Pivot Unveils New Carbon Phoenix

Pivot is billing this new Phoenix Carbon DH as “the lightest, strongest, fastest, most technically advanced and stylish DH chassis in the world”. Well, that's bold. There are, after all, a hell of a lot of impressive bikes roaming the woods these days. With the new Phoenix, however, Pivot is making a compelling argument.


A LIGHTER, STIFFER FRAME

“The original frame was light, but we’re constantly learning more about composite technology—both materials and construction. We were able to up the stiffness numbers in key areas while reducing weight and increasing strength.”

Lighter, stiffer….you’ve heard the drill before, but, when it comes to making better-handling bikes, those two things never grow old. To that end, Pivot tweaked frame profile and lay-up. The result is a World Cup-ready DH frame that loses an impressive 300-plus grams—that’s roughly two-thirds of a pound for all you Americans.

Or let’s put it this way: You could build the Phoenix Carbon into a sub-31 pound gravity beast. Hot. Damn.


NEW SPRINGY BITS, MORE MUD CLEARANCE

The Phoenix Carbon will accommodate your garden-variety, coil-sprung DH shock (the frame happily mates with three-inch stroke, 9.5-inch eye-to-eye shocks). Pivot’s team riders, however, unanimously opted to go with the Fox Float X2 and that’s how the company is spec’ing the new model.

“The small bump compliance is just incredible,” says Cocalis. “But it’s also a very tuneable shock. With the new EVOL air can, you can really tweak the spring rate by adding or removing volume spacers. You get even better compliance out of it than we’ve come to expect from coil-sprung shocks, yet also, achieve just the right amount of support to get a great, poppy feel from the bike that makes picking up the bike really easy.”

Cocalis also saw the re-design as an opportunity to improve rear tire clearance and reduce chain slap.

“The previous design was created to clear the gamut of DH tires on the market currently, but when the guys were racing some of the muddiest World Cup races, we were seeing paint rubbing away from just the incredible amount of muck on those tracks, so we changed the swingarm profile. Tire clearance is pretty monstrous now,” explains Cocalis. “We also realized halfway into the season that the chain was sometimes slapping higher up on the inside of the seatstay than we’d expected, so the frame protection there has almost doubled. We’ve also added new protection on the front upright of the rear triangle.”



WORLD CUP OR BIKE PARK? BOTH.

Some things didn’t change on the Phoenix—most notably the geometry and DW-Link suspension.

The Phoenix Carbon’s geometry continues to follow the long front-center and stubby rear end mold. How long is “long”? The size Large frame sports a 654-millimeter/25.75-inch top tube, so yeah, that’s sprawling by anyone’s standards. Pivot’s goal? Create a bike that boasts great front-end stability and is still a blast in tight corners.

“If you compare this bike to a lot of models on the World Cup circuit,” says Cocalis, “we’re on the leading edge in terms of top tube length.”

Riders can rage about angles till blue in the face. Cocalis admits that it’s hard, if not impossible, to find a single, “perfect” geometry for a bike that is going to be plowed down World Cup courses on the Continent and played about on at bike parks in North America. To that end, while the Phoenix rocks a 62.5-degree head angle, Pivot also offers geometry-adjusting headset cups that will alter the head angle by ¾ of a degree.



“The Phoenix geometry was really designed around the World Cup—the headtube is pretty slack, the BB is very low—but you can also adjust it. If you look at the Phoenix, you’ll see it has a very compact headtube, with a fair amount of stanchion sticking up above the top crown. That allows for a lot of flexibility. A lot of people who will be riding the Phoenix are going to be riding it on U.S. courses and also in park settings. Those people can slide the fork down a bit, use the steeper ¾-degree setting on the headset, get their bottom bracket height up a bit and create a bike that’s more optimized for those types of courses. In short, it’s a bike that works for a really wide range of riders.”

The Phoenix Carbon sports the same seat tube and head tube length across all four model sizes, which enables riders to choose frame size based on their ideal reach and ride feel, rather than on standover clearance. Pivot’s approach also opens up the Phoenix to a wide range of rider riders, from the vertically challenged (down to 5’4”) to the leviathans (6’7”) amongst us.

Since no conversation about bikes is complete without some hand wringing over wheelsize, it’s worth noting that Cocalis and company were originally considering making the frame capable of running both 26 and 27.5-inch wheels (via convertible dropouts), but found that the Phoenix still proved a snappy, nimble machine even when shod with the slightly larger wheels. Consequently, they opted to stick with 27.5 hoops, figuring that if there was no loss in maneuverability, they might as well outfit the Phoenix with larger wheels that’ll help cleave seconds off your run through technical sections.



While Dave Weagle’s DW-Link rear suspension design is more common on cross-country, trail and all-mountain bikes, Cocalis feels it's a suspension system that works just as well for gravity riders, which is why the Phoenix boasts 204 millimeters/eight inches of the stuff.

“You know, that’s kind of funny,” says Cocalis, “since Dave got his start in the downhill world with the Iron Horse [Sunday] design. DW-Link is great because it enables us to create a bike that pedals better than anything else in the downhill category thanks to its anti squat and variable wheel travel path. And because the Phoenix Carbon doesn’t squat down deeply under pedaling force the way so many single-pivot bikes do, we are able to lower the bottom bracket height and slacken the head angle to achieve the best performance in the most technical descending sections without having the cranks constantly striking everywhere else on the course.”





Action shots by Colin Meagher.

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MENTIONS: @pivotcycles / @vernonfelton

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