Manggis Rider Team at Telok Bahang

The 2008 Specialized Stumpjumper

Specialized has started from scratch with the 2008 Stumpjumper. It bears no resemblance to its predecessors, though looks a little like a much slimmed down 2007 Enduro. It's a 120mm trail machine that'll do all-round trail use, the occasional race, the odd rocky foray, but overall to just be 'a bike' - which all the Stumpjumpers have done well over the years.

Starting with the sculpty frame, this shows how much things have moved on in Specialized's carbon dept, with slim, curved tubes that appear to owe more to their carbon road bikes than any mountain bike heritage. The result is a pleasing (and doubtless 'love it or hate it') organic shape. Oh, and the bike here should weigh 23.2lbs out of the box.


The carbon crown and steerer helps to keep the weight of the Futureshock 120 light - down to 3.1lbs claimed weight. And all the gubbins - damper and air spring are contained in one leg.

The front and rear of the bike are designed to compliment each other. To this end, both feature 'Flow Control' Brains. This is the newer, trail-tuned Brain that first appeared on the Epic. A small brass weight keeps the suspension under control (though still moving) until the bike hits a bump. After that, the weight is moved away from the oil circuit and the fork or shock is free to be active and react to the bumps. Having ridden the previous carbon Stumpy with this system on, we can confirm it works very well.

Specialized rear shock is linked by a hose to the Brain at the dropouts so that it's activate the moment the rear wheel hits something. 120mm rear travel, room for a bottle cage and a cool red rocker to match the Magura Marta brakes on the S-Works model.

There's even a carbon fibre drive-side dropout to save weight. The non-drive side one, with aluminium disc mount is equally svelte