SCOTT SPARK RC WORLD CUP AXS

With a hidden shock and killer XC credentials, the latest Spark is a concealed race weapon

- Guy Kesteven

£7,999 29in scott-sports.com

NEED TO KNOW

The benchmark 29er for XC/ Marathon/epic ride efficiency

New lightweight, stiff, hidden shock frameset with double waterbottle mounts 

Multi-mode TwinLoc suspension offers 120mm/80mm/ lockout, but also means lots of cables and levers

Properly progressive adjustable geometry thanks to integrated angle headset

Full XC spec, with integrated cockpit and 100mm Fox dropper

"Hey mate, that e-bike is really quiet". I had that comment not once but three times on a single ride. OK, so a Saturday afternoon at Cannock Chase isn't the World Cup XCO circuit that Scott developed the latest-generation of Spark on. But then I'm not Nino Schurter.

Or any of the other pros who've helped hone the various iterations of this bike into the dominant XC racing machine of the past decade. And it's easy to see where the fitness-flattering confusion occurs. The bulbous belly of the new frame layout that hides the shock and linkage adds a new twist to the 'it must have a motor' speed with which the Spark RC World Cup AXS caught up to the back wheel of other riders.

And it's not just the shock that's invisible on this 29er XC race bike.

Looking at the new Spark, there's no way of knowing that Scott's engineering team ran over a million computer simulations of different potential carbon lay-ups for the four frame sizes offered.

Or that the RC World Cup frame here uses the higher-grade sub-2kg (frame, shock and fixtures) HMX carbon, rather than the 160g-heavier HMF frame of the cheaper, lookalike RC Team Issue AXS.