Pivot Shuttle AM Race first ride review

The Pivot Shuttle AM is the brand's latest eMTB, targeted at riders looking for maximum versatility, who want a bike to tackle anything a mountain can chuck in their way.

The bike features 148mm of rear-wheel travel, controlled by the DW-link suspension system, designed to give ample support in the mid stroke and control when things get really rowdy. Up front, there's 160mm of travel via a Fox 36 fork.

Things get interesting in the middle of the bike. A limited-edition Bosch Performance CX Race electric bike motor – curtailed to 500 units per brand – offers peak performance for assisted racers and riders looking for the crème de la crème of performance.

All this comes at a price, though – you're going to need deep pockets to kit your garage out with this one.

Fans of Pivot's DW-link suspension will find themselves in familiar territory, while newcomers will find a bike that's very easy to get on and shred at full gas straight from the box.

Pivot Shuttle AM Race frame details

Full details of the bike and its family can be found in our news story covering the launch of the new Pivot Shuttle AM.

Pivot has given the bike a full-carbon frame, with front and rear triangles joined together by a pair of alloy links. The location of these links comes within Dave Weagle's DW-link design. They're placed to offer independence between pedalling forces and the suspension's damper. This enables a lighter tune to be used on the shock, because its not trying to control bounce caused by pedalling.

Pivot also says the system prevents braking forces from impacting on feel, as well as providing impressive square-edge bump compliance.

The frame comes with a geometry flip chip, which can be altered on the trail if you wish. It changes the angles by half a degree and adds 5mm to the bottom bracket height, if you put the bike in the steeper and higher setting.

For a day of rallying the bike around Finale Ligure's world-famous trails, I left it in its lower setting for the duration.

The frame's finishing touches are neat.

There's extensive protection for the carbon tubes, along the chainstays, up onto the seatstays, as well as a flexible flap stuck in place over the lower-pivot area to keep the bearings clean.

There's also heavy-duty protection for the motor.

If you wish, a co-branded Topeak tool can be nestled under the top tube, so you won't forget your hex and Torq keys on a ride. However, there's no internal frame storage on this rig.

Pivot Shuttle AM Race motor and spec details

If you've seen the price, hopefully you'll not be surprised to see Pivot has given the Race a very, very fancy build.

I'll start with the motor. It's the Bosch Performance CX Race unit, the first time Pivot has partnered with Bosch on a bike.

In order to spec Bosch's top-end motor, Pivot had to get pre-approval from the manufacturer that the build was appropriate for such a powerful unit.

It pumps out 85Nm of torque and up to 400 per cent of your input, in a package designed for the ever-developing world of ebike racing. This means the Race power mode has ample early torque, and a moderately aggressive (but in my experience, controllable and almost natural-feeling) power curve, with plenty of over-run too.

The motor is paired with a large 750Wh battery, and once officially launched, a 250Wh battery extender pack will be mountable onto the frame.

When it comes to specifications, The big three component brands are all represented.

Suspension comes from Fox, with a Factory 36 fork giving 160mm travel and a Float X shock sat in the middle of the bike.

SRAM provides its XX Transmission – this top-end drivetrain feels really at home on an electric mountain bike, where slick shifting up and down the cassette under power is one of its highlights.

Shimano rounds it all out with its XTR Trail brakes – a favourite pick of Chris Cocalis, Pivot's founder.

Pivot Shuttle AM Race initial ride impressions

I tested the bike for one day in Finale Ligure, Italy. While I'm no local, I had recently spent a week in the area on holiday, so I was able to get up to speed pretty quickly.

My ride took in many of the area's well-known trails, a few cheeky options, as well as around 800m of tarmac, doubletrack and singletrack climbing.

I set up the sag on the shock and fork, and twiddled the dials to my preference in the car park. I quickly got the bike feeling as I wanted, with minimal tweaking needed on the trails – it's an easy bike to get feeling good from the off.

The EXO+ casing tyres are on the limit of what I'd like to see on such a capable bike. While I didn't suffer any punctures on the test ride, if I was riding the bike regularly over rocky terrain, I'd want a tougher rear tyre, or a tyre insert to ward off a long walk home.

For this reason, I set the tyres up with slightly higher pressures than usual – 23psi in the front and 25psi in the rear.

Pivot Shuttle AM Race climbing performance

The Bosch motor and DW-link suspension combine seamlessly on the climbs to create a bike that poses no complaints when the trail turns skyward.

Pivot’s chosen linkage is famously neutral, remaining stable and calm under pedalling forces. This leaves the tyres to do their job, engaging with the dirt to transfer torque to forward motion.

Though avoiding excessive bobbing, there’s enough freedom of movement in the suspension to enable the rear end to track the ground’s undulations, and so there’s minimal rear-wheel scrabbling when the trail gets cut up. Keep the power going, and the wheels continue pushing you forward up loose, rocky climbs.

Bosch’s CX Performance Race motor is a noticeable upgrade over the standard Performance CX, but you pay the financial price for improved performance.

The additional torque is most beneficial on steep and technical climbs, and is clear when riding with others using non-race motors.

I was able to accelerate quicker and keep my speed going on ever-chunkier sections while others faltered. Ratchet-cranking up tech is easier thanks to what feels like a longer over-run of assistance.

There also seems to be a more natural-feeling power curve, matching your pedal efforts, while low-cadence pedalling is also better supported. When you reach the motor’s cut-off point, the power tails off more gently, too.

The motor definitely has extra oomph over the standard unit, and I can see it being a real bonus if you want to tackle the techiest of climbs or enter some eMTB racing.

Though the chassis is stiff, off-camber and potentially pingy climbs didn’t seem to pose issues for the Shuttle AM. The tyres track the ground smoothly, ensuring their tread can do the job.

The shape of the bike doesn’t throw up any red flags. The seat angle feels comfortable, with your hips amply over the stiff, boxy bottom bracket area. While the reach of the bike won’t set any records, there’s enough room between the saddle and bar to be able to make those body-weight shifts needed to navigate technical ascents.

Pivot Shuttle AM Race descending performance

The neutrality that enables the Shuttle AM to just get the job done on the way up is mirrored on descents.

The DW-link suspension deftly doles out 148mm of travel at the rear. It’s a painful cliché to use, but the suspension really is pretty supple early on, offering comfort and traction, before providing a lot of support as you push through to the mid stroke.

Over high-frequency buzz, the tyres and suspension work together to make sure your eyeballs aren’t being shaken out of their sockets, while you can really add speed as you push on the pedals.

The chassis is stiff, so it’s a really satisfying bike to load heavily into a corner. The frame gives you a lateral platform to push against, while the suspension provides the vertical. Aggressive cornering seems to be the bike’s bread and butter as you squash the tyres into the ground to exert maximum exit speed.

However, cornering like this can highlight a couple of spec shortcomings.

The Minion DHR II tyre corners like it’s on rails, until it gets derailed. At that point, it spits its figurative dummy and you find the back end of the bike stepping out wildly. Keep it under control and it’s hilarious, but beware of things going pear-shaped.

There’s a similar phenomenon with the motor. It’s quick to react to pedal inputs in the Race mode, which is handy on techy climbs.

However, adjust your pedal position mid-corner and you might find 250W of power being pushed through the drivetrain just when you need consistency between trail and tyre.

Again, it’s fun when you keep the front tyre locked and loaded. No doubt, the back wheel spitting dirt mid-berm looks cool to anyone following, but I definitely tried to remember to turn the motor mode down a notch or two when descending.

This mid-travel eMTB relies on a Fox Factory 36 fork up front to keep things on the straight and narrow. With 160mm travel, it's a fair pairing with the 148mm back end.

The chassis is, in my opinion, stiff enough on a bike of this ilk – you can still charge into rock gardens and matted roots. Heavier or more aggressive riders might want to look at the AM’s bigger sibling, the Pivot LT, with its Fox 38 fork.

With big wheels and a large-capacity battery, I was expecting the Pivot to feel like a bit of a tanker in tighter terrain. However, I was pleasantly surprised at the bike’s willingness to be picked up and popped over knobbly terrain, or slung through corners.

While the latest generation of mid-weight ebikes have an edge in the handling stakes, it’s safe to say the chassis, shape and suspension on the Shuttle AM do little to hamper handling.

Spec-wise, this top-end model is understandably dripping in kit.

Shimano’s XTR 4-piston brakes are punchy, and dealt with Finale’s fast descents and my oaf-like grabs at the levers to try to control my speed.

Other than the aforementioned occasional dummy spitting, the pair of Minions, in their EXO+ casings, are great all-rounder tyres. On UK-spec bikes, they wrap around Newmen carbon wheels, which didn’t feel harsh over the rocky test tracks.

Fox suspension needs little introduction – the latest GRIP2 damper didn’t beat me up, and the Float X shock is a decent mid-weight bike component.

SRAM’s new XX Transmission works well on an eMTB. Shifting under power is excellent, as the chain transitions smoothly from sprocket to sprocket.

A number of test bikes at the press camp suffered from quite a lot of knocking while riding rough descents. Pivot’s engineers suggested a faulty batch of Fox Transfer posts was to blame, though it’d be interesting to spend more time on the new Bosch motors to see if this may have been the cause.

The overall silence of the rest of the bike may have exacerbated how loud the rattle really was.

Pivot Shuttle AM Race bottom line

On first impressions, the Pivot Shuttle AM is a super-sorted all-mountain package for those looking for an assisted ride.

As I’ve found with Pivot bikes in the past, there’s little that jumps out at you as exceptional. Though this may sound like damming with faint praise, the bike simply does its job very well, without throwing up any quirks or complications that may require a bit of rider adjustment.

This Shuttle AM is the kind of bike I feel happy jumping on and getting right up to speed as soon as I throw a leg over it; that's not something every bike achieves, especially on such flat-out terrain.