View attachment 36574
Specialized 6fattie FSR Stumpjumper Comp (Aluminum) First thoughts:
I started to consider this bike at the beginning of 2016, when
@treeman picked one up in carbon and was quite happy. My thought was that the combination of generous tires and full squish would be an easier every day ride on my back than my FS Tallboy (race bike) or hardtail Fatboy (SNOW, mud, backup). I don’t have any back problems at age 61, but I like to ride six days a week with 3-4 of those rides on trails and some of those MTB rides are up to three hours.
Besides the OEM specs, Jim at Hilltop set it up with a Thompson carbon bar and matching stem, Nextie Jungle Fox 52mm rims with I9 hubs and the Vittoria Bomboloni 3” tires running tubeless, instead of the OEM GC and Purgatory. Total weight is 30.1 lbs with pedals. The seat is an S2 last from Selle Italia. YBMV…
I have four rides on the 27+ so far. First ride was a 12 mile shake out ride at low intensity effort that my wife insisted I take. One of my first thoughts after 800 yards is that the nose was really long, but that is something I am used to now. The picture is before the four mile mark. (Whoops, forgot to get a water bottle cage and a bell.)
The second ride was a three hour, 26 mile effort with one five minute effort that was somewhat successful at generating a good result. Two thirds of the way through the ride, I brought it to the shop for some more tweaks.
That same evening, I did 12 miles at Fun Monday at Chimney Rock, rolling out of the Ballfield lot. It is usually difficult for me to hang with this ride even at a very high effort level, however, there were a lot of new faces and, because it is a no-drop ride, I could hang. The crazy thing was that one of guys who showed up was a “Fat is the only way to go” bud, who was rolling the same bike in the same matte orange (Gallardo) color. Every few minutes,
@goodvibe said something along the lines of “I really like this bike”.
On the rocky CR trails, especially High Tech Vosseller, the 6fattie was very capable. It steps over boulders with 160mm of travel up front. The 3’’ tires cruise over the chunder of rock carpeted trail. The biggest surprise is that it climbed those switchbacks easily. I had the tire pressure at 14 lbs, which was too high, causing a slip out on the steepest left hand switchback. Next time, I would take it down to 12.5 PSI or lower. Coming down from Miller to Gilbride, the bike excelled.
The next day, my back felt fine. I did some low intensity rail trail with a couple of guys, then about five miles of the Nassau trails east of High Bridge. The Specialized dropper post, which I have never had before, is still not perfect, but that is the only complaint that I have about the 6fattie. That will get resolved in the next week or so.
The bike is faster than I expected and as comfortable as I had hoped. The bottom bracket is a bit lower than the Tallboy and I have had a couple more pedal strikes in the first 50 miles of single track than normal, but I am such a conservative rider that I probably don’t have “enough” pedal strikes. Dialing this bike in will be an enjoyable process.
