Introduction -

Two months ago I was given the opportunity to test ride and review two new women’s specific freeride bikes; the Norco Vixa - MSRP = $2875 and the Kona Minxy - MSRP = $2299. Since then I’ve tried to ride them as much as possible on every type of trail I can find here in SoCal. I’ve pedaled them up hills, I’ve shuttled to the top of descents and I’ve played at the local jump parks. To give you an idea of where this review is coming from I’ll very briefly describe my riding style. I’m not a hucker, I’m also not into getting huge air. I’m more of an all-mountain, Super-D, long technical, fast descent sort of rider. I’ve typically ridden 5 - 5.5″ travel single ring bikes along with a lot of single-speeding on my hardtail. I’ve done my fair share of racing, both in college and out and still absolutely hands down, love to ride. I’ve done my best in the review that follows to channel 13 years of mountain biking experience into, I hope, a helpful guide for women thinking of getting a free ride bike. If you have questions I’ll do my best to answer them, and if I can’t I’ll research it until I can. Happy reading.

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Darcy 1st Camp of the Season A Great Success!

Darcy hosts a sucessful weekend of ladies-only riding, skills development, and brownies! In her own words:

As some of you may know, I partnered with Sooke Cycles last weekend to host a beginner women’s riding clinic in, you guessed it, Sooke! I can honestly say it went off without a hitch!

Before I go into details, I want to thank all the girls who came out, layered up, put on their beautiful new pink Norco t-shirts, and rode all weekend in the mud. Luckily though, despite the cold and mud, the sun gods were smiling upon us and gave us two rain-free days…and we all know that March on Vancouver Island can be nasty. You girls are awesome and I was such a proud little coach seeing you improve so much over the weekend. Pretty soon you’ll be coaching me!

Our first day was mostly dedicated to building basic skills from breaking and shifting, to balancing and, everyone’s favourite, dismounting. I’m sure none of them signed up expecting to spend 30 minutes practicing how to fall! I think they were grateful for the skill though the next day when we hit the trails at Broom Hill. It was amazing to see everybody gain so much confidence by the end of the first day.

Day 2 we really put that confidence to the test! Broom Hill is a local riding area in Sooke that offers a range of highly technical trails with big jumps, and intermediate singletrack. We opted for the singletrack, but the group challenged themselves when they collectively agreed that they wanted to ride to the summit. It was a great warm-up to the decent. The girls rocked it despite wet conditions and the long climb!

I couldn’t have asked for a better group and I don’t think I heard one negative thing come out of their mouths all weekend. Thanks for getting me motivated and being such a positive influence on me girls! We all had a lot of fun and definitely earned all the food that Thrifty Foods provided us with…and those brownie squares that Kendall baked for us to get us through our day 2 ride. I think that was the highlight for me! Just kidding…they sure were good though.

I’ll be holding more camps throughout the summer so stay tuned to the Norco site for more details.

Thanks again to the girls, Sooke Cycle, Norco, Thrifty Foods, and Sea- Parc Recreation for making this happen!

-Darcy

Read more about Darcy at:

NORCO.com !!

source: Trisha Petrella, Norco Performance Bikes