New Pivot Phoenix finally breaks cover
Downhill's worst-kept secret is now available to buy.
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With additive-manufactured prototypes sighted underneath Bernard Kerr and the Pivot Factory Racing team, we all knew the Pivot Phoenix was coming. Now, it's here in its full carbon, jack-drive glory. Here's everything we know about Pivot's latest downhill bike.
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Downhill is often compared to Formula One when it comes to pushing mountain bike technologies. While there's nothing particularly new on the Phoenix, it's certainly different from the rest of the pack. That's all down the to mid-high pivot, six-bar dw-link suspension design that delivers 210mm of travel – one thing's for sure, it's not a simple-looking system.
2024 pivot phoenix rear.jpg, by Liam Mercer
The eye-catcher is its dual-chain drive with one chain joining the chainring to the mid-high pivot, and another joining the pivot to the cassette. This is to combat pedal kickback caused by the chain's 'growth' as the suspension gets deeper into its travel. The result, says Pivot, is improved performance over square-edged hits via an increased rearward axle path. Anti-squat has been shaped for efficient power transfer without interfering with the suspension's performance and anti-rise has been tuned to balance braking control and suspension activity.
With a dual-chain drive system comes the question of wear within that secondary chain. So, to address that, the two chainrings can be adjusted to tweak the chain's tension. Pivot says that the equivalent chainring size is 37T.
As with many modern downhill mountain bikes, the Phoenix comes packed with adjustment opportunities and a suspension progressivity flip-chip allowing the rider to tweak the progression of the rear suspension quickly and easily. However, the most progressive setting is the same as how Bernard Kerr runs his bike, so it's ready for hell-for-leather efforts between the tapes. The less progressive setting is better suited to regular riders. On top of that, the bike's compatible with air and coil shocks.
2024 pivot phoenix black.jpg, by Liam Mercer
Speaking of flip-chips, there's one adjusting the bottom bracket, and the head tube angle – this moves the head tube angle by half a degree. The idea here is to provide a setting for rocky and very technical tracks and another for faster ones. There's also adjustability at the headset, which addresses the reach. It provides riders the opportunity to dial in the reach from 430mm to 525mm in five and 10mm increments on the four frame sizes on offer. Pivot then says that it's compatible with aftermarket reach adjust headsets, too.
The new Phoenix can also run a mixed-wheel setup (650b rear and 29-inch front) and full 29-inch. The smaller wheel adds a few millimetres to the rear wheel travel while boosting agility.
2024 pivot phoenix hero.jpg, by Liam Mercer
As for the geometry, there's a 62.5-degree head tube angle, a 77.3-degree effective seat tube angle, a 443mm chainstay and an S3 (large equivalent) gets a 480mm reach. All those numbers have been taken from the bike in its low setting.
The bike is available as a frame only and in two builds, one boasting RockShox suspension and the other Fox. The RockShox, Ride GX DH bike benefits from SRAM kit all-round, including Maven brakes whereas the Fox, Pro Saint model, sticks to Shimano, with a set of Saint M820 four-piston stoppers. The frame kit comes with a Fox Factory Float X2 shock.
Prices start at $4,799, go up to $6,899 for the Ride GX DH model and top out at $8,499 for the Fox-equipped Pro Saint bike.
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