I received mine with fork on Friday. I'm going to do an inspection and partial assemble of BB/Crank, headset, and brake mounts to check alignment and report if mine has similar issues to Carbonazza. So far the headset bearing races do not look great either.

I will do any sanding/epoxy work as needed at that point, and then send it to the paint room. As this is going to be a gravel/commuter/monstercross bike, I'm thinking it's going to need to be as obnoxious as possible. VERY tempted to do a bight yellow to neon pink fade with pearl black lettering, but all neons lose their lustre over time in the sun. Open to suggestions on that one!

Another idea is to do a blue/purple chameleon with bright yellow, about 60/40 of each one way or another.

Damn what bike parks are open into November? New England's got a secret...

Do I seriously need to disassemble this frame back to the two triangles to install a shock? Am I an idiot? What in the ever loving fuck is going on here? The frame was already a nightmare to put together to begin with...

It'll be wall art then, I'm not putting any more money into the frame at this point. Lesson learned.

I had one of the first XL ranges in North America - I placed my order 1-2 months before the dealer launch/product numbers were available due to a mild mistake from Norco, which they honoured anyway. I then proceeded to spend a whole season at Sun Peaks and elsewhere smashing the shit out of the bike, which I think is a solid test given the mountain's reputation to devour anything with a single crown on it after a couple days of riding. I've said before in this thread, but since we're on the topic again, I'll reiterate it.

My Range, which Norco spent years on, had a couple issues that IMO are relevant to a knockoff/open mold version:

1. mine was subject to a soft recall where not all the bolts had not all the right amount of locktite on them from the factory. There's about twice as many fiddly bolts than most other suspension designs due to the complexity. I think this might not work great for open mold riders who just buy a bike, build it up, and send it - this bike would require a strip back to nothing and a full re-go with grease, anti-seize, and red+blue locktite where appropriate in various parts to work properly/reliably

2. Even after issue 1 was resolved, a handful of bolts kept loosening off after a couple rides. I can only imagine this'll be worse with this version.

3. There's so many small bolts and fiddly parts, I don't trust them to be available long-term from Norco, let alone Tideace/Miracle. This might be a nice bike for a couple seasons, but it might be hard to enjoy for a long period of time (which I guess could be said of anything on this forum?).

I mean, I wouldn't necessarily trust a somewhat fly-by-night rebrander of frames to do their due diligence around ensuring this thing can handle a 200mm dual crown out front, but hey, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

From their instagram, it looks like they have three versions coming. 170/170, 180/180, and the dual crown version.

I can see liking 170/170 sometimes over 180/180 for enduro racing, depending on the terrain you're racing/bike build. Some stops of the BC enduro series were such that you really wish you had a downhill bike for the long, brutal, and technical descents, and other stops were a lot more flowy, where pumping and carrying speed through flow-tech would win the day. After all, we do see the pros sometimes selecting bikes with as short as ~140mm rear over their ~170mm options for certain stops of the world series.

On the bright side, maybe this means the 1003 will be available in more than two sizes if Sherpa orders them? Fingers crossed.

Remedy, if you haven't ordered your frame yet, the new ones come with the revised rear triangle so it's no longer an issue for you.

How would you compare the flex present with JJJ's flex fix on your bike to what you can see in StefanB's video?