Three no-compromise race bikes with very different ways of going about it.

WORDS CHIPPS

PHOTOGRAPHY CHIPPS & ROB LOCKHART

It’s summertime and it’s time for race bikes. Not just any race bikes, but cross-country, as-fast-as-you-can across all terrain, race bikes. The crosscountry race bike is a particular beast – stripped down to ‘just enough’ suspension comfort and travel, barely treaded tyres offering ‘adequate’ grip and a riding position intended to be as efficient as possible for that race against similarly equipped bikes.

A race bike isn’t usually something you might grab for a fun evening on the local singletrack with your pals (unless you’re all racing each other). There are other bikes far better suited to that. There’s an easy parallel to draw with track racing cars, where you get a bucket seat, a roll cage and a steering wheel. There are no carpets, radio or air conditioning – those add weight and distraction – and so it is with our three race bikes. There’s nothing here that would interfere with the rider going as fast as possible.

Weight is pared down and comfort cut to that just-enough threshold. And, just with those stripped out, tuned up race cars, riding one of these bikes fast is a learned experience: lines need to be picked, equipment limitations regarded and a true mastery of the bike will reward a good rider with blistering speed. A half-hearted approach will probably launch you over the bars.

Sourcing bikes to review in a pandemic has been as fun as trying to buy one, so there was a certain amount of compromise needed to get all three bikes in at the same time. Our medium-sized ‘MLarge’-riding testers had to make do with a small NS, a medium Trek and a large Scott, but all were rideable by the same riders without much difficulty.

Mostly dry, firm trails during the couple of months of testing allowed us to really see what the bikes would be like in perfect race conditions, on longer days out, as well as on after-work, hour-long thrashes.

The end of the test period even included a chance to get the bikes dusty in the heat of competition as our local midweek race series had a round at Lee Quarry, just over the hill from Singletrack (Remote Working) Towers. The course was fast and loose, with short, punchy climbs that really tested both acceleration and handling.

NS SYNONYM RC2

Price: £4,699.00 From: Hotlines, hotlines-uk.com

NS Bikes is better known for hard-hitting, long-travel enduro machines than skinny cross-country machines. However, the Polish brand started on hardtail jump and trail bikes and has toyed with short-travel park bikes in the past and would claim that its background in making hardtail street and stunt bikes handle well has influenced what it brings to the world of minimal travel, maximal speed cross-country bikes.

NS goes on to say that the geometry of the Synonym is miles away from any short-travel bike you can find on the market. It has taken the progressive, elongated fit of modern trail bikes and brought it to a cross-country setting, figuring that if ‘longer, lower, slacker’ helps trail bikes go faster on rough terrain, then that same philosophy will translate to the cross-country race bike. In fact, with a mere 100mm of travel on tap, a cross-country race bike has even more need of the trail-hit-handling that modern geometry can bring.

Like our other bikes here, actually getting hold of the NS was a little fraught in our mid-pandemic world, but this tasty gold RC2 model did show up, although a size small was the only one available. Thanks, though, to that longer, lower, slacker geometry – the 445mm reach on the small size is actually 20mm longer than our size medium Trek Supercaliber – the small sized bike actually fitted all our testers up to 5ft 9in (our preferred size of medium would have had a ‘properly modern’ reach of 475mm).

The Bike

OK, there’s no pussyfooting around here: the NS Synonym RC2 is gold. It’s not yellow, or copper or metallic brown.

It proudly wears a proper, satin finished, gold paint job.

Appearing on this machine at the start line of the local Wednesday night fish and chipper race is a bit like lining up with new white race shoes, or your name on the back of your jersey. Ride it, by all means, but you’d better be good at it.

This isn’t a bike for the shy.

With a heritage based more in the jump, stunt and drop world, NS (originally ‘Northshore’) Bikes is keen to make exactly these kinds of waves with its first foray into the more head-down, flat-out world of cross-country. That’s not to say the bike is just for racing, in fact, NS says: “We deeply believe that short travel, hardcore, lightweight XC/Trail bikes are the most fun you can have on two wheels when you don’t have a chairlift.” – which is surely everyone who doesn’t live in the Scottish Highlands, right?

The stem encourages head-down riding

Ergonomic, isn’t it

Dinky rear rocker gives up 100mm

The Synonym is centred around a 100mm travel frame, with flex stays driving a rocker-actuated Fox Float EVOL rear shock and a 100mm Fox 32 Step-Cast fork.

The gearing is SRAM Eagle, with a mix of GX and NX. Even at this level we’re afraid you don’t get top-end components. All of the tech goes into the frame and fork, you have to go up to the RC1 model at £6,699 for XO level components. Saying that, there’s nothing here that’ll stop you from lining up at your local (or national) cross-country race, in your white shoes, and shredding between the tapes.