BIKE CHECK: Ellie Smith's Norco Range DH build

Ellie Smith's 2022 has been a huge year. After winning the National Downhill title at Maydena Bike Park, Ellie took part in the Momentum camp earlier this year. And after that, she went overseas to race two World Cups in Lenzerheide and Andorra, before the World Championships in Les Gets, France. She backed that up with two of the EWS rounds – right before coming to Crankworx in Cairns.

Ellie races on a Norco Range, but it's a completely different beast to the Norco Range C2 that Ryan tested for us in summer. 

While the easy to spot difference is the RockShox Boxxer Ultimate fork, you can see that Ellie also runs the bike as a mullet – with a 29" front wheel and 27.5" rear. She uses a WRP link that also eeks out 200mm from the Range, so it's a full 200/200mm downhill bike with a virtual high pivot system. Ellie has a Super Deluxe Ultimate Coil in the back end.

Ellie also has a SRAM XO 7-speed downhill group set, with a 34t ring on 170mm cranks – although she noted she would like to run shorter cranks.

On the back wheel, Ellie has a Maxxis Test Pilot tyre. These are models that aren't yet released, and in this case it's a Maxxis DHR II in a 2.5" width. Ellie had this from World Championships, and really likes it so has kept it on. She has an Assegai on the front but may change it.

'After doing seeding I realised there is a lot of flat pedalling. So I may put a DHR II on the front. The Assegai is sick for the rest of the track though.'

'Since Europe I have my suspension setup a bit stiffer since racing in Europe, and it turns out it's a bit better for this track as well as it's not too steep and there's lots of pedalling.'

On Europe, Ellie said this year was a great learning curve, especially after finishing her training as a welder over the previous years. She's gone into a big season of racing, and the gains made in Europe have set her up well for the years to come.

'I learnt a lot. Innsbruck was similar to Australia for a downhill track so I didn't change anything. But Lenzerheide was a shock to the system. I didn't qualify, I was totally struggling to get used to the track. The whole first third of the track was pretty wild.'

'Afterwards, I looked back at videos and saw that my suspension was sitting way too deep through everything, which is why I was feeling so uncomfortable on everything, as it was getting stuck down and it wasn't returning for the next hit.'

'I learnt a lot from that race and quickly applied it for Andorra the next weekend.' And that worked, as Ellie finished 14th at the Andorra World Cup! 'I stucked with those settings, but fiddled with some compression here and there, but the air pressure is all the same.'

'I just want to keep riding,' Ellie said whena sked what the summer ahead is bringing. 'The fire is still lit. I want to keep training and ride hard, and just do as many events as possible here in Australia leading up to next year. I'm still deciding what path I want to go down, whether it's enduro or downhill, but for now I'll just keep riding as much as I can, and figure it out!

Click through the gallery for more details. Thanks for the chat Ellie!