Review: The Antidote Carbonjack 29 is Fast & Precise

Construction and Features

The Carbonjack is a 29” wheeled, 150mm rear travel bike paired with a 160mm travel fork. Antidote says that you can even run the bike with a 170mm fork if you like, although the geometry will alter a little.

Both the mainframe and rear triangle are constructed from carbon fiber composite and made in Poland. Holding the two together are two aluminum links and some titanium screws. Our test bike was finished in a high gloss lacquer showing off the woven carbon fiber material underneath, although Antidote offers an array of finishes including the option of a fully customisable paint job if you’re willing to pay.

The mainframe also incorporates Vectran into the composite mix, a spun polymer fiber that has a high strength and that Antidote adds into the mix to up the impact resistance as well as strength of the whole structure.

Cables are internally routed through both the mainframe and rear triangle with a short section that loops the cables under the threaded bottom bracket.


The upper aluminum link is 3 pieces and uses long titanium screws and some locking keyways to turn it into a single rigid part. The lower link houses the bottom bracket and so is concentric to the crank axle. It uses a wedge style axle arrangement to mount it to the mainframe.

There’s a specific Antidote brake mount with even some tiny grub screws to stop any important bolts coming lose and two options for 180mm and 203mm rotors that tuck the brake caliper behind the seat stay tube.

There are more neat features, like the chunky-velcroed on mudguard that uses the chain stay and seat stay bridges as mount points and extends to completely cover the shock and protect it from flying debris and stops mud build up in the space between the mainframe and rear triangle. In that space, the shock is actually mounted at 90° to usual via a small shock extender. This enabled Antidote to package the shock as they wanted and also opened it up to easier access to the adjusters.


Chain slap and frame damage is dealt with by adequate and well stuck on frame protection along the chain stay, underside of the seat stay and up the wafer thin upright.

The cherry on the cake of the details though is the tiny metal serial number badge riveted on down by the bottom bracket, proudly displaying the frame number and showing capping off the pride that Antidote take in their craftsmanship of their frames. Pulling the Carbonjack out of the van in any car park was a sure-fire way to get some attention. The design is angular and striking, and while the holes in the design at the head tube and seat tube might not be for everybody, they can serve as a brilliant place to store a rolled up inner tube.

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Geometry & Sizing

The Carbonjack 29 is available in four familiarly named sizes from S to XL that cover reach numbers from 430 to 510 mm. That range is something Antidote communicates as good for covering riders from 162cm to 198cm.

The head angle is 65° across the board and combines with a relatively short head tube length. Our L size test bike was 115 mm long and for my higher bar height preference needed as many spacers as possible on the steerer tube. Further down the testing road it actually needed a higher rise bar to help the bar position out too.

Seat tube angles are quoted for effective horizontal to the top of the head tube and effective at a certain seat height. The angles do differ ever so slightly with the sizes, but in general are quite slack, especially when considering that these are only effective. The actual seat tube angle is pretty damn slack and its offset to the BB is quite big on the Carbonjack 29, likely coming from the suspension layout. Our size L had a 470 mm seat tube length, which is a bit on the long side for modern bikes and their appetite for long droppers. So, it’s good to check your preferred seat height and dropper post combination.

In the middle, there’s a 32 mm BB drop that gives a quoted 344 mm BB height. And out back there are 450 mm chainstays on all the sizes. Antidote does talk a lot about a “Golden Ratio” geometry with the balance of front to rear centres. Without the rear centre changing per size, it’s a bit hard to swallow that marketing pill. But digging a bit deeper it’s actually that the ratio was based around the M and L size frames. Manufacturing a different rear triangle for each size is a tricky addition, so too is lengthening links in a short link suspension system without having a dramatic effect on the bike. Antidote are prepared to make custom rear triangles if the customer is in need of an 8mm longer chainstay, but as yet have received no request for this.

Antidote also quotes useful numbers for recommended seat post lengths and drops for a couple of brands, along with using the spread measurement. That is from the centre of the BB to the top centre of the head tube. It’s one lever in the “bunny hop ratio” as a friend coined it and is an addition to the reach and stack measurements that we already use to describe the hands to feet distance.

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Suspension Design

Antidote’s FDS suspension system is a short link, counter rotating system. But Antidote fixed the shock to both of the links. The lower link to mainframe connection is concentric with the BB. There’s a short extender at the bottom of the shock, which is actually there to turn the piggy back end of the shock 90° for adjuster access and packaging.

The Carbonjack needs a special version of the Öhlins TTX22M shock to fit in the frame. Other shocks on offer, like the Fox Float X2 are a standard version. It uses a 210 x 55 mm shock.


There’s 16% of leverage ratio progression, starting at 2.86 and ending at 2.4. In a familiar short link trait, the first half of travel changes relatively smoothly, followed by a sharp drop in the leverage ratios. This means that most of the feeling of progression in the bike is towards the end of travel with the first half perhaps riding a little more linear than the overall progression amount would suggest.

Anti-squat levels are high on the Carbonjack, with all gears of a 12-speed cassette and 32T chainring being around or a chunk above 100% at 30% sag. These remain high until around two thirds of travel where we see the same short link sharp drop off in percentages. That is also accompanied by a drop in the amount of chain pull, and one of its effects – pedal kickback.

Anti-rise is also high, at around 80% at sag with a drop down to 30% at the end of travel. Meaning that in both acceleration and deceleration (with the rear brake only) there’s quite a bit of countering to the effects of load transfer.

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Spec, Options & Pricing

The Carbonjack 29 frame retails for 3799 EUR for the frame only without shock, and is available with the Fox Float X2 for 650 EUR more and, like our test bike, with the Öhlins TTX22M shock for 900 EUR more.

With the Carbonjack, Antidote signalled their first full bike on sale. Standard full bikes are available starting with Fox Factory suspension, Shimano XT 12-speed drivetrain and brakes, OneUp dropper posts and stems paired with Antidotes own Candy Ray bars, Industry Nine wheels and a Maxxis Minion DHF / DHR II tyre combo for 7699 EUR.

There's the option to change to an EXT Era fork, Storia shock and BikeYoke dropper for an extra 200 EUR and an Öhlins RXF 36 m.2 fork, TTX22m shock and BikeYoke dropper for an extra 400 EUR above the base price. Although they will happily mix and match the components to get the build exactly as you want it. But that does mean you have to enquire as the price changes for each specific build.

Standard colours are glossy carbon with grey, yellow or matt black logos. For 150 EUR extra you can have orange logos, for 200 EUR more it’s a custom colour and custom logos, for 250 EUR more two colours frame and for 300 EUR more a full custom colour and logos.

The Carbonjack 29 we tested came specced with an Öhlins RXF36 m.2 fork, TTX22M shock, Shimano XTR drivetrain with XT cranks and XTR brakes, with 203mm rotors front and rear.

DT Swiss provided the wheelset with the EXC 1200 with both 30mm internal width rims being set up tubeless with Maxxis Minion DHF front and DHR II tires in EXO+ casing and 3C Maxx Terra compound. Touchpoints are the Candy Ray bar from Antidote, OneUp stem and 180mm drop post, Race Face grips and a WTB saddle.

The Carbonjack 29 as we tested retails for 8,699 EUR and in L size weighed in at 14.5kg or 31.97lb.

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The shock came with a 457 lbs spring, which gave 25% sag and is, I’ve found, to be a good starting point when I get a new and unfamiliar bike. It did find myself however running the rebound pretty closed in most situations. Our bike also came with Cushcore inserts front and rear.

As mentioned, the bike was ridden everywhere from after work blasts on little ribbons of single track high up in the hills to full days in the Champery and Morgins bike parks. That initial idea of the Carbonjack being an enduro race weapon did give me some preconceptions about how it might feel, and this led to a couple of rides before I actually got to know its true self.

I also took the bike to Pila and La Thuile, in Italy, which can give a mesmerising mix of flat out fast and demanding race style tracks to high alpine adventure trails. It also got ridden over in Morzine and Les Gets on some of the well-known trails, but mostly on as many of the hidden away ones that contain softer but frighteningly steep ground littered with roots. Which on a couple of occasions were right after it had rained.

Climbing

The Carbonjack is a firm and fast climber. There’s an overwhelming directness to it when you’re on the power. There’s a sense that it’s all going into propelling you forwards. Never is there the slightest hint of bob from the suspension and that taught feeling makes it dispose of the vertical meters with ease. There’s no need to lock the suspension out, which is good, as the lever is a long way down there.

While the feel is direct and taught when climbing, the position is more stretched out and rearward. It's something that can be helped by sliding the seat as far forward on the rails as possible, but is an inherent problem of the geometry. Personally, I would have liked to be even more forward, as I enjoy a more over the pedals feeling than recumbent.

That directness does make for a nice climbing bike when the terrain turns more technical, although its tautness does tend to translate to a bit more feedback from the trail to rider. It does, however, make it a bit sportier for getting up a technical climb littered with steps that require more body language to negotiate them. It never really stalls and gets caught up in the travel when you hit a step or larger obstacle.

Descending

On the way down that tight character continues, and this might be where I found that enduro race bike tag to be not exactly spot on. While any bike can be an enduro race bike once it’s in between the tape, the Carbonjack just doesn’t exude that unflustered and steadfast feel that the big enduro race bikes often have in buckets. There’s more of a spring in its step that tends you towards picking the bike up and moving it around rather than charging down a trail safe in the knowledge that you can run over almost everything with your eyes closed.

Part of that is down to the travel. There’s simply not as much of it compared to the 170mm travel and upwards enduro bikes that are becoming more common. More of each hit is coming through to you and the bike asks more of your participation in getting it to the bottom. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as I like riding bikes, not passengering them.

Part is also down to some of the geometry details. The 65° head angle brings a touch more manoeuvrability into the equation and with a 450 mm chainstay it means that there was never the feeling of faint grip on the front end, even with swapping out the Candy Ray bar for something with more rise to get my hands in my preferred position for the steeper terrains.


It’s also an incredibly light bike, even built with a coil shock and Cushcore, which adds to its direct and agile character. There does feel a bit of a mis-match sometimes in the weight of the sprung and unsprung parts of the bike. The frame, along with a lot of the components on it, are light, whereas the wheels do have a bit more heft in them from the inserts. On occasion I did get the feeling that the wheels were struggling to move with the terrain while the bike itself was doing more of the moving from the impacts. It’s nit-picking, as the inserts brought some security and peace of mind to the carbon DT Swiss wheels and allowed me to think less about the sharp and jagged terrain that might be coming up.

On paper, and in ride feel, the Carbonjack gives more flashes of a longer travel trail bike than enduro race bike. Although there are occasional mixes of the two characters in there. The Öhlins suspension front and rear does a fantastic job of giving ground tracking ability and suppleness that blend into control and composure at higher speeds and rougher terrains. The BB position on the bike is a touch higher than bigger travel enduro bikes and adds to the ease of manoeuvring the bike at a slight expense of really feeling dropped right in there. But for what the bike actually feels like, a true mountain bike, it suits it really well.


It’s a bike that can take on anything, a very good Jack of all trades. Expecting it to be something very tightly defined in character - and enduro race bike - can make you perhaps be disappointed with its actual real-world performance. And it’s a shame, as its performance is fantastic.

For the bigger days out in the saddle, covering lots of varied terrain, the Carbonjack feels right at home. Big days in Pila were taken completely in the bike’s stride, and anyone that's ridden Pila will know that the days can be huge, as well as the peak to valley 2200m descents that take in everything from narrow exposed alpine trails to winding ribbons of forest goodness.

Round the corner in La Thuile, the bike was also really good fun and gets down absolutely everything you can throw at it. Which in La Thuile can be some of the most serious terrain that a little (non-DH) bike can see. It just needs a bit more piloting to be done, a bit more attention to the details of line choice, a little bit more of a mini hop here and there to cancel out some of the bigger oncoming hits. It’s that sharp precision that rewards greatly when it’s done properly, rather than the bludgeoning approach to riding trails. Point and shoot straight lining does work, don’t get me wrong, you just know that you’re going to have to hold on just that touch tighter.

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Maintenance

During the whole test period the Carbonjack 29 never missed a beat, with zero issues or niggling problems that needed special attention. It was a case of just grab it and ride every time I headed out. The attention to detail on the Carbonjack extends to the assembly of the bike, with grease and Loctite present and correct in all the necessary places out of the box.

The pivots use mostly standard bearing sizes and standard tools for working on them. They're also sealed, meaning that when I did take the bike apart, just to understand how it’s put together, the bearings were clean and free from any dirt or moisture. Most of the pivot hardware holds pretty well in the frame too, meaning that you generally don’t need three pairs of hands to work on it. The upper link to mainframe pivot does use some really thin washers though, so don’t go losing them.

The lower link to rear triangle pivot uses a collet system. An 8 mm hex tightens the pivot in and a 5 mm tightens the wedge to lock the axle from coming loose. A threaded insert on the drive side keys into the frame and where possible Antidote removed the threads from the large moulded frame parts and put them in something smaller and more easily replaced.

The top link is a three-piece affair that needs unbolting before it can be removed. The lower link is a bit fiddlier to get out of the bike but you don’t need a degree and it is by no means a regular thing to be doing.

All the pivots are easily accessible and can easily be whipped through when checking. The lower shock bolt is a bit hidden away, but removing the rear wheel and chunky velcroed on fender give better access. That fender doing a great job of stopping mud collecting around the shock area of the bike. It’s an easy bike to clean too with only the nooks and crannies around the shock being an area to keep an eye on, but like mentioned, that fender does a stellar job.

The lower shock mount does run on a standard bushing setup, although it’s found in the small extender due to the shock being turned. There’s a lifetime warranty for the original owner with 2 years on the paint finish and suspension bearings.

A brilliant user manual accompanies the Carbonjack with exploded diagrams and descriptions that cover the bearing codes, o-ring sizes, bolt thread and length specs and also all the torque ratings for all pivots and bolts. Also included is a full and detailed setup and checking procedure with information on how to mount the shocks through to setting up the suspension to Antidote’s recommendations, all with detailed descriptions and pictures or illustrations to help.

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How Does It Compare?


If we were to put the Carbonjack up against some of the other enduro race bikes out there, like the latest Nukeproof Mega, it’s a bit like taking a knife to a gunfight. A very sharp, very dangerous knife, but still a knife. It doesn’t have that absolute steadfastness to its ride, especially in the roughest and most demanding terrain. The kind of terrain that an enduro race bike feels so unflustered in and sometimes allows you to just throw caution to the wind and plough on through. It’s also a little short on travel if we compare it to them too.

Instead, it might be fairer to compare it to some of the longer legged trail bikes out there, like the Privateer 141. Now the Privateer does have 10mm less travel front and rear, but it sure does make up for that out on the trail with a demeanor that takes it way beyond any of the on-paper figures would suggest. Both bikes have 29" wheels and somewhat similar geometry.

In the same terrain the Carbonjack feels like a sharp and precise tool that thrives off being piloted well, whereas the 141 has a bit more of a blunt blow feeling to it and can often suffer through mistakes in the piloting with its sheer bruteness.

The Carbonjack has an astoundingly high level of attention to detail to it whereas the 141 can be a touch rough around the edges in some of its details. Yes, the price difference is considerable and you might expect that level of fit and finish from the Carbonjack. But it does deliver it very well along with many options for personalisation in the buying process.

Some of the geometry points on the 141 are a bit more modern though, like the seat tube angle. The slackness and offset of the seat tube on the Carbonjack probably being the biggest gripe with the bike.

The two bikes essentially get to the bottom of every trail and at pretty much the same speed. But the Carbonjack does so with surgical precision and then when you park it up for a beer it will turn heads from riders and passers by alike.

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Technical Report


Shimano XTR Drivetrain: We’ve said it before and I’ve no doubt we’ll say it again. The Shimano 12-speed drivetrains are wonderful. And in top tier XTR guise the shifting performance is at a benchmark level both up and down the cassette no matter the amount of push you’ve got going on through the pedals. The ability to adjust the clutch tension is also welcome, meaning you can get just enough on there to stop dropped chains while not having excessive amounts that impede the chain stretch during travel, all the while allowing you to adjust as the system wears.

Shimano XTR Brakes: The lever feel, adjustment, power and stopping performance of the XTR brakes is very much liked. And with 203mm rotors coming front and rear there were no worries on the steeper trails around the Alps. But, like a broken record, the wandering bit point is there on even the highest end brakes. It’s not something that makes them unrideable, but it is something that is firmly in your attention while riding.


Öhlins Suspension: The RXF 36 m.2 and TTX22M combo are pretty formidable. They both have a wonderful blend of suppleness and support, along with a usable range of adjustment that can take even the best suspension systems and make them feel just that little bit better. Playing around with the fork’s ramp chamber is a nice tool depending on the terrain and demands and the coil shock’s ability to absorb impacts of all sizes while leaving you with just the right amount of information coming back to you is addictive.

Attention to Detail: Not confined to one particular component, but the Carbonjack is peppered with small details that show someone thought about every little corner of the bike. Good chain slap protection, well covering mud protection, collet pivots, sealed pivots and a spec list that is ready to go for nearly everyone out of the box. And if that’s not to your liking, the personalisation options are even more encompassing.

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Pinkbike's Take

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Reviews and Tech Reviews Enduro Bikes Antidote Antidote Carbonjack