The Pivot Switchblade Aluminium is a fully with 135 millimetres of rear suspension travel and a 150 or even 160 millimetre fork. The manufacturer categorises the bike as a trail bike. Trail bikes are on everyone's lips among mountain bikers, but hardly any other MTB category is described so differently. For us, these are bikes that generally have 120 to 130 millimetres of suspension travel and can be ridden with maximum agility on trails of all kinds. In America, this is defined more freely, where trail bikes can also have a little more suspension travel. Here they are called all-mountain. Anyway, you can find all BIKE classifications here here.
Back to the Switchblade: In order to give more people access to the according to manufacturer best bikes on the market, Pivot has now added an aluminium version to the carbon model. The frame geometry, the sensitive and forgiving VPP rear triangle (DW-Link) patented by Dave Weagle with a virtual pivot point and the suspension travel have remained unchanged. Strength, stiffness and riding performance on the trail have also been retained. Only the frame material and - of course - the price are different.
Convertible and Super Boost Plus
So the principle of the convertible bike, which can safely accommodate two wheel sizes: 29-inch and 27.5+ up to 3.25 inches wide, remained the same. The Super Boost Plus standard makes it possible: the rear triangle with a hub installation width of 157 millimetres originally comes from downhill bikes. Pivot adopted the hub width for the first time in the trail bike sector, which leaves room for the widest plus tyres and at the same time allows the ultra-short chainstays of 428 millimetres in length, which should ensure extremely lively handling.
There is no quick geometry adjustment on the trail (or in the garage at home) using a flip chip or similar. Differently high lower headset shells adjust the angle by 0.75 degrees and therefore also the bottom bracket height slightly. The choice is made when ordering. You can find geometry details in the geometry table below.
[Update] Pivot Switchblade Alu: Price and models
Cheap is relative at Pivot. After all, the Pivot Switchblade made of carbon is one of the most Top 5 most expensive mountain bikes in the world! With prices starting at 4099 US dollars, the aluminium Switchblade is also an expensive bike. In the top configuration, it even costs 6199 dollars in America. Pivot's euro prices are slightly higher than the dollar prices, with the aluminium Switchblade costing 4799 and 7299 euros in Germany. Available immediately in four model variants.
Sebastian Brust
Editor
