2010 Norco Faze Carbon Suspension Rocker Review
Besides individual component levels, the difference between the high-end Norco Faze SL and Faze 1, and the lower-end Faze 2 and Faze 3, is the suspension rocker. The low-end bikes come with an aluminum rocker with two travel positions (97mm and 116mm) where the high-end bikes come with a high-modulus carbon fibre rocker.
I was in Bicycle World discussing this with Rob, and for grins we called up Norco to see how much the carbon rocker cost.
I was expecting it to be $300 or so, which would be far too expensive to pick up just to see what difference it would make to the bike. But when I was quoted $100 - hell yeah, bring that puppy in! Especially since the part appears to be 2010 model year specific and so there probably is a limited number of them floating around, so the window of opportunity for the upgrade is likely to be short.
The two parts are nearly identical from a geometry perspective. The carbon part only has the one travel position (116mm) but to be honest, I never understood why the alloy bikes provided multiple travel positions. The bearings appear to be the same in both. The only major difference is that the spacing between the shock mount ears is 30mm on the carbon part vs 33mm on the alloy part, which necessitated turning 1.5mm off each shock spacer on my lathe. If you don't have a lathe, order the carbon bike's shock spacers as well.
The carbon part is marginally lighter. 40g really isn't that much difference.
On the bike... I'm very suspicious of "feel" claims. My time as a race engineer has taught me to mistrust subjective opinion and to rely on objective data, because human beings are totally unreliable when sensing absolutes; we pick up on deltas instead, and deltas are usually misleading. That being said, I think I can feel a difference in the way the rear end of the bike feels. I want to say it feels stiffer, but it is very hard to tell. It could entirely be wishful thinking or self delusion.
So the primary benefit, as far as I can tell, is cosmetic - the carbon part looks very sexy and pro. It is effectively "bling factor" with a little (very little) weigh reduction thrown in.
For the price I got... I've paid more for bling before. As a performance improvement, I don't think it is worth the effort. I'd love to talk to a Norco engineer and find out why they went through the trouble of making it. Recommended for cosmetic reasons only.