Earlier this winter we were given two separate gifts: a weekend in Tempe, and later a sunny day with dry trails. Elorie used both of these gifts to spend time with Pivot Cycles.
I never thought that my local lunch loop would double as a test track. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great ride from downtown that includes a warm-up road climb, some flowy singletrack – that you can either pay close attention to or let-your-mind wander through – and a fun and fast AF descent. It’s just that. . .I always ride it. So, given the two bikes I needed to test, I also believed that I knew which one would do what. Short travel race bike = climb. Long travel 29’er = descend.
Nevertheless, I try to ascribe to a ‘beginner’s mind’ approach to life, and after a visit to the Pivot factory in Tempe, I couldn’t wait for a trail-side debrief of everything we’d been taught and shown by the generous leadership team there.
Although Pivot has recently blown out the candles on its 10th birthday cake, founder Chris Cocalis had to try a few recipes to get there. Like a true innovator, Cocalis won’t stop until he gets all of the ingredients just right. At the factory in Tempe, we felt a bit like we were in a mad scientist’s laboratory, something akin to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory but with a little less psychedelia and a few more right angles. Perfectionism, precision, obsession – you won’t find a story about Cocalis and the brand that doesn’t mention their commitment to quality. Our experience? Admirable quantities of creativity, ingenuity, and careful craftsmanship are being cooked up at the factory in Tempe, but the real magic happens on the trail.
Like I said, before we headed up the canyon, I was pretty sure which bike would do what – I’d zip up the road climb on the racy Mach 4 and stay conservative on the descent. On the other hand, I couldn’t wait to float down the steep bits on the slacked-out Switchblade but I wasn’t particularly psyched about pushing it up the road to get there. Was I wrong? Yes. Was I right? Yes. Don’t you love it when that happens?
As I mentioned, touring Pivot’s Tempe digs is a bit like taking a magical mystery tour. A full machine shop and manufacturing capabilities support product development in-house which gives the team much greater control over what happens on the outside. Pivot often works out complicated assembly problems at home and then transports the improved technology to its production factories in Asia. The ability to make multiple prototype runs to get things dialed – rather than having to wait on someone else to execute their vision – gives Pivot a huge leg up in both quality control and efficiency in getting products to the market. Pivot is concerned with creating manufacturable processes: they’re not only designing bikes, but making the tooling to prototype the parts.
Take the sag indicators that Pivot puts on their Fox shocks – those bad boys were designed in Tempe and born out of a 3D printer. When I was setting up the Mach 4 and the Switchblade for my afternoon ride, I found the indicator to be a very helpful tool setting up my shock and understanding how it would function. It’s quintessential Pivot, I thought: innovation with intention.
When I started pedaling the Switchblade up Fourmile Canyon, I got a bit worried. This bike felt…big. Before I got my chamois in a bunch, though, the bike corrected me: yes, the head tube angle was a slack 67.25, and the rubber a beefy 2.5, but as soon I was able to relax into that, we got along just fine. It sorta felt like the bike was telling me – “hey, I’ll get you where you wanna go, just relax a little bit.” The Mach 4 on the other hand was a hyperactive Aussie Shepherd, tugging at the leash. As I pedaled, I actually felt like I was running. This bike, unlike its Switchblade sister, felt compact, small, athletic. I felt like I was in a hurry. I wondered if the bike was actually too small – should I be on a Medium?
Regarding the whole “women on bikes” thing (and, for the record, we’re hoping that 2018 brings a less hysterical approach to this concept), Pivot has a pretty healthy take on smaller riders: let’s make bikes that fit everybody. Rather than wrapping something up in a Women Specific (WSD) package, Pivot’s approach to rider-size-specific geometry “relies on a balanced fit and adjusted geometry to maintain correct wheelbase length and handling to properly accommodate the proportions of a smaller rider.” Most significantly, this means that their smaller sizes are built with shorter head tubes to create more stand-over height. Using size-specific carbon molds enables Pivot to use smaller diameters for lighter frames while maintaining the same high strength. No loss of stiffness here baby!
The Mach 4’s super stable geometry, low bottom bracket height and 115 mm of dw-link suspension mean that it can rip downhill, which was where it sold me. The “Link,” the grand finale of my lunch loop, is steep, has a few decent drops, and is most fun ridden very fast. I approached it with trepidation on the Mach 4, but once I could tell that I was not going to end up ass over teakettle, this gave me confidence so I pinned it. The bike quickly realized what it was up for and acted accordingly. Why don’t all children behave this way?
The Switchblade was also incredibly obedient. We made it up the hill together, and as my body warmed up, my sluggishness dissipated. Whereas the front end of some enduro-style bikes tend to have a mind of their own, the Switchblade went where it was told. Truthfully, I didn’t have to tell it much. It rode like a V8 on the trail, and, as expected, made me feel like a rockstar on the descent.”