The bike fairy has struck again, a pair of 2019 Stumpy’s was hastily set up to demo around the Surrey Hill’s, and as it turned out a little further afield too. Certini Cycles had once agin supplied Andy T and myself with a 29er in Large and a 27.5 in medium to give our feedback on. A quick attachment of our relevant pedals and some shock and Fork fettling soon saw us on our way. These were the basic carbon comp versions so the Fox 34 Rythmn fork and simple Fox Float DPS evol can didn’t fill us with huge expectations, in fact the entire list of parts was quite underwhelming, but to be honest they do do the job, even the single pot SLX brakes, quickly brought down any excessive speed when required.

Almost immediately it felt comfortable, I was able to get plenty of pop, lean it over, get some air and all on a very efficient pedalling platform. In short it wants to go fast – but doesn’t dumb the trail down. The wide 2.6 in tyres initially felt odd, but they do seem to work. Also quite forgiving in my poor body positioning during some over eagerness through a little rocky section near Hascombe – I’m sure I’d of been off on some other bikes. So this bike fits very nicely into the trail side of things, the next day we were off to Wind Hill for some park action.

The plan for today was for us to ride both bikes and see quite how much difference they offered. Andy started on the 27.5 again, we both slowed the rebound down a tad (nobody wants to get bucked on some of the bigger jumps here). We gave the Bluetopia line a right good workout, and Phil who had also joined us got things a little pear shaped on an early run, but did the very blokey type thing of ‘nah I’ll be ok’ and as we couldn’t see any bones sticking out, we took him at his word. After a cup of tea and a sandwich we swapped the bikes over.

Now Andy has not normally been very complimentary about our ‘wagon wheelers’ but after his very first run down, he stated the bigger bike was simply ‘better’, so nuff said, although I have to add, the smaller bike was fun and possibly a smidge more agile when airborne. The bigger bike though is super stable, manoeuvrable and with a level of stiffness that even Stormy Daniels might appreciate.

With the better bits on of the ‘expert’ build, you know what, this could be the one.

Lots of footage below, including Phil’s OTB (courtesy of Phil).

Steve.