A Closer Look at Devinci's Experimental High Pivot Wilson
There's always a lot of tech floating around World Cup pits, since brands use their top riders to test ideas and validate concepts, proving whether a design change truly makes a bike better in some way.
This iteration of Devinci's prototype high pivot DH bike first made an appearance at the races in October, during the 2020 World Championships in Leogang, Austria, but details were scarce.
The Big Bang...Devinci's first high pivot DH bike.
According to Devinci, the concept first came to light over 20 years ago with a bike Devinci made called the Big Bang - a high pivot DH bike in the early 2000's. Devinci are always experimenting with different designs and projects, although they holds an advantage over some brands due to the fact that they have their own factory, in Chicoutimi, Quebec, Canada. For a deeper dive into Devinci's factory, read Ross Bell's article on Inside Devinci, or his From the Top, with Devinci's Félix Gauthier.
Devinci calls this prototype DH race bike the Wilson HP, and it's merely a test mule the brand never planned on making it to production - the goal was simply to test some ideas and concepts in race conditions. Devinci riders Dakotah Norton and Jure Žabjek both spent time riding and racing the bike this past season.
After some initial testing in Tennessee in February with Dakotah, the bike showed promise. Dakotah claimed the bike helped him maintain a faster pace while taking less risk. He was also riding more consistently on a bike he just got on, which was impressive. Dakotah named the bike "the hovercraft" as it allowed him to just plow through everything and it felt as if he was almost floating above the track.
At this point, only two frames have been produced. One is sized XL and the other is a L - both, made by hand in Devinci's Canadian factory. According to Devinci, the project brought a lot of pride to the team at the factory, especially having Dakotah ending up on the podium at the first Lousa World Cup this past October.
Dakotah Norton took the prototype frame to 8th in very muddy Maribor qualifications.
And 12th in finals at the first race of that weekend.
A top-five result in Lousa.
Where does the Wilson HP go from here? Who knows, but Devinci have been clear that this really is just a prototype designed to look into the HP concept matched with the Split Pivot system, and that it's "not the next Wilson." We're curious to see what may show up at the start of next season, whenever and wherever that may be.
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Every other bike simply felt slower and clunkier.
Have you ever tried spec demo or SC V10?
As of the customer service delays, sorry we missed your emails. As you all know 2020 has been crazy for us and all bike brands. Our customer service agents were swamped and really did a great job considering the amount of requests and emails that kept coming all year long. They were also dealing with limited staff. If you need imediate assistance, we'll always be available by phone or you can turn to your local Devinci Dealer who should have all the information you might need.
Concerning the DH team, we'll be soon making an annoucement about our racing plans for 2021, so stay tuned. Thanks @windowsill
I hope it reaches production.
It's interesting though, so far I haven't seen any suspension analysis of a high-pivot 4-bar suspension bike (like shore or gt fury). Would be great to see what are the anti-squat and anti-rise numbers compared to traditional 4-bar(usually low anti-rise, active suspension during braking) and high single pivot (usually magic carpet ride, but completely different story while braking hard). I expected shore to have the best of both worlds, yet it did 4th timed lap during PB filed test.