Specialized has launched a redesigned Stumpjumper, but there's a glaring omission from the range – where's the Stumpjumper EVO?
When the big S unveiled the new Stumpjumper 15 – the fifteenth full-suspension bike to bear the Stumpy name – I was unsettled to see no mention of the EVO in the line-up.
The EVO version of this bike – designed as a more progressive version of the Stumpjumper trail bike – has been around for more than a decade and was the first 29er I really fell for.
I rode it when it launched in 2013, before riding it as my long-term test bike for 2014 and most of 2015, banging on about how great it was to anyone who’d listen.
Since then, the Stumpjumper EVO has only improved with each generation – the outgoing bike offers great adjustable geometry, plenty of suspension travel and a build that could handle most enduro races.
In fact, the Specialized Enduro Team competes on the Stumpy EVO, rather than the Specialized Enduro.
So why cull it from the range?
Not all is as it seems
Although the name ‘EVO’ may have been dropped from the Stumpjumper 15, the new bike is far from a regular, run-of-the-mill trail bike – it’s far closer to the EVO than you might expect.
“The idea was to make one bike that could cover off all the Stumpjumper and Stumpjumper EVO riders,” explains Steve Saletnik, the Stumpjumper product manager.
"[We wanted] to make the [Stumpjumper] line simpler to understand for our riders. I got a lot of feedback about riders second guessing what bike was the right one for them to buy.”
The new bike largely adopts the EVO’s geometry and the adjustment that made it so capable.
It also features the new Fox Genie shock, which boosts its versatility further. This features a clever two-stage spring that enables you to tune the first 70 per cent of the travel independently of the final 30 per cent (which you can also tweak with the provided volume spacers).
Oh, and the travel has been upped to 145mm – much closer to that of the Stumpjumper EVO, which had 150mm on tap out back.
“Really, this new bike could have been called Stumpjumper or Stumpjumper EVO, but we ultimately chose Stumpjumper because we like having that EVO designation open for the next wild idea we want to try out in a bike,” says Saletnik.
In that case, can we get excited that a new EVO might be in the works? A bike that pushes Stumpjumper boundaries even further? Maybe, according to Saletnik.
“I wouldn’t say we lack EVO in terms of the current bike, we just changed the name so we have room to make an even cooler EVO 'something' in the future," he says.
No EVO, no worries
The new Stumpjumper 15 may not bear the EVO tag, but every bike in the line is more extreme than the outgoing bike. You can read my first ride review to get my early impressions on Spesh's latest trail ripper.
However, one bike in the line-up hints at what a new Stump EVO could look like.
With Ohlins suspension, including a coil shock and bump up to 160mm fork travel, the Stumpjumper Ohlins Coil is something of an unofficial EVO. Sort of.
In any case, each of the new Stumpys can get seriously rowdy and take on more than you’d expect. As a result and despite my initial fears, the lack of EVO shouldn’t worry you in the slightest.
Sure, some tougher tyres will help unlock true ‘EVO’ potential from the new, regular Stumpjumpers, but the foundations here are seriously solid.
After spending some time on both the S-Works and Pro models riding down some seriously dicey terrain, I think it’s safe to say the 2025 Stumpjumper is just about EVO enough for all the fans of its predecessor – but if Specialized does have something up its sleeve, I can't wait to see it.
