Not only did we have a great time up in Afan during a week of staff training, we also came away with the opinions of over twenty different riders (with very different experiences), concerning the demo bikes we took. Not being the types to keep our opinions to ourselves, we thought we’d share a few of em…
First up, a massively popular 5inch XC mountain bike is weighed up in the Afan Argoed center café over a post ride cup of tea: the Specialized Stumpjumper Expert
Our downhill experts loved this bike as much as our singletrack devotees, which is pretty high praise for an XC bike. The balance is just out of this world on the Stumpy and you can just feel the years of geometry fine-tuning that have gone into it. Honestly if you manage to get a ride on a properly fitting bike you just won’t want to give it up.
It’s very nippy on the ascents; with Spesh’s brain fade cutting out unnecessary bob (and the suss lock out on the fork) it was pretty much able to keep up with the lightest bikes we took up with us that day. The technical climbs seemed very manageable on it too, thanks again no doubt to the balance of the frame.
This is an all rounder though, so what’s the performance like when you point the bike down the hill?
The brakes (Avid Juicys) don’t just offer great stopping power but top-drawer modulation too, helping you maintain a healthy level of momentum by allowing progressive control. This contributed to making the Stumpy a genuinely forgiving bike to ride. It drew you into corners, never felt like it was out of control on the occasional damp and icy patches and allowed for the odd pounding from our resident downhillers. They really seemed determined to break something that morning, but the Stumpjumper didn’t yield an inch. The Fox RLC 120 forks sucked up most of the singletrack problems we encountered that day, coping with the drop offs and boulders comfortably. They never really came close to being maxed out, despite the best efforts of some of our riders.
What was wrong with it? Well, as you might have guessed from the above gush not a lot. Some of the more heavy hitting riders offered grumbles that it was too smooth a ride – but then these are the guys with hideously scarred bodies. For the rest of us, a smooth ride is just fine thanks, in fact it’s the whole point of full suspension XC bikes. A smooth ride means a controlled ride with the wheels constantly in touch with the ground, whether going up or down. It's the great 50/50 balance that really hits home with the Specialized Stumpjumper.
One other complaint and it was a common one, was the frequency with which you’d find yourself tapping your foot against raised roots and other debris. An annoyance rather than a serious fault – one that Specialized are well known for. If it’s necessary for that superbly balanced ride, helping to achieve a lower centre of gravity then it’s well worth putting up with.
To top it all off it looks good, the organic swooping alloy might be familiar now but it still makes the Stumpy a stunning bike.
| Ascending | 9/10 |
| Descending | 9/10 |
| Appearance | 9/10 |
| Spec | 9/10 |
How does Giant’s five-inch travel XC compare? Stay tuned for the Giant Trance X1 review coming soon…
