chainring, 11-25T cassette
- Chain Guide | MRP G5 SL 32-36T, 2-Bolt ISCG-05
- Brakes | SRAM Maven Base, 200mm SRAM Centerline A2 rotors
- Bar | RaceFace Atlas Aluminium, S1-S2: 800mm wide 20mm rise, S3-S5: 800mm wide 40mm rise
- Stem | RaceFace Chester Direct Mount, 50mm
- Grips | RaceFace Chester, 31mm
- Seatpost | Norco alloy post, 31.6mm
- Saddle | SDG Radar
- Claimed Weight | 19kg (size S3)
- Price | $8,999 AUD
2027 Team DH Frameset
- Frame | Aluminium front triangle, Carbon rear triangle, High Virtual Pivot Six Link i-Track suspension, 200mm travel
- Shock | Fox Factory DHX2, 250x75mm, Sprindex adjustable spring
- Chain Guide | MRP G5 SL, 32-36T, 2-Bolt ISCG-05
- Claimed Weight | 5kg (size S3)
- Price | $6,199 AUD
Ride Aligned Support and Lifetime Warranty
Norco arguably has the most user-friendly bike setup tools in the business with its Ride Aligned system. The easy-to-use database provides recommended setup information based on the rider, bike and intended use. And it’s not limited to just suspension settings. Ride Aligned covers everything from cockpit setup and flip chip positions, right through to tyre pressures.
As with all of Norco’s frames, the Team DH is backed by the brand’s lifetime warranty. This covers every bike the brand has built since 2014 against manufacturinand offers the original owner a discounted crash-replacement option.
What’s next?
After five years of development, it’s great to finally see the Team DH officially revealed. We’re hoping to get our hands on one soon.
As mentioned, it’s an exciting time for this bike to finally go public, ahead of the Whistler World Cup. Could we see a British Columbian brand, with a BC-born rider (Gracey Hemstreet), win a World Cup in BC? Did someone say fairytale?
If you’re keen to watch, we’ve got an article showing you how to watch the race here.
The post First Look | Norco reveals the new Team DH after 5 years of development appeared first on Flow Mountain Bike.
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[[{“value”:”You don’t often see a brand unveil two DH bikes just months apart. But that’s exactly what Norco has done. On the eve of the much-anticipated Whistler World Cup, it feels fitting for the local BC brand to finally pull the covers off its long-awaited Team DH race bike. Coming just months after the Torrent
The post First Look | Norco reveals the new Team DH after 5 years of development appeared first on Flow Mountain Bike.”}]] Read More Flow Mountain Bike
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