SPECIALIZED ENDURO ELITE 29

£4,750 Ready to rip out-of-thebox, but not much of a racer

Balance is key. The Enduro’s suspension is well-matched front to rear and it’s easy to ride without being dull, but it does come up short in some areas.

The frame

The Enduro Elite has a carbon fibre front triangle and alloy rear end. You also get a handy SWAT door in the down tube to stash a small pump, tube and snacks. The Horst-link suspension design is said to deliver 160mm of rear wheel travel.

The kit

As the cheapest bike here, the Enduro inevitably has some component compromises. The Fox 36 Rhythm fork is slightly less sensitive than its pricier counterparts, and the stock tyres are prone to squirming and burping when riding aggressively. The wheels flex a little too, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing as it boosts cornering traction. Specialized’s Command dropper post was occasionally reluctant to engage the uppermost of its 16 notches, but otherwise works great. The other own-brand finishing kit we got on with brilliantly, especially the cockpit, and the bottle cage with integrated mini-tool is a nice touch.

The ride

Set the shock sag to 30 per cent, inflate the fork to the recommended pressure, dial in the rebound and you’re good to go. The Enduro rides well just like this, with no need for part swaps or excessive fettling.

While the 50mm stem is longer than we’d normally use on an enduro bike, the 800mm bar sweeps back a long way from the stem clamp so your hand position relative to the steering axis is spot-on. The 74.4-degree effective seat angle (measured at pedalling height) put our hips further behind the cranks than we’d have liked when attacking steep climbs, but the rear suspension never wallows like on the Scott. There is a little pedal bob, but the suspension is settled and supportive as you move around the bike, making it a so-so climber.

The Enduro Elite rides nice and competently on natural tracks with tight turns and bomb-holes. When pushing into a compression or a corner, the suspension compresses at a similar rate in both the fork and shock, and there’s plenty of support to push against too, so the bike reacts predictably to weight shifts and responds to pumping the trail.

But for our 6ft 3in tester, the XL just felt a little too short in the wheelbase. Meanwhile, the long seat tube (520mm) prevents shorter riders sizing up to get more length.

This makes the bike prone to tripping up over large stones or sudden G-outs, which occasionally forced our weight onto the handlebar. When riding fast over technical terrain, the Enduro was less stable and settled than the longer bikes on test.

Faced with larger obstacles, the rear wheel hangs up rather than moving smoothly out of the way. The shock comes set up quite progressively, but we did occasionally bottom it out with a loud clang, so we didn’t want to fit a smaller volume spacer. The shock and fork both feel more firmly damped on compression than their equivalents on the other three bikes, which drains momentum over large roots and rocks. You can feel and hear the shock’s damping reacting reluctantly to bigger impacts.

The Enduro was slowest in all of our timed ‘stages’ at BikePark Wales. Although it felt settled and supportive through rough terrain, the suspension seemed to sap speed

THE ENDURO FELT SETTLED AND SUPPORTIVE THROUGH ROUGH TERRAIN, BUT THE SUSPENSION SEEMED TO SAP SPEED OVER RELENTLESS ROCKY BUMP S

over the relentless rocky bumps, and we felt less confident going flat-out on the fastest straights.

While Specialized’s website says the Enduro has 160mm of rear travel, when pushed, the brand told us it should have 156mm with this shock. We measured it at 148mm. This could be due to a slightly-too-short shock, which would explain why our bike had a lower BB and slacker head angle than on the geometry chart. Ironically, this ‘defect’ probably makes the Enduro ride better on the steep, natural trails where it excels, but on rough terrain it falls behind the competition.