Over the past few years, Pivot has been actively overhauling its range to keep its bikes up to date with modern trends. Today, the brand has made several small tweaks to the iconic Switchblade, retaining the all-mountain ride it's known for while widening its riding remit.

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Pivot reckons that the latest iteration of the Switchblade is a complete do-it-all bike that's designed to excel over singletrack and the odd bike park jaunt and to hit that goal, the brand has only made little changes to the bike but together, they present quite the update.

2024 pivot switchblade linkage.png, by Liam Mercer

As before, the Switchblade rocks 142mm of DW-link delivered suspension at the rear which is paired with a 160mm travelled fork on all models. On the subject of suspension, Pivot claims to have enhanced the bike's linkage. We were told that the shock tune has remained the same but the lower link has been extended a little to offer a more rearward wheel path. This should boost the bike's ability to absorb square-edged hits and make for a smoother ride.

The brand has also brought this 'small changes' philosophy to the Switchblades geometry, gracing it with the classic longer, slacker and lower approach. As such, the reach figure grows by 10mm and the chainstay has stretched by a few millimetres in pursuit of more stability. Other changes include a slacker 65.2-degree head tube angle and a 76-degree effective seat tube. The reach measures 480mm on a large and the chainstay comes in at 432mm. As before, there's a flip chip that steepens the head angle and seat tube by half a degree, while raising the BB and although it ships with 29-inch wheels at both ends, this flip chip allows the bike to accommodate a 650b wheel with a 2.8in tyre at the rear.

2024 pivot switchblade chainstay.png, by Liam Mercer

Then, the Switchblade gets some stalwart Pivot features, such as size-specific chainstays that span from 431mm to 436mm and each frame size gets its layup in a bid to provide the same ride quality throughout the size range. This is done by scaling the stiffness across all sizes and analysing the strength-to-weight ratio independently for each frame size.

Pivot is bringing three builds to the UK with one of them being a very limited Talon edition that harks back to the Sun Eagle Talon and 35 years of the brand's innovation. Dubbed the Limited Edition Talon, this model of the Switchblade gets a vibrant pink colourway with old-school yellow Talon logos. A very limited quantity of these bikes will be brought for sale in the UK but I'm told that they've already been sold.

2024 pivot switchblade talon.jpg, by Liam Mercer

However, two other models will be more readily available, the Pro XO AXS Transmission and the Pro XT/XTR. The former gets SRAM's XO Eagle Transmission drivetrain with a Fox 36 Factory fork and Fox Float X Factory shock. It's stopped thanks to a pair of SRAM Code RSC brakes and it rolls on a set of DT Swiss XM1700s that are wrapped with a Maxxis Minion DHF at the front and a Minion DHR II at the rear.

The Pro XT/XTR benefits from many of the same components as the Pro XO but instead it features a Shimano XT/XTR drivetrain with Shimano XT brakes.

As for prices, the Pro XO AXS Transmission will set you back £9,000 and the Pro XT/XTR is priced at £8,000.

If you want to know our early verdict, make sure you read our Pivot Switchblade Pro XT/XTR first-ride review. 

• www.pivotcycles.com

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