wachtourak wrote: heaps of riders were on Norco, Mike Kinrade etc

Ryan Leech au!

So, to recap:

- The bike is a bit curvy, therefore totally unusable for the sport of mountainbiking

- It looks like a few other bikes, most of which are actually completely different if you aren't squinting

-One of those bikes is considered low quality, BUT because a good bike rider got paid to ride one in a movie it is now more desirable

Just a thought here, Most companies making DH rigs are trying to find the holy grail of strenght vs. weight... trying to get the bikes as light as they can without making them fragile. So to that end, why would you use cuved tubes like these ? Correct me if i'm wrong but big curves like these use more material than say straight tubes, so therefore the less curves used should result in a lighter frame.

Think of a piece of road, going from a to b if it is a straight piece of road between the two points, there is less distance traveled (less length) in the road.

One ugly bike.

onree wrote:

Astoria Paranoia wrote: Norco have a massive fanboi following in the states so they'll sell no matter what.
I don't think making them affordable or pretty is high on their list.

Just like Santa Cruz

how did they get their following then?

they made good cheap bombproof bikes and people brought them. they were also were one of thee first big brands to jump on the jumping hunking bandwagon.

just cause they aren't big here doesn't mean much to the rest of the world.

Norco bikes are basically a cheaper, more bombproof copy of specialized. Same suspension (they license it), same hydroformed tubing. They make lots of good cheap freeride bikes and sell very well in that market. Kind of like a canadian version of giant.