The Scott Spark is already one of the lightest and fastest cross-country full-sussers around, but for 2012 the company has pulled out all the stops in an effort to make it even lighter. A 29er model has also been introduced.
We’ve seen it’s possible for the Scott engineers to do, as evidence with the stunning Scale 899, which a frame weight under 900g, and the new Spark borrows much of the tech first soon on that hardtail frame.
How Scott has decreased the frame weight isn’t down to anything radical, but instead subtle refinements, shaving a little weight here, and little weight there. For example, the shock rocker linkage is now a one-piece carbon item, and takes new oversized bearings. A new tapered headtube does away with aluminium hardware, and also stiffens the frame. The dropouts are now fully carbon, and accept post-mount disc brakes that sit inside the stays.
The result of this evolution of the frame is a total weight for the frame is 1790g (3.95lb) for the 26in wheel version and 1890g (4.17g) for the newly introduced 29er.
As well as doing battle with the weight, Scott also upped the travel to 120mm (from 100mm last year) on the 26in bike, while the 29er remains at 100mm of travel. The partnership with DT Swiss continues, and a new Nude2 shock has been developed with improved air spring and damping system. The shock possesses a more progressive damping curve and mode sensitive damping than its predecessor. This means that both travel modes have separate damper settings relative to their travel length and effective forces.
The bike features two shock mounting positions, resulting in a BB drop differential of 7mm, or .5 degree head angle change. All Nude2 equipped bikes have this setting. A brand new feature and the collaboration of SCOTT and RockShox is the DNA3 system. This allows the extension of TwinLoc’s three unique shock modes to the fork.
See more on the brand new Spark with a video on our Facebook page here.
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