Photography by Michal Cerveny, Daniel Geiger, Gaudenz Danuser, & Jochen HaarLast week, Scott released the all-new Spark lineup, with a hidden shock design borrowed from Bold Cycles, which Scott bought a majority stake of in 2019. Just a few days after the release, Nino Schurter lined up in Leogang to put the new bike through its paces.
While Nino did not have the race weekend he wanted and seems to be having a slow start to his season, the Scott Spark has won an absurd number of World Cup medals, and it likely isn't about to stop now. In fact, it may be the winningest XC bike model out there, mostly thanks to Nino's World Cup dominance (I haven't run any numbers on that, so let me know if you've been counting), and the 2022 model release comes just in time for the Scott-SRAM MTB Racing riders to get comfy on it before the Olympics.
With the Leogang World Cup now in the books, we're already looking forward to the next one in Les Gets, and we hope to see Nino achieve big things aboard this rig.
| It's safe to say that I've had a lot of success in recent years with the Spark. From the first moment I stepped on this new version, I knew that I have every chance to continue that success for years to come. From the geometry to the integration, the all new Spark RC takes everything I loved about the previous version and makes it so much better.—Nino Schurter |
This bike is made for winning World Cups.
Robot shifting for Nino.
There's so much integration on this bike. Look at those spokes.
With the shock hidden away, Scott added an external sag-o-meter.
That -40 degree cockpit rise is certainly aggressive.
@hamncheez: depending on the size of the frame, HERE and HERE
It’s about 98.7% rider, so I’d guess not.
No blip in the grip. And Lar’s bike clearly has 3 cables coming out of that mega lever they have. So whatever it is it is cable actuated.
Im sure this will be nice in St. Anne, but riders are still using hard tails at many stops (Leogang, Austria last weekend?), and I’d expect the Tokyo olympic course will be paved with some pretty rocks strewn about. Seems overkill.
I actually read this article to find out about the new prototype but see no info.
Check this out: www.instagram.com/p/CP-KaOmhhoc/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&fbclid=IwAR3JjLzPHqSW0X5MEKpqDw8cUK-qf5gZjzSujgCPi9z3G9Nu2ZUnA9zpT54
Two wrongs in this artice
1) Wrong bike.
2) you've missed a good news cos that new seatpost is making already some noise
That said, there’s negligible weight gain, if any, from axs, but the reverb is definitely portly for a dropper, but another poster claimed he was using a different, supposedly lighter version during his race.
Also, Nino is short and riding on 29s. His bars aren’t really radically below his saddle.
Personally, I've never understood why people here seem to think that a high position is better for descending. As long as you can get your center of gravity back far enough to neutrally weight the wheels on steeps, you're good. That's much less about bar height than reach/stem length and front center. None of these XC riders seem to have any trouble with this, at least on XC terrain.
As those of us from the Brian Lopes school of skillz know, getting low is good for cornering too.
Agree, if you look at the bike from the front or side, saddle to bar drop isn’t that big, and if you think about a -40, 90 mm stem, the actual straight line length is short.
Almost as if he could ride the small frame, but prefers the wheelbase of the medium????
Hump
Hump
They still do. I’m just curious how they came to this conclusion. I know they all typically work with Swiss Biomed for dynamic fittings.
Hump
Should have rode a HT Nino.
Leogang definitely not the best course to launch this kind of bike. Wonder if he would (if allowed) use the Scale if he could do the race again.
I’ve tried crankbrothers and Shimano spd’s and would pick HT over them easily.
Light, super easy to clip in and a wide range of adjustability.