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Good point, especially that shops get to just watch sales roll in without investing any time in customer interaction beforehand. Surely any loss in margins will be made up for with that fact alone, not to mention the opportunity to then build relationships with those customers. Seems like a win-win-win to me.

Have you seen an improvement with the maxxis tires? The OEM Grid tires seems to have not so much grip as expected! a lot of rebound, and not so confident on the front! I have you experiment this kind of behavior with aftermarlket ones?

Superpi, Yeah, I hated the stock tires, at least on the Evo. Total speculation, but it seems Specialized had a batch of OEM tires that were megahard compound (technical term). The tires on the non Evo were the same tire, but were a lot more compliant. Still, like you said, they didn't bite super well, at least on harder surfaces. They were great in softer dirt, but rock, roots, etc - EEEK! Going to my old friend the DHF was a good way to also test the capabilities of the bike, being tires are probably the 3rd leg of the...

Jeff, plug the negativ chamber of the DPX with an o'ring or something else and let us know!...

There is a way to reduce the negative a bit...if I was still testing the bike I'd actually give it a go.

Omg that dog is fast

Phil, how/where did you get a 210 x 57 shock? A Trek take off? Sounds awesome. I'd like to try that...

It’s basically a 216x63 with a 6mm top out spacer fitted...

I actually ended up liking that DPX2 more and more, and I had the opportunity to test a few "special" shocks on that bike. There is room left on the table here, but maybe see if you can't slap a cheap coil on (with the right spring of course) as that might be a better option.

Perhaps saying I disagreed with your take on the rear suspension wasn’t the correct wording. You are probably able to push the bikes much harder than I can so I’m sure you are noticing something I can’t make the bikes do. My comment was just meant to explain that as a similar weighted but slower rider, I didn’t notice what you discribed. I haven’t ridden the EVO on a trail so I couldn’t comment on any flex it may have. On the same trails I didn’t notice much of any diffenence between the carbon and alloy frames. But again, I’m...

Totally agree, as well as the other site of the. north shore...

Curious, does yours have a squeak to it?

Everything about the EVO looks great except for that BB height. I own a Jeffsy 29 which is a full 1cm higher, and depsite running 160mm forks, 2.6 tyres, low rear sag and 170mm cranks, it is still too low. I have smashed my cranks/rotor into rocks multiple times resulting in broken cranks, broken rotor and broken bars in 3 separate crashes, I had a huge crash just the other day, same problem as usual. Low BBs feel great, until the bike come to a stop while you continue at 30km/h... Definitely going back to something around 350mm.

One thing to remember, the Specialized Factory Boys (TM) ride the regular stumpy. I know video never communicates how gnarly EWS racing is, but I promise you its mind blowing how hard a lot of the stages are these days. My point is, the bikes really DO have a lot of overlap, and it really is closer than maybe this review makes it seem. Parts swapping, damper swapping, offset and fork swapping could all yield a normal stumpy that is closer to the Evo or vice versa. Heck, just going to a reduced offset 36 or Lyrik and a better...

I recently picked up a Stumpy 29 alloy comp after demoing the regular stumpy and the ST. I gave an EVO the old parking lot test but it did not feel immediately comfortable compared to the ST or regular stumpy. I attribute some of this to the stack height. I really like the higher stack of the standard stumpy and from a looks standpoint I don't need a bunch of spacers. And being honest with my local trails the HA and overall length of the bike could not be justified. I would probably be better served locally by the ST...

Yeah it's an adjustment for sure. My last bike was at 339mm (2016 SJ 27.5 - 335mm with the standard 150mm fork. I ran the bike at 160mm) and I had no issues with it at all, even with 175mm cranks. The Evo 29 is 328mm in low mode, 334 in high mode, and now 338mm with adding 10mm to the fork and in high mode (HA went to 63.5ish with the added travel). When I bought the bike I figured a bb that was a few mm lower wouldn't be a huge deal, but I quickly learned that wasn't...