Review: Stumpjumper Expert.

posted by Harry, Saturday, November 21, 2009

I would like to start by saying thank you everyone for not booking the stumpy! As no-one booking it meant that i got to take it out.
As many of you know i am relatively new to the shop and also very new to cross country. But recently in pursuit of going out riding and actually doing some riding, rather than spending the whole day pushing my heavy (but also very nice) Ironhorse Sunday downhill bike up hills to do 30 seconds back down.
today i went out on the Specialized Stumpjumper Expert(retailing at £2999.99). I have always been a believer that for cross country you shouldn’t need a full suspension bike, im going to blame that on my downhill background. However, today i realised that XC can literally be whatever you make of it.
Not a lot of surprises with the bike really, it did everything it said it would very well, as you would expect with that price tag!! I was however very impressed with how well the brain rear suspension works, i was always doubtful that it would work as well as it is supposed to, but apart from a few moments of random pedal bob it worked as it should. Giving the feeling of hardtail climbing on the way up and the feel of a downhill bike on the way down. It must be said at this point that it was a lot more fun to descend on as its very well balanced and amazing fun to throw around corners. But at 27 pounds for a carbon main framed bike, it isn’t as lite as some.
The one thing that let this bike down was the tyres(which were Specialized’s own S-Works tyre), which in the conditions was pretty useless. im sure that the tyre would be great on dry hardpack but for wet conditions is a definite no-no. But apart from that i have no complaints.