The Complete 2021 Specialized Stumpjumper EVO Lineup Compared & An Amazing Launch Video

 Right, that's a low price of entry for a complete carbon bike with X01 parts and RSC brakes.

 Not when you are in canada. 4900 USD translates to 6500 CAD, and they list the bike 7299 CAD on their website.

 Yeah - is that accurate? X01 Drivetrain and Fox Performance Elite suspension on a 150/160 carbon trailbike from a big manufacturer for for $4,900?

That's easily $1-$2K cheaper than competing builds from other manufacturers. The X01 Hightower is $7,099. If you spend $4,800 on a Trek Slash, you're going to get a NX/GX mix. The Ripmo doesn't have an X01 build, but their GX is $5,499.

We can argue about whether anyone actually needs X01 on a trail bike, but it's still a hell of a value coming from a big manufacturer. Could we dare to dream that the price of well-equipped trail bikes could, IDK, perhaps be driven slightly down?

The only manufacturer/build I can think of that really competes with this spec/price right now is YT's Jeffsey Pro Race 29, that'll give you full X01, carbon wheels and the (absolutely necessary) bling of Kashima for $5,299 if you could actually find one in stock at some point in your life.

 why can't we get X01 cassette and chain, instead of derailleur and shifter?? I know, sells better in the store

 @sjma: RS brakes, but yeah, damn good price point.

 It is a great build at a good price. Those are parts that most riders would probably build their bike up with.

 @Dendens: derailleur and shifter have more impact on shifting performance. I'd personally much rather have an upgraded shifter/derailleur than cassette and chain.

 @cgdibble: Cassette makes pretty big difference in shifting. I have tried several different non-brand cassettes with not great results. They work fine to a point, but shifts are not as quick/clean and when going gets tough, they don't perform nearly as well.

 @cgdibble: I personally can't feel the "better" shifting of X01, but I can appreciate the 100g lighter cassette and longevity of chain. Either way, sweet bike.

 Surely that's supposed to be a "5"...?

 Finally spesh getting it right with spec options

 @Dendens: X01 casette costs more than both those combined?

 @Dendens: Chain & cassette are consumables, I cant see why people spend so much money on those.

 @Marc-Antoine28: Yeah it makes no sense!! The cheaper Evo Comp is okay and then the Evo Expert which is well equiped is like 700$ too expensive! The Evo Pro is like 400$ too much but really, the best deal for the price would be the Evo Expert and our prices just don't make any sense WTF!!

Evo LTD is 8000 here so not 7800us...typo for sure! I still don'T get why it is 700$ more than Evo Expert which looks pretty much the same but with RockShox suspension, which is even often cheaper!?

 @Timo82: I'd totally buy the expert if it was adequately priced here.

 @Marc-Antoine28: The same for Germany. 4899 USD is approx 4200€ and they list the bike 5499€ on their Website...

 @nineteeninch: aren’t your prices listed with VAT included? US retail is excl any tax.

 US pricing is always listed without sales tax (I think VAT does not apply to the US, they call it sales tax I believe but basically is is the same)...therefore add another 7% on top of it and also add the usual customs charge for international shipping into foreign countries.

Therefore the price difference between the US pricing and the EU pricing is not so much different really.

However, since there are no customs charges between US and Canada (due to NAFTA) the canadian pricing seems a bit too high really, most likely Spec is expecting that canadian customers will pay the higher price as the income is higher in Canada...thats normal product management, every country has its own price list, same with cars for example

 except for in Australia, where its $9300, and is only stocked with re brakes and not RSC. Australia totally gets ripped off with good bike prices, it's far too expensive to be worth it, but unfortunately that's the case with almost every bike you can get.

 @tomes: Canada doesn't buy bikes from the USA. It imports them from Asia like many other brands. Therefore, NAFTA doesn't apply. Pretty much every bike that comes into Canada gets 13% of duties. This excludes sales tax.

Also since when do people buy stuff at the market foreign exchange rate. Everyone knows that if a Canadian buys a product in USD today he will pay a 3-4% premium over the market rate. Can people stop comparing CAD to USD at the spot rate of the day of the launch

Finally when Spec and other brands price their bike, they have a corporate rate in place. They also don't convert USD to CAD the day of the launch...

 @tomes: That's because sales tax (our equivalent of VAT) in the US is set by individual states, and varies from state to state, and locality to locality.

5 states, Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, and Oregon, have 0% sales tax, so what you see is what you pay. California has the highest state tax, at 7.25%. If you combine local taxes in there, Tennessee has the highest average at 9.53%.

Technically, if you live in a state with sales tax and buy something in a lower or 0 sales tax state, you're supposed to calculate and pay your in-state taxes, but that essentially never happens and is never enforced for individuals, though sometimes for businesses.

Up until a few years ago, you could typically buy things online from another state, and not pay sales tax, but that's mostly been ended now, and online retailers have to collect and pay sales tax based on the address they're shipping to.

Just to make things more complicated, some things (some groceries, healthcare supplies etc.) are exempted from taxes in some states and localities.

Anyway, it's basically impossible for retailers to show 50-different prices from state-to-state, so with a few exceptions (Liquor at Costco is the only one I can think of) everything is priced pre-sales-tax in the US.

TL;DR: If you actually bought an EVO Expert in Oregon, you'd pay $4,899 exactly. If you bought it in Tennessee, you'd pay $5,365.87, but Americans are used to those discrepancies and wouldn't find it surprising.

 @perroch: In the beforetimes when we could freely cross the border, there were definitely opportunities to save $$s by buying a bike on the other side of the border and bringing it home.

We bought my wife's Giant roadbike on a family trip to Vancouver, and ended up saving something like $700 on a $2,300 bike thanks to the difference in Canadian and US pricing, and the current exchange rate. It was a few years ago, but IIRC the exchange rate had shifted to make the USD a bit stronger, and Giant hadn't adjusted their MSRP to account for that.

Usually, we would have had to pay duty coming back into the US (or just lied and pretended we brought the bike up with us), but families are allowed to combine their duty-free allowance, so this was the one-time that having a gaggle of children actually saved us money.

I'm looking forward to a time when we aren't (very fairly mind you) seen as the world's plague-rats, and we can once again cross the border for that, and many other reasons.

We're actually working on a home-improvement project right now, and softwood lumber is generally noticeably cheaper across the border in BC than it is down here. I'd planned to cross with a trailer, spend a weekend at some of our favorite places in BC, and use our duty-free allowance on a load of lumber for this project, but COVID put an end to those plans.

 @zyoungson: using GX vs X01 chain as an example... although X01 is more expensive it tends to last significantly (twice?) as long. So less waste, lighter, and in the end cheaper. Now XX1, can you really put a price on bling factor?

 @atourgates: Sales tax is also based on cities and counties. Cities, counties, and states can change the sales tax. My city/county in California the sales tax is 9.25% and some cities in LA are 10.25%. Taxes suck, seeing how city, county, state, and federal governments and government officials spend and mismanage all that tax revenue. Boo.

 @atourgates: Canyon Strive CF8 has Fox performance elite and Shimano XT for US$4699 and a DT E1700 wheelset with the 350 (star ratchet) hub. $5699 from Canyon gets you the CF9 with full XO1 (including cassette and chai, and descendant carbon crank with the lighter alloy chainring) and RS Lyrik Ultimate/Super Deluxe Ultimate - plus a wheelset with great carbon rims but a rear hub unfortunately made of soft cheese.


In Australia the Specialized pricing is obscene at $9300 for the Expert - in comparison for $150 more the Canyon Strive CFR 9 gets you Fox Factory suspension, full XTR, and a DT Swiss EXC1200 wheelset.

 @perroch: This is not what we're talking about.... The cheapest Evo multiply by 1.35 would equal to the canadian price. Then if you do the same thing for the Evo Expert, the canadian version would be about 700$ too expensive!

It should be the same ''1.35'' rate for every bike, no?!

 @Dendens: GX chain shifts nicer, havnt tried x01 but xx1 is horrible, jumps over to the next cog & more likely to skip if you dont time the shift perfectly. As for bling factor, its a chain, it gets covered in oil & starts showing wear after a few rides, seriously..

 NZD$10,400 so yeah, nah.

 @Timo82: Your logic is good but luckily/unluckily for us subsidiaries are responsible for fixing prices not the headquarter. Therefore, they get the freedom to choose what bike should be at what price regardless to some intent of the USD price.

Forget how much the Americans pay and let's focus on if it's a good deal or not compared to other brands bikes in CAD. Just like we accepted the fact that wine is way more expensive in Canadian than in France.

 and the straight black frame is a looker

 @perroch: Ok thanks for the info!

Then I would say the cheapest one could be a good deal. The nearly 2000$ difference would be good to modify your fork to be even better than the Performance Elite, keep the shimano drivetrain (would sell the XO1 to buy XT anyway on the Expert), same shock...would sell the wheels on both of them!

 @Timo82: shock is a bit of a crux... Dps2 vs performance elite... Fork us an easy upgrade... Shock.. to so much

 @kinch04: Well it is still the same DPX2 shock... performance elite is not like the X2 with HSC and HSR...only have a bit more ajustment. Not a big deal for me as I would probably change it anyway.

 with a wink and a nod

 No doubt. Was going to come in and post about that. So awesome.

 @Incycle-Bicycles: When are these coming to one of your stores? Rancho preferably. Take my money! LOL

 @Squirrel-155: We have them now

 agreed, I'm really impressed. The concept is 1000000/10 lol. I was kinda hoping they'd move the shock to how the enduro looks though.

 The original Evo Matty Miles launch video is the greatest bike edit of all time, in my opinion. The Caamp soundtrack, the riding, the scenery. This is pretty good too. Wish we could watch the actual edit without the "story" part.

 thanks bruh.

 @ischiller: any more bighead live coming up? i miss that guy

 @Upduro: We've been trying to kill him off... Stay tuned.

 @ischiller: Seriously your Specialized portfolio is incredible, much respect to your creativity (and to S for letting it flourish)

 @caltife: Dad revolutionizing the industry

 @caltife: Specialized deserves credit in allowing us to explore themes and concepts. Imagine sitting through a zoom pitch meeting talking about the golden age idea with characters in their 70's. Thank you for the note, it is appreciated.

 @nicky-d: Old man ideazzzzz

 @ischiller: hell yeah

rowdae is still my all time favorite

 @Upduro: Rad. That was me running around in the helmet. So ridiculous.

 I'll add to the congratulations @ischiller, I've been loving the Specialized ads ever since "I heart Stumpjumper" / "The All-New Stumpjumper" - I check in on the Specialized YT page regularly to see what's new.

Kudos to you and your teams, I love the combination of ironic humour and attention to detail that goes into the films, they feel like they're made be a team who really concentrate on every aspect of their craft.

I still watch "I heart Stumpjumper" about once a month, Todd, "never go full enduro" and "berms, jumps, ruts.. hot laps" never get old for me.

 @Woody25: Thank you for the nice comment. Much appreciated.

 There is not a lot wrong the grip damper, has a nice balance between high & low speed compression & you just wind the dial to where you want it, easy.

 When I saw the Comp with Shimano I was hoping there'd be a Shimano version higher up the range too. Nope. So, Comp has the best brakes.

 @iamamodel: An XT build would be solid

 I appreciate you going to the trouble so that others (okay, me) don't have to.

 Just looked closer - the black part of the minty chip expert is actually gloss over bare carbon. Gotta save up for a new keyboard now too.

 @sjma:

 @mikekazimer Any hint of an alloy model being available in the future?

 It helps pay for this amazing launch video. Stop complaining dude!

 Yeah it's pretty weird. They vary from region to region. Interesting that Germany/Spain get the S-WOrks with carbon/white colour, not available outside Europe. Hopefully Spesh release some limited edition colours like they do for the Allez

 No. That corner is on Compression Trail in the bike ranch. One I built for an XC race but Matt showed how to properly ride it.

 @kclw: Ok. That is one of my favorite photos. Ya I just wondered because this one looked similar

 @bearik: A custom trail was built for the film. Similar in the elbow drag but the turn is quite different.

 @bearik: Funny thing is to do that photo they modified the corner from the original build. Sort of ruined the corner for those us who can't corner like that. I grumbled about it until I saw the photo shoot.

I think most riders in Kamloops have spent hours hitting that corner trying replicate that photo. I have seen a couple people get close but even amazing riders can't do it like Matt.

 @kclw: Interesting. Didn't everyone think the pictures were photoshopped so they went back and shot a video?

 www.specialized.com/us/en/stumpjumper-evo-expert/p/175269?color=281720-175269&searchText=96321-3001

 Specialized sold through almost all of last year's completes but the frames are still available in both 27.5 and 29, carbon and alloy on clearance right now. Worth a peek since the new frame option looks like SW only.

 There is a frame only option, the S-Works model. Selling at around $3K, $5000 AUD, $5500 NZD. don't know GBP price tho