Only a couple of weeks ago, we got our first in-the-flesh look at the new Norco line up. You can read the detail here, but let’s just say that the Norco of today does not bear much of a resemblance to the Norco of six or seven years ago. It’s like watching a movie and it suddenly dawning that the hottie you’re looking at used to be the 12 year-old kid in Full House. Startling, slightly creepy, but a welcome surprise.

Merely sitting on the bike and admiring its finish through the camera lens was enough to make us say “yes, we want.”

One of the stars of the 2015 line up is the Range Carbon 7.2. We didn’t see a lot of these bikes in Australia last year, which was a real bummer. But with the growth of the Gravity Enduro scene, the local distro is bringing in more Range models and in greater numbers for 2015. Most excellent. In truth, we didn’t get a chance to even take the Range 7.2 for a spin during the product launch at Old Hidden Vale. But we didn’t need to. Merely sitting on the bike and admiring its finish through the camera lens was enough to make us say “yes, we want.” The bike just felt perfect when we slung a leg over it, and the weight, spec and finish were brilliant.

Fast forward two weeks of persistent nagging and a big brown box full of carbon, rubber and f#ck-yeah turned up at Flow HQ. The Range 7.2 is a real stunner of a bike. Carbon throughout (chain stays aside), a build kit that challenges you to find something to upgrade, excellent suspension, trail-friendly weight and great angles.

While 160mm is generally a little more travel than we’d opt for on our local trails, there are enough rocky, wild descents for us to give the Norco the kind of walloping that it yearns for. And it’ll be an interesting exercise to see how this long-travel machine handles the flatter trails too; we’d normally take a bike like this to the roughest trails in order to assess its abilities, so it’ll be good to have the time on our side to try the whole gamut of trail types and really get its measure as an all-rounder.

First up on the cards for us is to set the bike up tubeless (the Maxxis High Roller IIs are good to go for tubeless use) and maybe lop the bars down a smidgen – at 800mm, they’re maybe 20 or 30mm wider than we’re accustomed to.