Norco bikes are made overseas. Pretty sure Devinci is the only large North American brand still manufacturing most of its full lineup domestically.

Really rad review, and I appreciate the individual writeups for each bike. I actually just bought a Sentinel after a (albeit snowy) test ride up in Bellingham, and some recommendations from Brandon towards the Transition line.

I noticed that you guys felt like the casing wasn't substantial enough on the Transition's tires. However, the Orbea was also running the Exo casing, but just had a wider front tire. Did similar complaints carry over to the Orbea, or was it more a product of the narrower tires on the Sentinel?

Additionally, did you guys ever try throwing another volume spacer in the DPX2 on the Sentinel to combat the feeling of frequently reaching the end?

The bike pictured is mine - I had the CC DBCoil IL and then swapped over to a DVO Topaz, which I like much more than the Cane Creek. While the Cane Creek shock felt great for the first ride, it very quickly developed a "knocking" in the stroke of the shock. I discovered that it was due to poor bushing tolerances on the shock shaft, which were causing the shock to cant slightly out of line with the shock body in the early stroke. This was allowing for air ingress past the main seal head into the damping oil. My shock only lasted 2-3 rides before it started weeping some oil and clearly had air in the fluid.

I sent the shock back to Cane Creek, who gave me an impressively quick turnaround. However, when I spoke with one of their folks on the phone, he said that they did the rebuild but that the main issue behind the problem (which he wouldn't specify) did not yet have a permanent solution. I lost faith in Cane Creek as this is the second shock I've had from them that has had significant bushing issues, and required rebuilds on an all-too-frequent basis.

The DVO shock, once dialed in, has been outstanding. While I do love the CS lever that Cane Creek uses, the balance of pop/plow has been much more to my liking with the DVO, and I am able to add quite a bit of support through the air spring tuning options as well.

Exactly what I was thinking. As a Seattle resident, I go to REI quite a bit for backpacking gear, etc., but I can't even remember the last time I stepped into their bike department. It doesn't help that the bike shops seem to be shoved into the back corners of their stores - if they hope to appeal to customers who wouldn't otherwise be seeking out bike stuff in their stores, they really should try to bring bikes more front and center, and carry some higher end stuff. Even if they were to carry 1 or 2 of the very high end bikes that don't necessarily fly off of the shelves, it would give them an aspect of credibility for carrying that kind of eye candy.

Given their exclusive relationship with Ghost, why not launch a demo tour program? Seems like a great way to exploit the reach of their retail stores...I would be curious to demo one of the longer travel Ghost rigs with the CCDB coil.

Hart: 4:17.22
Atherton: 4:55.88

Thirion: 4:01.38
Atherton: 4:34.19

Gwin: 2:51.92
Atherton: 3:20.44

Minnaar: 3:21.17
Atherton: 4:08.55

T. Brosnan: 4:32.76
R. Atherton: 5:05.43

wow...she shur is purdy

Gwin 2:55.74
Atherton 3:31.22

Canfield seems like an awesome company that has quietly been making awesome products for a long while now. They're in my neighborhood now (PNW), so I'm looking forward to a trip up to their HQ to demo a couple bikes in the next month or two.