Pivot Mach 6 Carbon – First Impressions

The Pivot Mach 6C is a bike that’s chock full of neat details. From the well thought out cable routing, compact linkage and a carbon frame that looks ready to take a beating, Dress that up with XTR, carbon wheels and some fresh Fox goodies and you have a seriously drool worthy machine.

Rear suspension is designed by Dave Weagle using his DW Link platform. The rear suspension was designed to tuck the linkage in tightly and maintain a sub-17″ rear chainstay. The short links and stout looking rear triangle give the sense that the frame should be nice and stiff. The frame will accept a direct mount front derailleur and the tab for that can be seen between the two linkages on the front triangle.

There are some fresh goodies on this bike and first up is the 2016 Fox Float X with the EVOL canister. The new air canister gives a clue that the shocks air spring has been tweaked and is touted to have a suppler start of stroke feel but give more support in the mid-stroke. From talking to Chris Cocalis, President and CEO of Pivot, the new shock should benefit riders of all levels.

There are not many of these XTR cranks in rotation with the Shimano 1x ring fitted so I was happy to get some time on them. Shimano is relying on the height and profile of the teeth for chain retention.

No narrow and wide teeth here. Time will tell if it holds the chain on as well as the competition.

A 2016 Fox 36 RC2 is the full meal deal when it comes to a front fork at this travel. With both high and low speed compression easily adjustable it should be easy to dial the fork into my riding style.

In case you are wondering, these are Pivot pivots. Quality hardware is used to keep the rear triangle connected to the front.

I usually ride a large frame but I jumped up to an XL on the M6C to get me the reach that I have come to like. The downside of this is a fairly long head tube so I am running the stem without any spacers beneath it. The Pivot branded bars are my favoured 800mm wide.

The new XTR brake levers and shifters have slimmed clamps to free up some more space on the bar. The carbon brake levers and shaved down housing save yet more grams from what was an already lightweight set up.

Bike jewellery anyone? Check out the finish on the XTR Trail caliper. More incremental improvements over the previous incarnation see the calipers gain some extra surface area to help dissipate heat.

This is our first close look at the Reynolds Blacklable 27.5 AM wheels. The carbon rims have a 31mm external and 23mm inner width and came set up tubeless. Apparently this is the same rim profile that the Pivot factory riders including “stoppie sunday” Bernard Kerr are riding.

This bike did not stay clean long. The Reynolds rims are laced up with bladed straight pull DT Aerolite spokes to DT 240 hubs making for a claimed 1525 gram wheelset, that’s damned light.

With a 32 toot front chainring and the XTR 11-40 tooth rear cassette my knees are complaining a little on the steep and technical climbs. There is a OneUp 45 tooth cog that may see its way onto this bike.

This build comes with a KS LEV Integra dropper post. This is a post that I have on my personal bike and I like the simplicity of the bar mounted lever. Plus it plays nicely with the Shimano brake lever.

The downtube is protected from the rockier elements with a must have area of protection. The bottom bracket is a pressfit model and the frame makes full use of the available width to support the bearings.

This ‘stealth carbon’ version of the frame mutes the M6C graphics a little for a more subtle looking machine. The internal routing is for the dropper post and derailleur cables, with the rear brake line routed externally under the top tube.