Wide Range of Riding on Tap
Norco has been selling bikes for more than 50 years. The Canadian company offers everything from kids’ BMX bikes, 10-speeds and high-end carbon road bike rockets to all-mountain machines that will go anywhere. The company started in a converted chicken coop in a small rural town in British Columbia and has grown to be one of the most dominant Canadian bike brands out there.
When the trails of the North Shore were built and new-school mountain biking was coming into its own, Norco was there to build the bikes. When Whistler was working to become the biggest and best-known bike park in the world, many of the riders were on Norcos. Today, Norco builds mountain bikes for every type of rider there is—from cross-country to downhill.
Head ranger: The Range is a big bike ready to take charge of whatever is on the trails. It’s burly yet quicker than we expected. It seems that the Canadians have harnessed the big 29er wheels and put them into a usable enduro bike package.
WHO IS IT MADE FOR?
The Range is an aggressive bike designed to handle the rigors of the most technical and steep trails, yet still have the geometry and efficiency to climb to the top of the hill without the need for a chairlift or shuttle. It’s designed for riders who want to harness the confident, capable geometry and suspension of a gravity-inspired bike without going to a full-on downhill race bike. To say the Range is a mini downhill bike is unfair, because it’s much more versatile than that. This bike loves to descend, but it’s not afraid to climb a little to earn it.
ART suspension: Norco’s Advanced Ride Technology design is the heart of the Range’s suspension. It’s essentially a modified four-bar system that’s custom-tuned on the Range to provide a more rearward axle path for better control on big hits and gnarly trails.
WHAT IS IT MADE FROM?
The Range is built from carbon fiber top to bottom and is fully redesigned for 2017. It’s available with 27.5 or 29er wheels with a modern enduro geometry that’s long, low and slack. The bike comes with Norco’s signature Advanced Ride Tech (ART) suspension design, which is essentially a four-bar linkage with pivot locations to match the terrain the bike will be ridden on. The Range sports a slightly rearward axle path that allows the wheel to get out of the way of obstacles and improves square-edge bump compliance without throwing pedaling efficiency out the window.
The details: Norco uses a post-mount disc brake, anodized-aluminum hardware and a Boost axle to complete the Range.
The Range 29er comes with a very similar geometry to the 27.5 version, but with 10 millimeters less travel front and rear to keep the fit and handling in check. The Range also comes with custom carbon tubes on each size to keep the ride quality consistent on all frame sizes. Since Norco could not achieve the geometry it wanted with a small version of the 29er, the bike is only available in medium, large and extra large. Both bikes come with a long front center that’s designed for a shorty stem to keep the bike lively. Norco also takes advantage of the RockShox metric Trunnion mount shock to simplify sizing and improve ride quality. To keep the aesthetics sleek, the Range comes with internal cable and hose routing with large ports to make working on the bike easier.
WHICH COMPONENTS STAND OUT?
This bike is Canadian through and through and comes with a parts spec that reflects that. The bike has tubeless-ready wheels and a complete cockpit from Race Face that matches the bike’s personality well. The Atlas bar is wide, while the Aeffect stem is short, and the AR30 wheels have a wide profile to spread the tire beads to improve traction. Nice.
Norco has embraced the new RockShox Trunnion mount shock, which not only simplifies shock mounting but also improves small-bump compliance by reducing friction in the mounting system. We’re always okay with a suppler suspension system.
Long is the new short: Norco built the Range with a long front center with a long top tube meant to be used with a short stem. This makes the long wheelbase feel quicker and makes the bike handle better.
HOW DOES IT PERFORM?
Setup: Norco’s four-bar system is made simple with air-sprung suspension front and rear. We set the bike up with 30-percent sag in the rear and slightly less in the fork. Easy breezy.
Moving Out: The Range 29er is a big bike. Make no mistake about it, the wheelbase is long, the front triangle and top tube are long, and the wheels are big. Our tallest test riders fit perfectly on our size-large test bike, but anyone in between sizes should opt for the smaller size. Trust us, you won’t feel cramped.
Clean and dialed: One of our favorite features of the Range is the cable routing. It forgoes the under-the-bottom-bracket method and instead keeps the cables and hoses out of the way. The routing is also impressively quiet and doesn’t cause any noise we could detect.
Pedaling: The Range is a gravity-inspired bike that can pedal, and that’s exactly how it rides. Pedaling is relatively efficient, but not as snappy as a lightweight trailbike can be. The bike is supple off the top end of the stroke, which makes the easy-to-reach compression adjustment on the RockShox Super Deluxe shock a welcome feature. With a flick of that switch, the bike firms up and pedals remarkably efficiently.
Climbing: This bike can plow its way up technical ascents thanks to the big wheels. It simply rolls over anything in its way. Those same big wheels have meaty tires mounted to them, which can be daunting to push uphill. That said, though, the pedaling efficiency and incredibly low gearing afforded by the SRAM Eagle drivetrain make this bike capable of climbing anything as long as its pilot is determined.
Trunnion mount: RockShox partnered with a select group of companies to develop their new Super Deluxe shock. It comes with a specially designed Trunnion mount that’s easier to use and works better
Cornering: The Range is a big bike, but it’s surprisingly nimble in the corners. We once wrote that taking long-travel 29ers through a switchback is a bit like trying to take a semi through a McDonald’s drive-through; however, thanks to relatively short chainstays and dialed geometry, we made it through every switchback on our most challenging test trails.
Descending: The Range truly comes alive when the trail points downhill. This bike is incredibly stable at speed and rolls over anything in its way with ease.
To shuttle or not to shuttle? That is the question. This bike can climb, but it’s no featherweight. While our testers were able to use the Range for several long rides with plenty of climbing, they would have appreciated a lower weight. We were able to fix this with one simple upgrade.
TRICKS, UPGRADES OR TIPS?
The Race Face Turbine dropper post proved relatively difficult to set up thanks to the quick-connect piece that connects the cable. The tension must be absolutely perfect or it simply won’t work, and it only provides a springy seat that won’t stay down when you want it to. Moreover, the universal remote is huge, and one of our test riders busted open his knee on it less than 50 feet into a ride. Thankfully, we eventually solved the tension issue and didn’t have any more trouble. Race Face offers a separate hop-up, left-side-specific lever that would be much preferred to the universal one they provided.
The Range comes with tubeless-ready tires and rims but is delivered with tubes. Converting to tubeless should be the first upgrade any Range rider makes. We removed the tubes, added a few ounces of sealant and improved the ride quality of the bike instantly. We also saved nearly half a pound of wheel weight by doing this, which made the bike feel snappier.
BUYING ADVICE
Norco’s Range is a supremely capable enduro bike that can plow its way over the most technical trails with ease. It’s a big and burly machine that gobbles up boulders and baby heads. It could stand to shed some weight to make climbing easier; however, that’s easily done with some quick and inexpensive upgrades. The Range Carbon comes to the trails with a very dialed geometry, one that’s head and shoulders above the long-travel bikes we’ve tested in the past. It’s a burly machine that we can recommend to any rider looking for a truly Canadian-style enduro bike capable of handling the trails those crazy Canucks dream up.
