First Ride: Specialized Enduro Expert Review - BikeRadar

With an integrated front end, full 150mm travel and torsionally stiff chassis the Enduro Expert looks great on paper. Its suspension behaviour makes it a very fast trail bike for those who ride the trail, but not so great for those that attack it

The Specialized Enduro range is the zenith of their theory of totally integrating suspension components. It features their own brand fork, shock and stem and even their own front hub axle standard. We find out if the big S can do a better job than the leading shock and fork manufacturers.

Ride & handling: stay neutral

It took quite a while to get our Enduro set up, and we never really found an optimum setting. The shock and forks Spike Valves are quite intrusive, even with the external low speed compression adjusters backed right off, it was impossible to get the compliance we wanted over the small stuff.

We had to run lower-than-normal pressures to get traction. This meant the fork and shock ate up all the travel very quickly – and unnecessarily – when the Spike Valve was bypassed with a sharp hit, or when the bike was pushed hard into a corner. Increasing the high speed damping would combat this, but it’s a service agent job. 

The Spike Valve, combined with the light weight means the Enduro climbs really well for a 150mm (5.9in) travel bike.

We did eventually find the ideal riding style to suit the Enduro – very neutral. If you pop off every bump and stomp the bike into berms the bike dips and dives and doesn’t respond to your input the way you would want. But if you ride totally neutrally, and let the damping circuits of the fork and shock do the work for you, the bike makes amazingly quick and controlled progress down the trail. This combines with the neutral handling geometry and superbly accurate tracking fork perfectly, to make a very capable trail bike. 

Frame: flowing four-bar

The first thing you notice is the frame’s sculpted, flowing lines. The very heavily hydroformed Optimized Radius Engineering top and down tubes have a huge weld area to the sculpted, forged head tube. As always with Specialized, there’s a Horst Link to eliminate brake jack, and this, along with all the other pivots, runs on sealed cartridge bearings. 

The 150mm (5.9in) of rear travel is achieved through a four-bar rear end actuating the shock through a compact link plate. The lower shock can be mounted in low or high positions to give a bottom bracket height of a very acceptable 14in or 14.4in and a head angle of an equally happy 67 degrees or 67.9 degrees respectively.

Equipment: in-house gear dominates

The spec is dominated by in-house components, with only the drivetrain, brakes and wheels not having a big S on them. The fork is the 150mm (5.9in) version of the Future Shock fork. Both the fork and shock have a Spike Valve, which adds low speed compression but pops open with a sharp impact. SRAM’s X.0 rear mech and X-9 shifters, and custom Avid Ultimate 7 brakes finish everything off nicely.

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