Back before the 2019 World Cup season began, the UCI updated the rule book to allow the use of mixed wheel sizes in mountain bike competition. We'd already had an abundance of 29" downhill bikes, starting in 2017, but some racers chose to stick with 27.5" as the bigger wheels were buzzing their arses or they simply preferred the feel of a 27.5 inch wheel in the rear of the bike.
With the change of the rules, we began to see riders racing the mixed wheel, or mullet, setups to noticeable victories - none more so than Loïc Bruni and his domination of the 2019 season with the World Cup overall and World Championship victories. This was all while Specialized only had a full 29" setup available, leaving fans and avid racers wondering if their mixed wheel Demo would ever see the light of production.
The Demo has been openly developed and tested on the World Cup circuit with immense success in the 2019 season under Loic Bruni.
Today Specialized answer that with the official release of the latest iteration of the Demo platform, allowing not only a mixed wheel size setup but adjustability in the geometry to open the Demo up to even more riding styles and preferences.
The layout remains the same as the Demo 29 that was released back last year with its six-link suspension layout bringing a drastic change in suspension characteristics for the brand. The Demo uses a four-bar system to define the acceleration and braking responses of the bikes, with an additional two links then driving the shock which is mounted low and central in the frame. This layout change, compared to the previous Demo generation, upped the amount of anti-squat and anti-rise considerably. Leverage ratio progression was upped too and all curves are now much straighter lines, promoting predictability in the bike.
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Geometry, Sizing & AdjustabilityThree sizes are still on offer with Specialized's own naming, S2, S3 and S4, which represent reach numbers of 426mm, 446mm and 466mm respectively in the mixed wheel size setup.
Now the Demo has adjustability via a chip at the Horst pivot. There are three modes, Short, Middle and Long, which Specialized correspond to a certain wheel size setup. Short is dedicated to 27.5" rear wheel and promotes manoeuvrability, Long is dedicated to a 29" rear wheel setup and promotes stability at speed and Middle can accommodate both rear wheel sizes and offers a slightly more stable 27.5" setup or a slightly nimbler 29" setup. The Demo comes as standard with a 29" front wheel and 27.5" rear wheel, following the success that their race team found on this combo, but it's definitely nice to have the options for any combo you want.
Added to this adjustability, Specialized also give geometry numbers for the bike as it comes from the factory with the mixed wheels, a full 29" setup and a full 27.5" setup. All those comparisons are given in the middle setting, apart from the chainstay lengths which show the differences the Horst pivot chip can make.
It might seem like a lot of numbers in the table to get you confused, but it actually opens up a lot of ability for the rider to play around with the bike to make it fit their riding style and terrain. It takes a little time to experiment with all the settings, but nothing ever worth learning came quickly. This can also be a useful tool for the keen racer to adapt their bike to the track and conditions in hand when they're trying to go as fast as possible.
Currently, we've got no information on specs, pricing or availability. But we do have a new Demo on the way to Champéry ready to start testing. We'll report back with more information on the bike and ride impressions soon.
Jokes apart the mullet seems to be the best choice for mtb ...motorbike industry could teach something about it
I had a Big Hit back in the day as well lol
I don’t think you understand what it means to say “literally fire.”
www.pinkbike.com/photo/11763751
anyways, its not about what you ride, it's about how you ride it. as someone who has ridden all wheel sizes, i choose to stick with 26 because i ride bike park and quite frankly 26 wheels are cheap to replace, as are 26inch frames. or maybe i'm just stuck in my ways lol
The problem is you're be lucky to even find a 26" replacement tire at a bike park shop nowadays, so when traveling out of area for bike parks, we have to bring some personal spares.
What I'm always really really confused by when it comes to the average dh rider's need to go faster is the fact that the brake bumps just seem to be getting worse and worse where we ride. Is it simply more riders/less maintenance or are people just coming into things faster requiring more braking? If anything, seems the average DH rider needs to be slowed down rather than sped up when it comes to keeping the annoying brake bumps down.
The real need for speed comes to clearing the big jumps, but again, usually that's just skill and commitment vs. the need for a larger wheel.
I've never gotten to the bottom of a trail (say a 2 minute trail as an example) and said, "man, if I could only have made it 6 seconds faster that run would have been fun".
@DaFreerider44 it’s even harder to go to a bmx after riding a big 29’er. Lol
@kwcpinkbike
They stopped making 26 inch tyres way to prematurely there’s still a market for them now but they’re super hard to find in decent casings and compounds. Just seems the only marketing angle they have is speed when most of us don’t really care. I personally don’t want a deceptively fast but sluggish feeling OTP race bike. It’s the reason I don’t ride downhill bikes anymore and still have three year old process. Here for a fun time not a long time.
27.5s and mullets turn better, end of story. THey may also let the rear suspension function marginally better with the reduced unsprung weight. Nothing wrong with 29s, in most situations they will go the fastest with the least effort. Both sizes are fun in their own right. I'm interested in trying more mullet bikes, especially purpose built mullets. I think they look ridiculous but if they can meld the benefits of both wheel sizes I'll overlook the aesthetics.
"So, you're saying theres a chance..."
"Hey, what was all that one in a million talk?"
.
I may swap a 27.5 off my wife's bike, shorten the rear end 10mm, lower the bars by a spacer (to keep the same body position?) and see how the Tall Boy behaves. I expect more pedal strikes but it may be fun to try it out.
If you have a Tallboy 4 I don't think the mullet will work very well. You'll likely throw the geo off too much to make a good comparison, even with the flip chip.
What bikes are these?
I'm 193cm (6'4'') and yes, I do want a bike with longer reach. Very few companies actually make 29er DH bikes in big sizes, I'm pretty much limited to Commencal and Santa Cruz for my next bike.
What really gets annoying is the extreme Difference between trail and DH bikes. I've recently tested a Norco optic, in XL of course, but with a reach of 510 it has 40mm more than my current DH bike. And its not like my DH is old or small. It's a 2019 bike with the largest frame size, in the largest factory setting. I'll have to invest into a reach adjust headset, and it will still only be about as long as the norco optic in size Large (480).
WHY can nobody have some slight hint of continuity in their bike range ? Since I already mentioned them, just look at norco. The aurum has a max reach of 465, whilst the optic in the same size has 510! How in the world does it make sense for a person of my height to have reach variation by 45 mm between a DH and a Trail?
Another comparisson: Norco's top of the range Race-DH (465) is reach-wise closer to their Dirt Jump (430) than it is to their XC (509), trail (510) or AM (515)
Pick a DH bike based solely on where your reach should be while descending. The numbers have to be different.
But why not just say that in the launch. It would just make them look like they care about their customer base had they just said ‘all parts will be available to existing Demo 29 owners’.
But, on rough trails where I want to pedal, the bb is just too low and doesn’t work. So, it’s more a freeride setup of the bike - not an enduro bike for going fast. I want to try a mullet with a more “normal” bb height.
I think a 29er with a narrow light rim and something like a maxxis aggressor in 2.3 would be sweet for those 40km after work rides.
If made to work by Specialized but as here not made clear to us, are they afraid of tech talk dissing the linkage and geo in this setup?
I mean that if we want the same wheelbase, we could shift the bars closer, further back, to be able to stay more centered on the bike on steep downhills. But what positives would we get rid of with this?
The lower end models, and frame only are available now and priced on the website.
www.specialized.com/fr/en/demo-race/p/175245?color=281621-175245
www.pinkbike.com/news/spotted-is-this-a-new-specialized-status.html
Thanks to a global pandemic, DH is entirely DEAD IN THE WATER and NOW they finally decided to launch the mullet version? Wtf lame timing is that Specialized?Your marketing team is either drunk, or dumb af.You wont sell one bike this year and the hype will be all gone by next year...
“You do realize that in any industry like skiing or biking, things getting released now have been in development for 2-5 years most likely.”