I got a 2007 Norco Shore... As soon as I got it home, I pulled off the bars, stem, pedals and seat and tried to make it feel more like my other bikes in the saddle... I also put on a Haro chromoly seatpost so I wouldn't have to worry about breaking off that aluminum POS post in my ribs!

On the street it is like driving a dump truck, but going downhill on a bumpy road it feels really great! It has 7" of travel on the front and rear and hydraulic 8" disc brakes that take quite a bit of getting used to... mostly because the front brake causes the fork to mush down if applied harshly...

This thing is huge and heavy... probably weighs in excess of 55 lbs. and the mods I did to it didn't help much, but it will open up a whole new world of riding for me that I was not previously able to enjoy.

I like it. What co. makes the handlebar?

Is it Atomlab?

Yeah I changed the bars Atomlabs. They are flatter with a very slight backsweep and they also added another inch or so of bar height. The stem go nixed for a Sun Ringle BMX stem with 60mm reach... I got rid of the aluminum seatpost and installed a Haro chromemoly post and seat instead... Just trying to get it to where it doesn't feel quite so weird to me...

It looks sweet but what is it - a mountain bike? I also like the bars. I'll have to check them out.

It's called a Freeride bike... which is sort of a non-racing mountainbike which is built heavier and is more for thrashing and goofing off. I went street riding with a few guys that had bikes like these the other night and they were bombing off of huge 6 foot plus drops onto concrete... the kind of stuff that would normally break your forks, cranks, pedals, frame etc. if it weren't for 8" of suspension travel...

These are great fun to ride... until you have to go up a hill! That's when 55+ pounds of bike and all the suspension sponginess work against you pretty hard!

The Norco is great going downhill, but the 50+ pounds weight makes it pretty hard to do anything else with... and it feels like a chopper... so I got a Kona Coiler from a guy on Craigslist to ride around on the non-downhill trails and courses... at 35 pounds this one feels airlight compared to the Norco, but it's still a tank compared to my BMX bikes... but it has 6" of travel front and rear so it will eat huge bumps... I can ride over tree roots and rocks and it feels like I'm floating a few inches above the ground... the suspension is hard to get used to because I still want to react to all of the bumps that I see ahead of me... it's a tough adjustment to make, but it's a lot of fun to get out and do something different.

I've been going to Black Rock park almost once a week... it's just west of Salem Oregon... here's a little video of it... Most of these guys are 100 times more insane than I ever was when I was young so I don't even attempt a lot of this stuff...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTrrrwI81Y0...feature=related

Nice rig. I run a Mountain Cycle Shockwave 9.5 downhill bike. Pretty much the same style as yours. Freeride and Downhill are damn near the same. Mountain Biking is a blast, especially at a good park with some great singletrack.