Wherever you go you’ll always see Specialized bikes on the trail. It’s hardly surprising – they’re always good, sometimes brilliant and invariably good value. The range is also so extensive that there’s generally something to suit everyone. Here’s a look at the 2005 crop of suspension bikes from the big S

Stumpjumper 120

Last year’s all-new Stumpjumper FSR filled in a bit of a gap between the Epic and the Enduro. With the Enduro going up in travel for 2005 that gap’s got a little wider, so the Stumpy gets a travel boost too. It’s now the Stumpjumper 120, offering 120mm of rear travel.

Keeping the back end in check is the latest in a long line of proprietary Fox/Specialized shocks. The Float Septune develops the concept of last year’s Triad shock. The Triad had a lever for locked out, ProPedal platform damping or active, while the Septune forgoes lockout but has seven different ProPedal settings from hardly noticeable to very high. The ProPedal circuit only does anything in the early part of the stroke so once it’s got to the mid-stroke it’s effectively a regular shock. An enlarged air sleeve keeps the air pressure low and more stroke than you’ll ever actually use keeps the spring rate linear.

The Septune lever isn’t really intended for on-the-fly fiddling (although you can if you like). The idea is that you ride around, find a setting that you like and stick with it. We like it a lot more than the Triad shock on last year’s bikes, which we tended to leave in the open position because the ProPedal setting was a bit heavy-handed to use all the time. With Septune you can plonk in a fairly mellow ProPedal setting and just leave it there.

The rest of the bike is essentially unchanged. Geometry is the same except that it’s all a bit further off the ground. That’s fine by us – we didn’t find the 100mm bike to be a razor-sharp handler and neither is the 120, but somehow it feels a lot more suitable with an extra inch of travel. It’s also fractionally lighter than the 100mm version, which is always welcome. We can see the Stumpjumper 120 becoming very popular indeed…

The Stumpjumper starts at £1,599 for the Comp, topping out at £3,599 for the S-Works modeal. Also new for 2005 is a women’s Stumpjumper FSR with 100mm of travel, suitably tweaked geometry and appropriate saddle/bar/grips/lever spec. It’ll be £1,499.

FSR XC

Obviously with the Stumpjumper going up in travel, there’s another gap in the range to fill. The new FSR XC actually fills two gaps – travel and price. It’s essentially a simplified version of the Stumpjumper, using A1 instead of M5 aluminium and being entirely reliant on tubes rather than having monococque style bits. You get 100mm of travel and exactly the same geometry as the Stumpjumper FSR in its 100mm incarnation. The simpler frame means a bit more weight but lower cost, with the FSR XC range filling in the price points that the Stumpjumper can’t reach – the range starts at £799. There’s a women’s version of this one, too.

Demo 8

Most big manufacturers tend not to push the upper envelope of travel, tending to leave that to the niche guys. But Specialized has embraced super-long-travel with the BigHit bikes and, more recently, the preposterous Demo 9. The 9’s eponymous 9in of travel and burly build make it a trusted drop bike, but its size and heft leave a little to be desired on trails that aren’t actually cliffs.

The Demo 8 is the answer. It’s essentially a lighter, more nimble Demo 9, having sacrificed an inch of travel but dropped a whole 1.5lb in frame weight. It achieves that lower weight with a simplified BB/shock mount area (fascinating bike trivia fact – the cold-forging press that whacks out the two halves of the Demo 9 BB/shock mount structure is the biggest in the world) and various other nips and tucks. The rear axle, for example, is a regular 135mm size rather than the 9’s 150mm.

Impressively, the chainstay length of the Demo 8 is just 16.7in. That’s a decently short back end for a hardtail, let alone an 8.1in travel FS bike with a 26in back wheel… Expect to pay £1,299 for a frame or £2,499 for a complete bike.

Enduro

The Enduro’s been a deservedly popular bike since its introduction, offering a fine blend of travel, weight and value. For 2005, though, the Enduro’s been clean-sheeted – this is an all-new bike.

The most obvious difference is that it’s bigger. Travel is up to 152mm and equipped with suitable forks the whole bike sits up rather taller than before – BB height is 13.7 or 14.2in depending on which shock mount you use. The new frame design compensates by dropping the shock and suspension linkage lower down and improving the standover height.

As we’ve come to expect from Specialized, a lot of work’s gone in to the new frame. Everywhere you look there are forged pieces and heavily-manipulated tubes. The head tube is a forged item, shaped to offer maximum weld area with the top and down tubes. The shock now passes through a Stumpy FSR-style split seat tube, and there’s an amazing BB forging that combines the BB shell, lower suspension pivot, part of the seat tube, ISCG chain device mount and a cable guide into one piece. Specialized claims that the new frame is stiffer than the old one and, despite the extra travel, only marginally heavier – 6.9lb is the claimed weight, which is the same as the ’04 S-Works Enduro frame with a Brain shock.

The shock is particularly interesting. It’s a 5th Element air unit, but it’s not like any 5th Air you’ll have seen elsewhere. It’s a full-custom job especially for this bike, featuring an extra-long stroke (we’re told it’s the longest stroke air shock on the market), extra-large volume air chamber and custom-tuned platform valve. It’s also got spherical bearings at one end and quad roller bearings at the other, so it can cope with any slight misalignment and there are no DU bushings or reducers to wear out and start a-knocking.

There’ll be a variety of specs and prices, running from the £1,999 Elite to the £3,199 S-Works bike. We got some miles in on a demo bike with a prototype Fox 36 fork and XTR stuff on it. The 36 is a beefy, single crown, through-axle fork that, in production, will have TALAS internals and adjustable travel. The proto was fixed at 6in. Specialized is pitching the Enduro as an “all-mountain” bike, but the catchphrase it’s using to describe its market positioning is “Earn your turns” – the emphasis is on downhill performance, with ability to climb back up an added bonus. The 5th Element shock can be set up to keep it very stable on climbs, but you’re still riding a 30lb bike with fairly relaxed geometry. Sit, spin and don’t worry about not being first to the top – you’ll have a fighting chance of being first to the bottom…

Enduro SX/SX Trail

As well as the standard Enduro line, Specialized will be offering a couple of, er, specialised variants. The SX is along similar lines to last year’s Supercross frame, with reducted travel (4.1in) in a more compact frame for slalom/4X/dirt jumping duties. Then there’s the SX Trail, a “light freeride” bike with a beefed-up chassis and a coil shock for those who fancy taking on some bigger hits but want something a bit lighter and more climbable than a Demo 8. The SX Trail is available as a frame only at £1,099.

All these bikes will be coming to a Specialized dealer near you between September and November…