2024 Pivot Switchblade
Wheel Size: 29’’; compatible with 27.5’’ rear wheel
Travel: 142 mm rear / 160 mm front
Geometry Highlights:
- Sizes offered: XS, Small, Medium, Large, XL
- Headtube angle: 65.2° / 65.7° (adjustable, see below)
- Reach: 465 mm (size Medium)
- Chainstay length: 431 mm (Size Medium)
Frame Material: Carbon Fiber
Price: Complete bikes $6,399 to 11,599 USD
Intro
The Switchblade has been in Pivot’s lineup for quite a while now (and Pivot founder Chris Cocalis has an even longer track record with the name, dating back to his prior company, Titus). As the name might suggest, the Switchblade has been intended to be a super versatile all-rounder Trail bike.
With the latest version, announced today, Pivot hasn’t seriously changed the way that they describe the new Switchblade. As they put it, the Switchblade is the “definitive do-it-all mountain bike, up for everything from ‘singletrack to bike park, from flow to chunk, from pain cave climb to ragged edge, full-gas descent.’” That’s a wide range of use cases, so how has Pivot gone about making a bike to cover all those bases, and how does it compare (on paper) to the outgoing model? Let’s take a look.
The Frame
The prior-generation Switchblade was one of the first bikes to get Pivot’s current vertically oriented shock layout, and the overall lines of the new one have barely changed from those of its predecessor. (Hats off to Pivot’s design team for making something that still looks modern on a bike that was unveiled four years ago.) As per usual for Pivot, the Switchblade frame is offered in carbon fiber only.
The Switchblade is still a 142mm-travel bike that gets that travel via a DW-Link suspension design, and is built around a 160mm-travel fork, too. Pivot’s preferred Super Boost spacing is still here, though the Switchblade now features a UDH for SRAM Transmission compatibility.
Most of the other design details are in keeping with what we’re used to from Pivot. The cable routing is internal; there’s a water bottle mount inside the front triangle; they add accessory mounts for Pivot’s Dock tool system under both the top tube and down tube; and there are ample rubber guards on the chainstay, seat stay, and the underside of the downtube.
While the overall suspension layout hasn’t changed from the prior-generation Switchblade, Pivot says that they have tweaked the kinematics a bit, seemingly with a focus on improving downhill performance. The details of what changed aren’t specified, but Pivot says they’ve drawn on what they learned from developing the current Firebird to improve the more aggressive descending side of the Switchblade’s capabilities.
Fit & Geometry
Given that the prior-generation Switchblade had been around for about four years now, it’s no great surprise that Pivot has made the new one a bit longer and slacker — but the changes they made aren’t wildly dramatic, either.
The Switchblade is offered in the same five sizes, XS, S, M, L, and XL; the reach on the XS has held steady at 410 mm, but the other sizes have all grown by 10 mm (440 mm on the Small through 500 mm on the XL), while the headtube has been slackened by 0.8°, to 65.2°. The seat tube has gotten a touch steeper (76° effective on XS through Large frames; 76.5° on the XL), and the stack height has been increased a little bit across the board, too (to 638 mm on the Medium).
Those numbers are all in the low geometry position, which produces a 29 mm bottom bracket drop to round things out; the high setting raises the bottom bracket by 6 mm, steepens the angles by 0.5°, and adds 5 mm to the reach figures while subtracting a similar amount from the stack heights.
The other notable change is that the Switchblade now features size-specific chainstay lengths, though they’re mostly pretty subtle. The XS, Small, and Medium frames all share the same 431 mm length that the prior-generation bike used across the size range; the Large bumps that up ever so slightly to 432 mm, with the only really big change happening on the XL, which grows to 436 mm.
Those all seem like pretty normal numbers for what’s meant to be a versatile all-rounder of a bike — probably in a good way. Pivot also says that the Switchblade can be run in a mixed-wheel configuration in its high geometry setting, but don’t publish a geometry chart for that particular setup.
The Builds
Pivot offers the Switchblade in six total build specs, following their standard Ride / Pro / Team tiers, with a SRAM and Shimano drivetrain / brake option at each level. As per usual for Pivot, Fox handles the suspension irrespective of the drivetrain brand, and the Pro-level builds have an optional carbon fiber wheel upgrade. All the builds come with 29’’ wheels at both ends, shod in Maxxis Minion DHF front / DHRII rear tires (the rubber compounds and casings are specified, but appear to be 3C MaxxTerra / Exo+ at both ends).
- Drivetrain: Shimano SLX w/ XT rear derailleur
- Cranks: Race Face Ride
- Brakes: Shimano SLX 4-piston (w/ 203 mm front / 180 mm rear rotors)
- Fork: Fox 36 Performance
- Shock: Fox Float X Performance
- Wheels: DT Swiss M1900
- Dropper Post: Fox Transfer Performance Elite (XS: 125 mm; S: 150 mm; M: 175 mm; L & XL: 200 mm)
- Drivetrain: SRAM GX T-Type
- Cranks: SRAM GX T-Type
- Brakes: SRAM Code R (w/ 200 mm front / 180 mm rear rotors)
- Fork: Fox 36 Performance
- Shock: Fox Float X Performance
- Wheels: DT Swiss M1900
- Dropper Post: Fox Transfer Performance Elite (XS: 125 mm; S: 150 mm; M: 175 mm; L & XL: 200 mm)
- Drivetrain: Shimano XT w/ XTR rear derailleur
- Cranks: Race Face AEffect R
- Brakes: Shimano XT 4-piston (w/ 203 mm front / 180 mm rear rotors)
- Fork: Fox 36 Factory
- Shock: Fox Float X Factory
- Wheels: DT Swiss XM1700
- Upgrade: DT Swiss XMC1501 Carbon (+$1,200)
- Dropper Post: Fox Transfer Factory (XS: 125 mm; S: 150 mm; M: 175 mm; L & XL: 200 mm)
- Drivetrain: SRAM X0 T-Type
- Cranks: SRAM X0 T-Type
- Brakes: SRAM Code RSC (w/ 200 mm front / 180 mm rear rotors)
- Fork: Fox 36 Factory
- Shock: Fox Float X Factory
- Wheels: DT Swiss XM1700
- Upgrade: DT Swiss XMC1501 Carbon (+$1,200)
- Dropper Post: Fox Transfer Factory (XS: 125 mm; S: 150 mm; M: 175 mm; L & XL: 200 mm)
- Drivetrain: Shimano XTR
- Cranks: Race Face Next R
- Brakes: Shimano XTR 4-piston (w/ 203 mm front / 180 mm rear rotors)
- Fork: Fox 36 Factory
- Shock: Fox Float X Factory
- Wheels: DT Swiss XMC1501 Carbon
- Dropper Post: Fox Transfer Factory (XS: 125 mm; S: 150 mm; M: 175 mm; L & XL: 200 mm)
- Drivetrain: SRAM XX T-Type
- Cranks: SRAM XX T-Type
- Brakes: SRAM Code Ultimate Stealth (w/ 200 mm front / 180 mm rear rotors)
- Fork: Fox 36 Factory
- Shock: Fox Float X Factory
- Wheels: DT Swiss XMC1501 Carbon (+$1,200)
- Dropper Post: Fox Transfer Factory (XS: 125 mm; S: 150 mm; M: 175 mm; L & XL: 200 mm)
Pivot is also offering a limited-edition pink “Talon” paint option on the Switchblade, in homage to the Sun Eagle Talon that helped kickstart Pivot founder Chris Cocalis’ journey in bike design 35 years ago.
The limited-edition pink Talon paint is offered on the Pro and Team builds only. Its specs are the same as the standard builds, but with the carbon wheel upgrade applied by default on the Pro builds. The Talon edition also comes with a $200 price premium over the other paint options.
Some Questions / Things We’re Curious About
(1) Pivot’s description for the Switchblade covers a very wide range of uses — so where does it feel most at home, and just how versatile is it?
(2) And how does the Switchblade compare to a bunch of the other super-versatile mid-travel Trail bikes out there, including the Santa Cruz Hightower, Orbea Occam LT, Trek Fuel EX, and others?
Bottom Line (For Now)
The new Pivot Switchblade doesn’t look like a massive departure from the old one, but rather, a nice refinement of a longstanding and popular bike (and one that a bunch of our reviewers got along with quite well.) We’ve got the new Switchblade on the way for review, so stay tuned for much more on how it all adds up on the trail.