It’s not about the bike. It’s all about the Ride.

The Project.

I have ridden Mountain Bikes in the dirt for over 15 years now. My first 26” ride was a simple beast but let me get our with my mates and explore new trails and new horizons. We rode our bikes long distances before we even thought about driving.
Since that first bike I have been through a lot. My bike experience has been shaped by the people I have known and the various jobs in the bike industry that have let me follow my passion. I have read countless magazines and website articles dedicated to the latest and greatest toys. I have poured over ads, been to trade shows and drooled over my buddies new bikes. Through it all I have slowly and surely worked out what kind of a rider I am.

In the fast moving rush to be innovative and different bikes are coming out in a rainbow of flavours and styles. For me, one category of bike has been making more and more sense. To me this is not a new category, just a new name for what the majority of people who ride our bikes offroad already do. We Mountainbike. I have raced heaps of Cross Country and Downhill, done some enduro’s and even hit up the snow for a day, but the majority of what I do is just Mountainbiking. That’s starting at the head of a trail, riding out, climbing a hill or two and then railing the descents and having a ball. It’s the search of the ultimate singletrack that flows just right and leaves you stoked to be alive. What kind of a bike do you need to do that? Well any will do but it helps if it’s not too heavy on the climbs and not too sketchy on the downs. Enter All Mountain.

My previous ‘One bike to Rule them All’ bike was an 02 Norco Fluid. It has been my steed on single trails from the alpine ski hills to the coastal rainforest and everything in between. Over the years it has been the epitome of durable. It did everything I asked of it. Nothing ever broke. In 5 years! I treated it mean and it kept on trucking. It has been one of the best bikes I have ever owned. My next bike has big shoes to fill. Enter the 2007 Norco Fluid.

I have been keeping an eye on the Fluid as it went through it’s various incantations to the bike it is in 2007. It’s move from a full fledged Freeride bike to a true lightweight All Mountain machine has been gradual. The bike that nailed it for me was the 2006 Fluid One. After seeing this new frame built up in the flesh and reading lots of kind words about them, I had decided the old Fluid would finally have to be retired. When the 07 bikes were released, the Fluid SE immediately caught my eye. With it’s low key graphics and simple anodised grey finish I had to own one. The only problem was the standard specifications, full XTR. Knowing that the bike was never ever going to be in my price range and with a decidedly lightweight oriented parts selection I knew the complete bike wasn’t for me. My only option was to snaggle the only frame in the country and choose all my own parts. Suddenly I was presented with a world of choice.

When I had to look critically at my last bike I thought about everything. I made a quick list of the Pro’s and Con’s. My favourite things were the absolute low maintenance of the bike, the way it rode so well in all conditions and the way it made tough trails fun and easy. Those things made me a better rider. To confidently plough into a technical section of trail knowing the bike is going to do exactly what you want is an amazing feeling. To have that feeling year after year explains why I held onto it so long. The things that started to bug me as it aged was it’s small sizing, the overall weight and the gravity oriented specs I had built the bike around. This meant it accelerated slowly and was a bear to climb for any length of time. The super low standover, short cockpit and ‘extra beef’ was great when descending but a horror when things pointed upwards. My next true ‘Do It All’ bike was going to have to be more trail riding friendly but I was not willing to sacrifice the quality of the downs to get it. Thankfully I was in no financial position to purchase a new bike so I had some time to think about what I wanted and what I needed and start putting a bike together piece by piece. My goal was to have a new bike ready for my 30th birthday. A new year and a new machine. As my mind ticked through a million possible options and came up with a shortlist of parts that I threw together in a spreadsheet. My ‘virtual’ bike had taken the first steps to reality.