Scott wowed all with its new Spark, but what does a World Champion build look like?

The rider who has given Scott’s Spark more wins than any other, is Swiss mountain bike legend, Nino Schurter. And when Scott assembles a new Spark for Nino, no expense is spared.

Read more: Scott’s stunning new Spark

Carbon spokes? Absolutely

Nino uses a Spark RC carbon HMX SL custom frame, as the foundation for his 2021 season race bike. The black, green, grey and yellow colourway is tastefully executed.

Rolling Nino’s new Spark RC along, are Syncros Silverton SL2 wheels, featuring a 30mm internal diameter. These wheels feature a monocoque design, with the spokes and rim being moulded together, to extract the most benefit from using composite construction.

Maxxis has been Nino’s tyre supplier for many seasons and he prefers the trail wide Aspen, in 29×2.4”, with an EXO/TR construction and sidewall protection. To ensure optimal feedback, when being run at very low pressures, these Aspens have a 170 TPI casing.

You need be a World Champ, to turn that ring

Nino is renowned for his fearless approach, especially on technical descents. To enable the Swiss multiple XCO World Champion’s riding, Scott’s mechanics use some rather trick RockShox suspension bits.

The fork is a SID Ultimate RD3, with a Blackbox race day damper inside. It is set to 120mm of travel. Balancing this front suspension is a RockShox Nude RLC3 trunnion near shock, hidden in the seat tube.

Nino’s drivetrain specification is where things get real. He predictably uses SRAM’s AXS XX1 Eagle, but the gearing is radical. Although the 10-50t cassette might be familiar to most, Nino’s drives that with a 38t chainring. Power? He clearly has that in abundance.

Definitely not a 50mm trail stem

Another part of Nino’s build that is very different from anything you’ll see at the trailhead, is the cockpit. He uses Scott’s Syncros Fraser IC SL integrated composite handlebar, with a virtual stem length of 90mm and 700mm of width.

Not only is that stem length much longer than you would expect for a 1.73m tall rider, but it has a -40° drop. Why? To keep that front wheel on the ground, when Nino is laying down the watts, up a steep climb, and cranking away at that 38t chainring.

Most mountain bikers would struggle to navigate even the mildest flowing singletrack on such a stem and handlebar combination, but Nino sends jumps, launched drops and rolls rock gardens with utmost confidence, despite his extraordinary cockpit geometry.

Helping him lower that centre of gravity on descents, is a 100mm Reverb AXS dropper and scrubbing speed are SRAM Level Ultimate brakes.