2021 Norco Optic C3 review

The Norco Optic C3 is an aggressively shaped short travel 29er that looks to be a solid all-rounder. Although its progressive geometry is right on the money, the bike’s overall capability and potential to inspire confidence are let down due to lackluster suspension.

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The C3 is the base level bike in Norco’s Optic range and it’s a bike that’s designed to tear up the descents while being fully capable of getting you back up to the top for another go.

Norco Optic C3 | The spec

Priced at £3,000 it benefits from a carbon front triangle, and to keep the price competitive, there’s an alloy rear end. There’s full internal cable routing and handy frame protection on the chainstay and underneath the downtube. Other neat features include space for a bottle cage, and an accessory mount hidden on the underside of the top tube.

As for the spec, it’s rather interesting on this bike. A RockShox Pike Select fork delivers 140mm of travel at the front and 125mm of rear squish is damped by RockShox’s Super Deluxe Ultimate shock with a heavy hitting DH tune.

The Optic C3’s drivetrain is provided by Shimano and it’s a mish-mash of Deore, SLX, and XT, with the former providing the crank mated to a press-fit bottom bracket, SLX covering the shifter, and the 10-51t cassette and XT supplying the rear mech. Norco has wisely cherry-picked here saving money where performance isn’t 100% key and spending it where it matters.

2021 norco optic c3 crank.jpg, by Liam Mercer

Shimano has sorted the braking too with a pair of BR-MT420 brakes. They aren’t the most sophisticated in the world but they’re mated to four-pot calipers, which summons up a good level of power. These brakes do feel very wooden, however, which can become a bit of a hazard if you’re not careful in those knee-jerk reaction moments.

As modern as the bike’s geometry is its cockpit, featuring a 780mm wide bar with a 35mm clamp diameter and there’s a 50mm stem. There’s also an X-Fusion Manic dropper with 150mm of travel. While this amount of travel is impressive to see on a medium bike, the seat tube is pretty short at 415mm. It would have been good to see an even longer dropper given the space available but I may just be asking for a little too much here.

The Optic C3 rolls on a pair of Stan’s Flow S1 29” rims laced to Shimano hubs. They get rubber from Vittoria, with a 2.4” Mazza at the front and a 2.35” Martello at the rear. The bike came out of the box with tubes, but thanks to the Stan’s rims, included valves and sealant, this was probably the quickest and easiest tubeless conversion I’ve ever performed.

Norco Optic C3 | How it rides

Thanks to the Optic’s 450mm reach, 76° effective seat tube angle and 50mm stem, it’s a surprisingly roomy, but confident place to sit. Weight feels central over the bottom bracket and when climbing, the front end is easy to weight. Pedaling is rather good too, as the rear end is pretty well behaved, sacrificing minimal travel to pedal bob. The bike’s efficiency is only enhanced thanks to those reasonably fast rolling Vittoria tyres.

However, when charging down descents, I couldn’t help but feel as if the rear suspension was underdamped. Even at the correct sag and with the rebound damping set bang in the middle of its unfortunately narrow 5-click range the bike was too excitable and skittish over quickly repeating hits. Winding the rebound damping to its slowest setting did fix this, to a point, regaining some control over its hyperactive character but it’s still a little too quick, resulting in a ride that’s a little harsher than I would like.

Midstroke support is lacking too. Through compressions and rollers the rear end bogs down in its travel, rather than offering a handful of support. Like the fork, adding volume spacers to the shock could solve this.

Something that’s also not ideal is the shock’s positioning. While the upside down shock may offer more room for a water bottle and accessories inside of the frame, it puts the adjustments in a super fiddly spot. It took some serious finger acrobatics to wind on some low-speed compression and because the bike’s cables can get in the way (they exit the front triangle and enter the rear in this area), the rebound dial can be a task to wind. If you’re a big suspension fettler, this will become a proper pain.

Moving on, there were times when I felt that the fork wasn’t quite up to the job either. It’s great for entry level bikes that aren’t expected to be ridden so aggressively but at speed the Pike Select lacked the refinement and suppleness to soak up bumps while remaining supportive. Thankfully, a pair of bottomless tokens were included with the bike and after popping one in, the fork felt much more usable but when compared to bikes of a similar price, the Pike seems to fall short which is a shame given the bike’s potential.

And that potential is purely down to a well sorted geometry for a bike of this type. Its slack, 65°, head angle summons up a good level of confidence at speed, when tackling tech and when pointed down something puckeringly steep (ignoring the fork’s performance). While it’s definitely not the longest medium bike on the market, the head angle regains stability, while finely balancing an agile and quick-to-corner ride.

Aiding performance when cornering, the low 337mm bottom bracket height makes it a hoot in the bends. It makes you feel more ‘in’ the bike, keeping weight low, and the bike planted as it’s eagerly leant.

Suspension aside, there is clearly a fun and capable bike here and while there have been a number of good spec choices, mainly within the drivetrain, the bike will come alive with some upgrades to its suspension.

Norco Optic C3 | Value

This leads me nicely onto the Optic C3’s value and to be honest, it’s up against some seriously stiff competition, mainly from well-specced alloy bikes, namely the Canyon Spectral 125 AL 6. At £2,850 it rocks a burlier Fox 36 Rhythm fork and posher Shimano SLX 4-pot brakes. The wheels arguably aren’t as nice and it comes with full SLX shifting but its geometry is a little more progressive. Its pricier CF 8 model scored very well in our review, which you can see here.

Then Vitus’s Escarpe 29 CRS will set you back £3,200. While it is a bit more expensive, this bike gets a full carbon frame, a RockShox Lyrik fork, an SLX drivetrain and those SLX 4-pot brakes. Though, admittedly, this bike is a bit of a different beast as it gets 150mm of squish at the front and 140mm at the rear, so it would be a sure stretch to call it a short travel trail ripper.

There’s also Nukeproof’s Reactor 290 Alloy at £3,000 also trumping the Norco in spec if you can forgo the carbon front end. This bike gets its suspension from Marzocchi with the excellent Bomber Z2 matched with a RockShox Super Deluxe shock. There is a bit more travel on offer though, with 150mm at the front and 130mm at the rear. Its geometry is comparable too, getting a slightly steeper head tube and a slightly slacker seat tube angle.

Norco Optic C3 | Verdict

I think that the Optic C3 would be a better bike if there were revisions to its spec. If it swapped the carbon front end for an alloy one, and perhaps downgraded the rims while upgrading at least the suspension, it would become a much more capable bike. I’m sure that upper models of this bike would perform better thanks to higher-end forks, though each bike utilizes the same shock which may be a concern.

The Norco Optic C3 is a bike that I really wanted to like. Its geometry is excellent and let’s be honest, it’s a rather pretty bike. It’s just disappointing that the suspension specced on this bike holds it back.

• www.norco.com
• www.tredz.co.uk

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