Refined vision: Norco Sight 2020

When Norco went to re-design it’s all-mountain Sight line for 2020, it decided to start with a long, close look at the numbers. What the Canadian brand produced reflects both its local B.C. trails and what they’re calling “the Science of Send.”

The Sight’s geometry has been updated around Norco’s “Ride Aligned” bike design process. In un-branded terms, this means each size has been designed to work as a complete bike, instead of taking one design and making it longer for bigger sizes. There’s even an app that helps you set up and tune the bike to get the most out of your Sight.

The result of this rider-focused re-write of the Sight is an all mountain bike offering plenty of options. Choose between 27.5″ and 29″ wheels, choose your build with a custom build option, and choose your frame material to get a bike that suits you best. There’s even a Sight Youth for mini-shredders that want to push their riding to the next level.

2020 Norco Sight – All Mountain updated with Ride Aligned design

All Mountain riding demands a balance between descending chops and climbing capabilities. Norco wanted a bike taht would improve riders confidence on the downs, but still be efficient on the ride back up. To do this, engineers honed in on a riders centre of gravity.

Ride Aligned focuses on balancing each riders centre of gravity, across all frame and wheel sizes. Chainstays grow or shrink between sizes, along with reach, to make sure each size of Sight has the intended feel and control on the trail.

With the Ride Aligned free app, this emphasis on making the bike work for each individual rider extends to bike set-up. The app guides you through fit and suspension set-up based on a riders body makeup, riding style, and local trail style.

Norco continues to offer the Sight in both 27.5 and 29 inch wheel sizes. Each wheel size is available in sizes S through XL. Both versions of the sight offer 160 mm front wheel travel, and 150 mm rear wheel travel. The 27.5″ Sight is a half degree slacker, at 63.5-degrees. It also uses a 37 mm offset fork, compared to the 29″‘s 42 mm offset.

Both bikes use a steep effective seat tube angle, between 77.0 and 78.0-degrees depending on frame size, to keep the riders weight centered in the bike. With the steep STA comes the option to run longer dropper posts. Small’s ship with a 150 mm dropper, while Medium and Large get 170 mm posts and the XL gets a full 200 mm dropper post.

To keep the Sight’s handling consistent between sizes, as the reach stretches out, so do the chainstays. Starting at 430 mm, Norco grows the rear centre measurement by 5 mm per size, up to 445 mm in the XL frame.

Since All Mountain involves some pedalling, the 2020 Sight fits a full water bottle inside the front triangle of every size. This means 750 ml for M-XL, while a Small will still squeeze a 620 ml bottle inside.

Build the Sight you want to see in the world: Build your Ride, Ride your Build

Norco offers the Sight 2020 in 10 options covering a wide range of budgets. From the high end, five figure price tag of the carbon fibre Sight C AXS Rainbow build, to the $3,600 Sight A3 and A3 W aluminum frame bikes.

But Norco isn’t just offering a set range of builds and colours. If you’re spending seven to 10 thousand dollars on a bike, you should be able to pick some of the parts on your bike, right? With the “Build your Ride, Ride your Build” program, you get to chose from three frame colour options, four suspension kit options, and three component kit options to build the bike that you want to ride. Norco’s also opened this program to the Sight aluminum, with two colour choices and the full range of build kit options.

Why? It lets the customer choose a build that best suits his or her own riding style, and budget. If you really want to boost your suspension performance, but aren’t too picky about drivetrain options you can maximize your suspension for your budget. With most other brands, you’re stuck paying for increasingly expensive drivetrain parts to get better suspension performance, or vise versa, instead of being able to prioritize where you want. The custom program also lets riders with mixed brand loyalty choose between Fox and RockShox suspension, and SRAM and Shimano components.

2020 Norco Sight in Numbers

Frame Material:

Sight C – Carbon fibre front trianle and seatstay. Aluminum chainstays.

Sight A – Aluminum.

Front wheel travel: 160 mm

Rear wheel travel: 150 mm

Wheel size: 27.5″ or 29″

Tire clearance: 2.35″ – 2.6″

Price: $3,600 – $10,900 ($3,700 Sight Carbon frame only, $2,000 for Sight Aluminum)

Sizes: S, M, L, XL, and Youth

Norco Sight 27.5 Youth

Along with the big kid bikes, Norco rolled out the Sight 27.5 Youth. Designed for the mini-shredder that can beat most of the adults down the mountain, the youth version is a performance option designed around the needs of a younger rider.

With an aluminum frame rolling on 27.5″ wheels, the Sight Youth has a slightly reduced 140 mm rear wheel travel and 150 mm front travel. It still has a slack 63.5-degree head tube angle like the Sr. Sight, but with a custom youth-specific suspension tune. According to Norco, this means “a lighter damping tune providing 140mm of travel because younger riders use lighter springs, which require less damping.”

The Sight Youth’s build is designed around the needs of younger riders. There’s shorter, 165 mm cranks, a 125 mm dropper post comes with a light-action remote lever, and there’s a set of SDG’s Jr. components at every contact point: seat, grips and pedals. The beefy rubber on the older person’s Sight shrink to 2.3″ Maxxis Minion DHF/DHR II combo.

Norco Sight 27.5 Youth retails for $3,600.