2020 Specialized Fuse 29 Comp Review
Pros and Cons
Pros:
Cons:
- Extremely versatile
- FAST climber and sprinter
- Incredible trail geometry
- Playful
- Sliding dropouts
- Room for 29x2.6 tires
Cons:
- Harsh riding frame
- Mediocre spec for the price
- Fork is lacking
- Low stack
- Rims too narrow for 2.6s
- Steer tube cut too short
Who it's for:
- People with a Specialized dealer near them
- People looking for a great all-rounder that's up for anything
- People who value a fast sprinting bike
- People who value versatility
Who it's NOT for
- Light riders
- People looking for the best components for the price
My full thoughts on the 2020 Specialized Fuse 29 Comp
Today we are reviewing the 2020 specialised fuse comp.
this has been a highly requested bike and for good reason specialized is one of the biggest dealers in the US and it's easiest to find this hard tail than almost any other hard tail in a shop we're on beautiful miss gal starting out with a good little climb right away there are two things I notice seat angle feels slack that's a bad thing means I'm sitting farther back than I want and number two the stacks a little bit low and the way specialize has these set up there's no real way to adjust your stem they have three of those quarter inch spacers so I might be able to raise it a quarter inch it feels a little bit XC like to me in the climbing position because that front ends lower I wouldn't mind a little more rise on the bars or taller steer tube the steer tubes on these are tiny you ever try to sell your fork from one of these chances are it won't fit any other frame because it's cut so short I'm running the two six tires at about 20 psi this is an aluminum frame I've adjusted the chainstays to be as short as possible
sound like a playful rear end and I like my reach longer than my teens take the two six tires are great choice on this bike but the rims need to be wider in my opinion everybody specking two sixes on 30 mil rims and they just roll and what I mean by that is when you come around the corner the g-forces want the tire to roll instead of stay in line with the rim a wider rim would help that not want to roll so much make the tire Marsh stable I'd love to start seeing 35 mil internal rims on to six bytes but I still think it 2 6 is the right tire for this we're able to take the edge off any harshness that an aluminum frame would feel and this frame lie somewhere in between the harsh aluminum frames and the compliant ones it's stiffer than the chameleon and the timber jack but it's not as stiff as the Orbea or the common saw a nice little framed the RockShox recon on this for my weight I weigh 175 they recommend 100 psi 90 to 100 something like that I tried that and man I could bought him out in the parking lot so I pumped that up to 120 I could still be bottomed out in the parking lot it was just blown through its travel way too fast so I've actually got it up to 145 right now which is 45 psi over recommendations and now it feels good it is nice and supportive but it's weird that I had to add so much more over stock but it feels decent there's not a lot of range in the fork for adjustments rebound compression and such there's like four or five clicks of rebound we're running SRAM SX Eagle drivetrain I know a lot of people like the dog on this drivetrain it shifts just fine it feels awesome I have zero complaints with it it's heavy it's cheap but man it gets people on entry-level bikes having a great experience they're able to get a wide range shifting shifting that feels solid yeah it's heavy this bikes a little over 32 pounds it doesn't ride like it it doesn't feel light but it doesn't feel like an anchor so even though it's 32 pounds it carries its weight well feels a little more like a 30 pound bike and for the price all hard tails are gonna be pretty close to that the head angles 66 and a half and it feels fine to me feels great as a trail bike comfy little bike on these two sixes
just a great all-rounder try a technical step you climb here oh yeah no problem write up that I have a lot of fun on this bike this bike cost less than the wheel set on the bike that I normally ride and I'm still grinning when I ride it it's really fun I really like the shape of the bars on this bike in a lot of these entry-level bikes are getting goofy bars for some reason what do you feel great cockpit feels good even though these ceramic level brakes aren't goofy looking and they look clunky they feel great to me I have no problems with them 160 rotor in the back 180 in the front I plenty of braking and these tires are fantastic specialize makes amazing tires and expect great tires on this they seated really well with the tubeless sealant they have great traction and they have great suspension characteristics they don't Beach the hub is lacking and that's to be expected on a $1700 bike and this is 1700 MSRP usually shops do not list bikes for full MSRP so you have to be careful when you're comparing this to direct bikes like common Saul or Canyon etc it's a great all-around trail bike though
yeah it's easy to put where I want it to be with that shorter chain steak I initially ran it in the longer chainstay setting and I did not like it as much it just felt a little dead not super exciting just kind of dated to me keep in mind I'm a short guy and on a lot of bikes the reach is shorter than the chainstay so anytime I can shorten the chain stay relatively speaking to reach gets proportionately longer compared to that and I like a short chain steak because I can play around more I can lift up the back wheel easier I can whip it around corners better but that's just personal preference but it's really cool that you can change the chain stay on this bike and they're sliding dropout system is cool pretty easy to use alright let's take this thing down some spice here we go the brakes feel fantastic
yeah that's a fun little bike with that shorty state wants to get partying
yeah this trails got some good flow and good bonus stuff to it this bike wants to just keep going faster and faster and it can take it it's amazing how an entry-level bike like this can feel so good I know you're thinking $1,700 entry-level bike yes that's where we are today but it feels good there's not a single component that's like oh that's got to be changed ASAP I'd love wider rims I'd be at the top of my list and then a better fork with a little more adjustability but this Forks not exactly holding me back at the moment yeah
this bike is it really fun it feels more modern than the tender jet get more of a hard charger it's weird it just it just feels like it has more of an attack mode than that's never jack this bike is a completely different bike than the 20 19 and older versions the Gen one was cool and ahead of its time but it was stiff it felt kind of like a budget bike this bike feels sorted I wish the dropper post one a little lower I don't need it but I hate it when you're already on a smaller frame homicides medium which is the right size for me but the dropper can't go down all the way cuz it hits that's that water bottle bolt and that's another centimeter of drop that I could get and the short people need all the drop they can get in their drops
oh that was hard this little bike did it I know there's a tendency to want to just upgrade upgrade upgrade when you buy a bike like this but I recommend learning to tune what it's God and maximizing it it's a budget fork it's one of the lowest end 12-speed groups that's made cheap breaks but it feels great I don't need to change anything I'm having a blast out here it's amazing how good components have gotten and when you match good budget components with a solid frame with good geo it's super fun I would hands down take this over the common saw even though you might get a better force or group set with the common saw you're gonna have a better ride experience on this all right a little more fun playful this manual is really well with that short chain stay in the short position if you know how to turn a bike and you get the time to learn how to make a fork feel good how to get tire pressure just right you can make these budget bikes dance and they're really fun
yeah oh the engagement on this hub is awful but I'm having so much fun yeah oh
that's a big come in there yeah Oh bikes a little bit stiffer then some less stiff than others good it's a really choppy section that this beats you up and I can feel I would be fatiguing over time on a lot of this stuff but not as fatiguing as the orb a over the common self for a big brand this bike is surprisingly good I love that they expect good tires with this as it allows me to really rip this thing
even though it's got a budget fork if you tune it right okay I just rolled the tire there it can't handle the G outs with these narrow rims you can feel the tire when you hit the corners hard house good yeah this is just a fantastic all-around trail bike when you look it on paper you see the specs and you're like no there's other bikes with better components for that price so far I haven't found one that rides better than this it's all about the frame to me that's the one part you can't change
and I'll bet you most people couldn't tell the difference between this SX and xx one shifter if they were blindfolded
it performs great yeah it's heavy you forget about done you just start riding this is a really fun bike way to go specialized I'm not sure if I'd feel comfortable taking this on High Line or hogs or hanging over the big double blacks here probably but it's about at the limit but there are hardly any hard tails I like taking on those trails but I think it could handle it this bike stays compose when he gets going fast it doesn't feel any less in control than slow the fact that feels a little more in control it jumps and bunny hops well
as well it's so fun it doesn't quite have the refined frame feel as a great steel a great tie or even a great aluminum bike like the Banshee it's not quite in that level of fantastic amazing frames I wouldn't mind it if it was a little bit softer I'm glad it's not any harsher or it's start to be a problem but what I like about this is I could go anywhere in the country find a shop that rents these and even the comp mode I could go out rip and have a blast on it and if you can't have fun on this bike if you need to have better components to have fun you're missing out you just need to learn how to tune the cheaper components and make them work for you this bike is a hoot this is what modern hardtails should be like and it rides different than the geo number suggests I think part of the reason I love this bike is because when you look at it on paper it seems like a bike you wouldn't love you're like it's kind of got low-end everything but then you get on it and it rips if you're a decent rider you can squeeze a lot of performance out of this is it overpriced possibly but
one nice thing about it is you've got shops all over the country all over the world that have this bike in it and you can go throw a leg over it you can go see it in person you can try medium and a large and see which one feels better you can't do that with the online direct-to-consumer bikes and so many people are lured away at the cheapest bike with the highest spec that they buy it without ever looking at it or riding it then they convince themselves they made the best decision ever because it was cheap but they never really rode any other ones to find out
the frame is the heart of a bicycle what makes it snap around and feel good and dance underneath you in the corners and the jumps no components can change that and this frames Drake I really I'm impressed with this little bike this bike you could take just about anywhere and have a really fun time on it how could this bike be perfect with another hundred dollars of specialized putting the right parts in wider rims and a better hub you had those two things man there'd be nothing else like it for the price in my opinion this is probably the bike that I'm gonna recommend when people don't tell me how long they've been riding where they ride they just want a decent bike I can't imagine a place this bike would not be great fun on the blow here the chunk here tires are a little bit scary at speed with how they want to roll oh yeah what a night all right we got a fun little technical feature here to try and get up yeah that feels great on that stuff I love that this isn't a total slacked out hardcore hardtail I love those you know I do but they managed to have the control and feel of a big slap out one without slacking it out to me this feels a little closer to 65 degree head angle then the 66 and a half that it states on the chart this bike rides nothing like it's geo charts this feels slacker than the common saw even though it's not by a long shot just feels really balanced what a beautiful night holy cow what I like about this is a lot of people can experience what a decent hardtail feels like because specialized is everywhere
you're not a hardtail rider and you hate them but you might you're a little bit curious you might want to see kind of what it's all about on the modern ones see if you can rent one of these and get the suspension set up perfect and who knows you might like it you might not but this is a good representation of what a modern hardtail should be if you can't tell i'm impressed by this little bike i had pretty low expectations looking at the geo chart the specs the parts on it knowing how the last fuse road but this little bike is awesome i really like it here we go on axis one of the newest trails here in Sedona I don't think I've featured this on my channel yet Nate Hills has a cool video of this it's got some little surprises on it man even right there at 10 miles an hour I've rolled the tire and that's unnerving so
this does need wider and it's a really rail stuff
it's like the people specking this know that they need two point six is to keep it competitive but they're not really sold on it enough to put the rims on it but need it these brakes are just fine for me of course I can feel the difference between a pike and a good set of codes but you don't need it bad parts even low-end parts are good these days oh so fun so glad I got to ride this bike actually in the comp mode I think it would have really loved it in the expert mode but in comp its surprised to be way more than I thought
a little bit this is a lot chunkier than it looks
this bike handles the choke well it's just a joy to ride it makes little blue trails like this really fun sneak corners really well
whoo chunky I think this bike works really well with foot pedals right now
you're not gonna mistake it for a super aggressive downhill bike you're not gonna mistake it for an XC bike but a dips into those categories just fine I take this over at Kona Hanzo any day so much more composed more playful more fun take this over comments aw I'd take this over any bike I've ridden under $2,000
well bikes I like more than this that Banshee paradox b3 I like more I like the middle child time or I like this more than the middle child promo it's time to rate this bike stiffness and rate it an 8 out of 10 it's softer than the Orbea in the common self it's probably slightly softer than most aluminum frames but it's still not soft per se not as soft as the Banshee definitely not as soft as my middle child tie or a really good supple steel frame like that ionic Johnny Rotten but for what it is it's impressive
climbing it's heavy but it doesn't feel quite as heavy as it is it doesn't feel light I'll tell you that probably give it I'm 9 out of climbing it needs a steeper seat angle I've got the seat rail slid all the way forward and I still want it steeper cornering 10 out of 10 I'm so glad we have low offset forks these days they corner so well this head angle prepared with this amount of travel compared with the short chain stay makes this thing enjoy to corner down hills let me give it a 9 out of 10 it I haven't overwhelmed it yet I've overwhelmed the tires and the rims I feel like this bike has a lot more to give but I need 35 36 millions to find it so I'm gonna give it 9 out of 10 for down hills playfulness I'm gonna give this a nine and a half out of 10 having those chain stays in the short position makes Manuel's jumps bunny hops popping off stuff super fun and it's awesome it actually has tire clearance with 2.6 is with the chain stays all the way slam forward some people have even got 2.8 in there if you could fit 3.0 zon here Oh that'd be such a cool bike packing ring this thing's got some good party in it this thing is like your kid sister's best friend but you never really look at him that way and then when you get to know them they're super fun and you're just like how did I not discover how fun this person is if you judge books by their covers you will misjudge this bike you need to get out write it it's really fun it wants to party it's like your younger brother that wants to tag along and at first you're like no he's gonna ruin it and then it turns out he becomes your best friend and then you always want him to tag along with you because it's so good that's what this bike is like I have a fond emotional attachment to this bike it's weird I think the colors fantastic specialize has been killing it on there colors I like the frame shape I think it's a beautiful bike I don't like how short the head tube is I wish the stack was a little bit higher but man if those are the only complaints I can say about the Geo you know they nailed it I think the Banshee and the middle child are the only other two bikes I've written then I had so little to say about the G oh yeah this is just a little trail Ripper it punches way above its weight class and even though there are bikes with better components for the money much better components I think this is the better bike it means better wheels though come on specialize next year I'd love to see 35 s on this that would really seal the deal as this being the budget bike to beat I wholeheartedly endorse this bike and recommend for those that are sick of looking and don't want to learn about geometry or shop around a lot just buy this bike can be done and learn how to ride it really well put some money into courses and clinics and this thing will not let you down oh I'm having a blast so good
whoo-ha-ha I know this sounds like a glowing review I had super low expectations for this bike looking at it on paper this bike is far more than the sum of its parts and it makes for such an enjoyable experience what I love a nice R for sure what I love nicer breaks sure do I need them to have fun absolutely not this is a riot and this is what hard tales are about cheap indestructible easy and they can handle a little bit of everything they're not the best at it at most things they're not gonna be the fastest bike on the trail won't be the fastest up won't be the fastest down but I guarantee you're gonna be smiling more than most of your buddies if you're on one of these if you enjoy this review and learn something consider supporting this channel by becoming a patron and check out my other reviews and my other educational content thanks for watching there's a party in the mountains and you're invited
this has been a highly requested bike and for good reason specialized is one of the biggest dealers in the US and it's easiest to find this hard tail than almost any other hard tail in a shop we're on beautiful miss gal starting out with a good little climb right away there are two things I notice seat angle feels slack that's a bad thing means I'm sitting farther back than I want and number two the stacks a little bit low and the way specialize has these set up there's no real way to adjust your stem they have three of those quarter inch spacers so I might be able to raise it a quarter inch it feels a little bit XC like to me in the climbing position because that front ends lower I wouldn't mind a little more rise on the bars or taller steer tube the steer tubes on these are tiny you ever try to sell your fork from one of these chances are it won't fit any other frame because it's cut so short I'm running the two six tires at about 20 psi this is an aluminum frame I've adjusted the chainstays to be as short as possible
sound like a playful rear end and I like my reach longer than my teens take the two six tires are great choice on this bike but the rims need to be wider in my opinion everybody specking two sixes on 30 mil rims and they just roll and what I mean by that is when you come around the corner the g-forces want the tire to roll instead of stay in line with the rim a wider rim would help that not want to roll so much make the tire Marsh stable I'd love to start seeing 35 mil internal rims on to six bytes but I still think it 2 6 is the right tire for this we're able to take the edge off any harshness that an aluminum frame would feel and this frame lie somewhere in between the harsh aluminum frames and the compliant ones it's stiffer than the chameleon and the timber jack but it's not as stiff as the Orbea or the common saw a nice little framed the RockShox recon on this for my weight I weigh 175 they recommend 100 psi 90 to 100 something like that I tried that and man I could bought him out in the parking lot so I pumped that up to 120 I could still be bottomed out in the parking lot it was just blown through its travel way too fast so I've actually got it up to 145 right now which is 45 psi over recommendations and now it feels good it is nice and supportive but it's weird that I had to add so much more over stock but it feels decent there's not a lot of range in the fork for adjustments rebound compression and such there's like four or five clicks of rebound we're running SRAM SX Eagle drivetrain I know a lot of people like the dog on this drivetrain it shifts just fine it feels awesome I have zero complaints with it it's heavy it's cheap but man it gets people on entry-level bikes having a great experience they're able to get a wide range shifting shifting that feels solid yeah it's heavy this bikes a little over 32 pounds it doesn't ride like it it doesn't feel light but it doesn't feel like an anchor so even though it's 32 pounds it carries its weight well feels a little more like a 30 pound bike and for the price all hard tails are gonna be pretty close to that the head angles 66 and a half and it feels fine to me feels great as a trail bike comfy little bike on these two sixes
just a great all-rounder try a technical step you climb here oh yeah no problem write up that I have a lot of fun on this bike this bike cost less than the wheel set on the bike that I normally ride and I'm still grinning when I ride it it's really fun I really like the shape of the bars on this bike in a lot of these entry-level bikes are getting goofy bars for some reason what do you feel great cockpit feels good even though these ceramic level brakes aren't goofy looking and they look clunky they feel great to me I have no problems with them 160 rotor in the back 180 in the front I plenty of braking and these tires are fantastic specialize makes amazing tires and expect great tires on this they seated really well with the tubeless sealant they have great traction and they have great suspension characteristics they don't Beach the hub is lacking and that's to be expected on a $1700 bike and this is 1700 MSRP usually shops do not list bikes for full MSRP so you have to be careful when you're comparing this to direct bikes like common Saul or Canyon etc it's a great all-around trail bike though
yeah it's easy to put where I want it to be with that shorter chain steak I initially ran it in the longer chainstay setting and I did not like it as much it just felt a little dead not super exciting just kind of dated to me keep in mind I'm a short guy and on a lot of bikes the reach is shorter than the chainstay so anytime I can shorten the chain stay relatively speaking to reach gets proportionately longer compared to that and I like a short chain steak because I can play around more I can lift up the back wheel easier I can whip it around corners better but that's just personal preference but it's really cool that you can change the chain stay on this bike and they're sliding dropout system is cool pretty easy to use alright let's take this thing down some spice here we go the brakes feel fantastic
yeah that's a fun little bike with that shorty state wants to get partying
yeah this trails got some good flow and good bonus stuff to it this bike wants to just keep going faster and faster and it can take it it's amazing how an entry-level bike like this can feel so good I know you're thinking $1,700 entry-level bike yes that's where we are today but it feels good there's not a single component that's like oh that's got to be changed ASAP I'd love wider rims I'd be at the top of my list and then a better fork with a little more adjustability but this Forks not exactly holding me back at the moment yeah
this bike is it really fun it feels more modern than the tender jet get more of a hard charger it's weird it just it just feels like it has more of an attack mode than that's never jack this bike is a completely different bike than the 20 19 and older versions the Gen one was cool and ahead of its time but it was stiff it felt kind of like a budget bike this bike feels sorted I wish the dropper post one a little lower I don't need it but I hate it when you're already on a smaller frame homicides medium which is the right size for me but the dropper can't go down all the way cuz it hits that's that water bottle bolt and that's another centimeter of drop that I could get and the short people need all the drop they can get in their drops
oh that was hard this little bike did it I know there's a tendency to want to just upgrade upgrade upgrade when you buy a bike like this but I recommend learning to tune what it's God and maximizing it it's a budget fork it's one of the lowest end 12-speed groups that's made cheap breaks but it feels great I don't need to change anything I'm having a blast out here it's amazing how good components have gotten and when you match good budget components with a solid frame with good geo it's super fun I would hands down take this over the common saw even though you might get a better force or group set with the common saw you're gonna have a better ride experience on this all right a little more fun playful this manual is really well with that short chain stay in the short position if you know how to turn a bike and you get the time to learn how to make a fork feel good how to get tire pressure just right you can make these budget bikes dance and they're really fun
yeah oh the engagement on this hub is awful but I'm having so much fun yeah oh
that's a big come in there yeah Oh bikes a little bit stiffer then some less stiff than others good it's a really choppy section that this beats you up and I can feel I would be fatiguing over time on a lot of this stuff but not as fatiguing as the orb a over the common self for a big brand this bike is surprisingly good I love that they expect good tires with this as it allows me to really rip this thing
even though it's got a budget fork if you tune it right okay I just rolled the tire there it can't handle the G outs with these narrow rims you can feel the tire when you hit the corners hard house good yeah this is just a fantastic all-around trail bike when you look it on paper you see the specs and you're like no there's other bikes with better components for that price so far I haven't found one that rides better than this it's all about the frame to me that's the one part you can't change
and I'll bet you most people couldn't tell the difference between this SX and xx one shifter if they were blindfolded
it performs great yeah it's heavy you forget about done you just start riding this is a really fun bike way to go specialized I'm not sure if I'd feel comfortable taking this on High Line or hogs or hanging over the big double blacks here probably but it's about at the limit but there are hardly any hard tails I like taking on those trails but I think it could handle it this bike stays compose when he gets going fast it doesn't feel any less in control than slow the fact that feels a little more in control it jumps and bunny hops well
as well it's so fun it doesn't quite have the refined frame feel as a great steel a great tie or even a great aluminum bike like the Banshee it's not quite in that level of fantastic amazing frames I wouldn't mind it if it was a little bit softer I'm glad it's not any harsher or it's start to be a problem but what I like about this is I could go anywhere in the country find a shop that rents these and even the comp mode I could go out rip and have a blast on it and if you can't have fun on this bike if you need to have better components to have fun you're missing out you just need to learn how to tune the cheaper components and make them work for you this bike is a hoot this is what modern hardtails should be like and it rides different than the geo number suggests I think part of the reason I love this bike is because when you look at it on paper it seems like a bike you wouldn't love you're like it's kind of got low-end everything but then you get on it and it rips if you're a decent rider you can squeeze a lot of performance out of this is it overpriced possibly but
one nice thing about it is you've got shops all over the country all over the world that have this bike in it and you can go throw a leg over it you can go see it in person you can try medium and a large and see which one feels better you can't do that with the online direct-to-consumer bikes and so many people are lured away at the cheapest bike with the highest spec that they buy it without ever looking at it or riding it then they convince themselves they made the best decision ever because it was cheap but they never really rode any other ones to find out
the frame is the heart of a bicycle what makes it snap around and feel good and dance underneath you in the corners and the jumps no components can change that and this frames Drake I really I'm impressed with this little bike this bike you could take just about anywhere and have a really fun time on it how could this bike be perfect with another hundred dollars of specialized putting the right parts in wider rims and a better hub you had those two things man there'd be nothing else like it for the price in my opinion this is probably the bike that I'm gonna recommend when people don't tell me how long they've been riding where they ride they just want a decent bike I can't imagine a place this bike would not be great fun on the blow here the chunk here tires are a little bit scary at speed with how they want to roll oh yeah what a night all right we got a fun little technical feature here to try and get up yeah that feels great on that stuff I love that this isn't a total slacked out hardcore hardtail I love those you know I do but they managed to have the control and feel of a big slap out one without slacking it out to me this feels a little closer to 65 degree head angle then the 66 and a half that it states on the chart this bike rides nothing like it's geo charts this feels slacker than the common saw even though it's not by a long shot just feels really balanced what a beautiful night holy cow what I like about this is a lot of people can experience what a decent hardtail feels like because specialized is everywhere
you're not a hardtail rider and you hate them but you might you're a little bit curious you might want to see kind of what it's all about on the modern ones see if you can rent one of these and get the suspension set up perfect and who knows you might like it you might not but this is a good representation of what a modern hardtail should be if you can't tell i'm impressed by this little bike i had pretty low expectations looking at the geo chart the specs the parts on it knowing how the last fuse road but this little bike is awesome i really like it here we go on axis one of the newest trails here in Sedona I don't think I've featured this on my channel yet Nate Hills has a cool video of this it's got some little surprises on it man even right there at 10 miles an hour I've rolled the tire and that's unnerving so
this does need wider and it's a really rail stuff
it's like the people specking this know that they need two point six is to keep it competitive but they're not really sold on it enough to put the rims on it but need it these brakes are just fine for me of course I can feel the difference between a pike and a good set of codes but you don't need it bad parts even low-end parts are good these days oh so fun so glad I got to ride this bike actually in the comp mode I think it would have really loved it in the expert mode but in comp its surprised to be way more than I thought
a little bit this is a lot chunkier than it looks
this bike handles the choke well it's just a joy to ride it makes little blue trails like this really fun sneak corners really well
whoo chunky I think this bike works really well with foot pedals right now
you're not gonna mistake it for a super aggressive downhill bike you're not gonna mistake it for an XC bike but a dips into those categories just fine I take this over at Kona Hanzo any day so much more composed more playful more fun take this over comments aw I'd take this over any bike I've ridden under $2,000
well bikes I like more than this that Banshee paradox b3 I like more I like the middle child time or I like this more than the middle child promo it's time to rate this bike stiffness and rate it an 8 out of 10 it's softer than the Orbea in the common self it's probably slightly softer than most aluminum frames but it's still not soft per se not as soft as the Banshee definitely not as soft as my middle child tie or a really good supple steel frame like that ionic Johnny Rotten but for what it is it's impressive
climbing it's heavy but it doesn't feel quite as heavy as it is it doesn't feel light I'll tell you that probably give it I'm 9 out of climbing it needs a steeper seat angle I've got the seat rail slid all the way forward and I still want it steeper cornering 10 out of 10 I'm so glad we have low offset forks these days they corner so well this head angle prepared with this amount of travel compared with the short chain stay makes this thing enjoy to corner down hills let me give it a 9 out of 10 it I haven't overwhelmed it yet I've overwhelmed the tires and the rims I feel like this bike has a lot more to give but I need 35 36 millions to find it so I'm gonna give it 9 out of 10 for down hills playfulness I'm gonna give this a nine and a half out of 10 having those chain stays in the short position makes Manuel's jumps bunny hops popping off stuff super fun and it's awesome it actually has tire clearance with 2.6 is with the chain stays all the way slam forward some people have even got 2.8 in there if you could fit 3.0 zon here Oh that'd be such a cool bike packing ring this thing's got some good party in it this thing is like your kid sister's best friend but you never really look at him that way and then when you get to know them they're super fun and you're just like how did I not discover how fun this person is if you judge books by their covers you will misjudge this bike you need to get out write it it's really fun it wants to party it's like your younger brother that wants to tag along and at first you're like no he's gonna ruin it and then it turns out he becomes your best friend and then you always want him to tag along with you because it's so good that's what this bike is like I have a fond emotional attachment to this bike it's weird I think the colors fantastic specialize has been killing it on there colors I like the frame shape I think it's a beautiful bike I don't like how short the head tube is I wish the stack was a little bit higher but man if those are the only complaints I can say about the Geo you know they nailed it I think the Banshee and the middle child are the only other two bikes I've written then I had so little to say about the G oh yeah this is just a little trail Ripper it punches way above its weight class and even though there are bikes with better components for the money much better components I think this is the better bike it means better wheels though come on specialize next year I'd love to see 35 s on this that would really seal the deal as this being the budget bike to beat I wholeheartedly endorse this bike and recommend for those that are sick of looking and don't want to learn about geometry or shop around a lot just buy this bike can be done and learn how to ride it really well put some money into courses and clinics and this thing will not let you down oh I'm having a blast so good
whoo-ha-ha I know this sounds like a glowing review I had super low expectations for this bike looking at it on paper this bike is far more than the sum of its parts and it makes for such an enjoyable experience what I love a nice R for sure what I love nicer breaks sure do I need them to have fun absolutely not this is a riot and this is what hard tales are about cheap indestructible easy and they can handle a little bit of everything they're not the best at it at most things they're not gonna be the fastest bike on the trail won't be the fastest up won't be the fastest down but I guarantee you're gonna be smiling more than most of your buddies if you're on one of these if you enjoy this review and learn something consider supporting this channel by becoming a patron and check out my other reviews and my other educational content thanks for watching there's a party in the mountains and you're invited