Review: 2021 Specialized Demo Race - DH Bike Week

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The 2019 season saw Loïc Bruni achieve success aboard prototype bikes from Specialized, which then went into production bike in the form of the Demo Race shown here. But how does the Demo Race fare for anyone without rainbow stripes?

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Construction and Features

The Demo platform was given quite the revamp a couple of years ago with a drastic move away from the company’s old ideals of low progression and activeness being swept away with the onset of increased progression and combating of load transfer. It actually took me quite by surprise, as it was such a drastic change compared to their previous bikes and it’s something that’s carried through with the Enduro and now their current generations of bikes. Thumbs up Specialized.

The latest Demo Race takes the same layout that the drastically changed bike had in its full 29” guise, with the most noticeable change from afar being that smaller back wheel.

The Demo Race, and the whole Demo platform for that matter, is now a full aluminum construction. But focussing in a bit more, there’s adjustable chips on the Horst pivot that allow this Demo to accommodate either a dual 29" wheel setup, or the 29" front / 27.5" rear configuration.

While that makes for quite the geometry table, it’s also a pretty ambitious move from Specialized, with the difference in outside diameter of the wheels being as much as 40mm in some cases. A DH bike does have more in-built adjustability from the adjustable fork length granted by the dual crowns, but it’s still a lot for a single bike to achieve. The mullet setup, that the bike arrives with, has the chips set in the short position and that setup can also use the middle setting. Full 29” setups can only run the middle and long settings on the chips.

Jumping into more of the details, it’s clear to see that Specialized has been doing bikes for a long time, with lots of the small details being considered and pretty solid. Their frame protection is mostly bolt on, bar some small stick-on bits at either end of the chain stay and on the underside of the seat stay. That chain stay protector design, with its hollow protrusions, doing a fantastic job. It wraps tightly around the chain stay tube and even bolts to the pivot bolt on the chain stay. The down tube protector is a wide-coverage bolt on affair and there’s even an additional stick-on shuttle guard included that also works brilliantly for some bike park lifts.


There are however, a few details missing that I didn’t realise how much I’d taken them for granted. It’s now commonplace to see integrated fork bumpers in the downhill frames, more often than not doubling up as the entry for the cables into the frame. But there are none on the Demo and I’d forgotten the woes of wrestling with them on the fork stanchions for fork swaps.

The frame itself is another showing of Specialized’s competencies - aluminum construction. That head tube being only a taster, as the heavily formed tubes in both the front and rear triangles are devoid of any sharp edges that would come into constant contact with the rider’s legs or shoes. And the forgings that go into making the belly of the bike are pretty damn intricate and engineered. It does make for a lot of overlapping frame parts, and the potential for mud collection spaces, but the underside of the bottom bracket does have a big opening to jettison crud as well as it can.

Those intricate forgings around the shock are pretty tight on space to the spring, so it might be worth checking before you change shocks by doing a quick test fit if you can.

Cable routing is internal out of the box, with Specialized using a more formed head tube to offer the cable entries. Cables pop out of the main frame at different points before entering the chain stays. The brake hosing runs on the outside of the frame, with the gear cable wiggling through the links. Interestingly, there are even provisions on the frame for external brake routing, and the small plastic bolt on parts required to accomplish this are included. It’s a nice touch, as without a doubt some people do prefer the practicality of external routing, while others appreciate the looks of internal.

There are a lot of pivots in the suspension layout that the Demo uses, something that we’ll go into later, and maybe this scared Specialized a bit as they went on to make many of them concentric with one another. It does cut down on the amount, and weight, of hardware though and a lovely touch is that each pivot is sealed with some proper lip seals on all the pivot bolts and washers. It’s nice to dismantle a bike to find the grease still there and clean.




There’s a big formed plastic fender between the wheel and links that does an amicable job of keeping the debris out of the frame but does favour skinny fingers for adjusting the shock rebound. There are, though, some traps on the frame that open up as the suspension is compressed and can trap pretty big pieces of trail in between the frame parts.

There’s an 83mm threaded BB on the Demo and some interesting choices in frame specification, with the use of a 148mm back wheel and 180mm post mount brake standard. While the narrow rear hub makes sense to reduce the overall width of the bike to slither through tight gaps, while also helping out in the spares department if you happened to own a fairly modern trail or enduro bike, the small brake rotor spec is a bit odd and needs fiddly adapters to get the caliper up to the more common 200mm rotors and now even bigger 220mm offerings.

I’m a huge fan of colour, as long as it’s black. But the Demo’s brushed red paint job certainly became a hit with a lot of testers and people. It’s a subjective point, I know, but it’s a good-looking bike.

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Geometry & Sizing

While the new Stumpjumper Evo might have more sizes than you can shake a stick at, the Demo Race is only available in three. Which is a downside for taller people wanting to ride this bike. The S4, which we tested, is the biggest size and limits how many people, whether they're tall or simply prefer long bikes, can jump aboard the Demo Race.

With that adjustment at the Horst pivot, the whole bike geometry is altered resulting in a pretty crowded geometry table. But, Specialized have done a good job to make sure all the labels are on there for every geomtry measurement in each of the four bike settings. Those four coming from two different rear wheel sizes each with a high and low BB position.

It’s good to point out that the geometry table in the user manual and even the one in our First Look of the bike aren’t quite right. So it’s best to use the geometry table above, as this is the most up to date, hot off the press from Specialized.

Compared to the real bike that we 3D scanned, the geometry table is pretty damn spot on. Head angle, reach, stack, chainstay length, almost everything in there all line up within only a couple of millimeters or fractions of a degree. The only major difference we found being the BB drops and heights, which were between 7 and 8mm lower in real life. The culprit being that the 2D drawing specs of tyres are often stating a bigger outside diameter than the real world items. This is a common issue not just unique to Specialized and something to watch out for on many bikes.

That adjustment opportunity is definitely a good point, though. On the one hand it allows riders to exploit it to adapt the bike to rider preferences and terrain changes. On the other, it allows riders with less understanding to experiment and learn about how bike feel changes with geometry adjustments. For sure, some people are in the 'pick one geometry and just run it' camp. But not everyone is, and it’s definitely more in the descending focussed riders that we see that want and desire to adjust and tinker.

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Suspension Design

The four-bar layout of the Demo might seem like six. But those last two links are there to actuate the shock and don’t do anything to define the instant centre, and therefore the anti-squat and anti-rise, of the bike.

There’s a lot of talk from Specialized about the new Demo having a more rearward axle path. And while that is true in comparison to the old bike, with its concentric BB pivot, in comparison to some of the true high pivot bikes out there, one of which we have coming up, it’s more vertical and forwards than anything.

The links on the Demo are pretty damn long and as a result the suspension curves all follow very smoothly changing trajectories. But on a side note, maybe that length caught them by surprise as we saw some early prototypes having tubes overwrapped in carbon fiber to up the stiffness.

With its four possible bike settings, the Demo Race has quite a few suspension curves. We'll be going into much more detail on them in our upcoming Behind the Numbers series, but a quick overview has the Demo with close to 35% leverage ratio progression in all the settings, with starting ratios between 3.43 and 3.48.

There's always over 105% anti-squat at sag, with it staying high or even increasing through the travel and into harder gears. And there's around 53% anti-rise at sag too, with it being fairly constant at that throughout travel.

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There’s a distinct lack of Swedish gold on the Demo Race, with it having the top of the tree from RockShox and SRAM in the form of a Boxxer Ultimate fork, SuperDeluxe Coil shock, SRAM XO1 DH drivetrain and Code RSC brakes, with a 220mm front rotor and a 200mm rear. There’s an MRP full chain guide on there too.

The front wheel is a 28 spoke affair with a Specialized hub and Roval rim while the rear has a 32 spoke count and the same Roval rim, albeit a smaller diameter, laced to a DT Swiss 350 hub. Both 28mm internal width rims were wrapped in Specialized Butcher tires and setup tubeless.

Touchpoints are the Thompson Elite seat post and Specialized saddle that uses a cut-out in the rear to up clearance. A carbon fiber Roval bar, Truvativ stem and Deity grips round out the cockpit.

Our size S4 bike weighed in at 16.8kg or 37.04lbs.

The Demo Race retails for 7,999 EUR or $6,800 USD, which compared to some of the upcoming bikes with a pretty damn similar spec and even more exotic frame materials, is a big chunk more expensive.

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It did take a bit more tinkering on the Demo to get it into its happy window of operation. Once a bit more sprung, and with the rebound to suit and the compression dialled in too, the Demo is an easy bike to jump on and just go, something that all the testers commented on. It’s pretty inspiring to see your buddy go full tilt first run with confidence clearly visible in the riding position and commitment levels.

Performance

The Demo can go really damn fast. But it doesn’t exude that absolute single minded focus on speed that some of the other bikes we tested clearly exhibit. If you ride it up at those speeds you do notice the window for error narrowing ever so slightly. It’s not the drastic difference between say a DH and enduro bike, but it is something that heightens your senses a little and requires you to take just a touch more attention to keep it at its best. Whereas some of the other bikes felt like you could get away with murder at the same speed and commitment, and you often did.

Some of that character is likely down to the geometry of the bike, namely its size. At 188cm, or 6’2”, I wouldn’t want to go any shorter with the reach. Lengthening the chainstay does bring a bit more composure, but be warned that, as recommended by Specialized, the long setting doesn’t really play well in the mullet setup. The BB drops too low and you start to encounter the ground all too often.


This is a bike that clearly Specialized wanted to be adaptable, and with many a Boost spacing rear wheel floating around the workshop, it was easy to swap the disc and cassette, put the chip in the long setting and fit a 29" rear wheel.

I’m not going to hide the fact that I like 29” wheels, and with them front and rear the balance in feeling will be more in your favour if you’re a wagon wheel fan. Like this, it did feel more like it wanted to crack on and cover ground, which I like. But I could definitely notice the compromise and drop in the outright ability to just yank it round turns with the aggression that a Jack Russel can change direction chasing a tennis ball. The full 29” setup favours a slightly higher in and lean-the-bike style. Horses for courses, but like I said, if you know about this then it’s a tool and if you don’t then it’s a tool to learn by doing. The changes are subtle, but they are definitely there.

The Demo was a brilliant bike to have in the back of the van, ready to go in a variety of tracks be them known or not. That easy to ride character helped out when you didn’t know what was coming up first run, whether that was on man-made tracks with an abundance of jumps or features, or steep and rooty tracks that have you sliding every which way but straight. It’s in that character that the Demo works at its best; not quite at absolute breakneck speed and with a little more messing around as you go down. A manual here, a pull and pop there. It definitely was a more fun bike to ride in that respect on some of the more manicured trails that invite you to play more than get to the bottom as absolutely fast as you can.


It's a bit odd to say a Jack of all trades, as a DH bike is a niche product, but that’s more of what it is. It can do a bit of everything pretty damn well. You can for sure race this bike without an issue, that is one of its trades. But it somehow lacks that undiluted pointy focus that some of the other bikes have in buckets.

And this is something we might see when we look to Loïc Bruni and his bike setup of the past season. It needed quite some geometry changes to get him to something he was happy with. The use of eccentric BBs and reach adjusting headsets highlighted the shift in lengthening the chain stay and reach while also adjusting the rider’s weight position in the bike to adjust the suspension feel. Along with some custom linkage to adjust the suspension characteristics.

If you’re a fan of a quiet bike, be that for racing focus or just quietness in general, then you might need to take advantage of the external brake routing that the Demo offers. It’s a rattly bike with everything internal and would also benefit from some foam over the gear cable to really shut it up. Starting by quieting the less stiff brake hose is a good start.

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Maintenance

The overlapping nature of the Demo’s layout makes working on it a touch harder than some more open bikes. As mentioned, it does mean that as it compresses the space between the chainstay bridge and the lower link opens up and can trap some pretty hefty rocks, before crushing it all back together.

There are hex key interfaces all through the bike with varying sizes (3, 4, 5, 6 and 8mm) depending on if it’s a pivot or small protector fixing bolt. All the tool interfaces are solid and there have been no broken bolts, pivots or issues in keeping the Demo running through a pretty damn long season of riding.

Some of the larger-legged testers did however manage to rub the paint off the upper pivot in only a couple of days of dry riding. I’ve got pencil legs and so avoided that problem.

It’s only really the complex and overlapping construction of the Demo that poses the problem. It’s a trap for mud and tricky to really get in and clean. So, the occasional direct blast with a hose helps to clean out the area round the shock. Thankfully the pivots are all sealed and even with some hefty hose pressure the grease from the factory is still there and clean.

There’s also a lot of bearings on the Demo, 20 in total. But Specialized’s user manual for the Demo is good in documenting which ones go where and also complete disassembly and assembly instruction for doing a full bearing change, bolt torque, grease and thread locker specs and also how to do the internal cable routing.

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Technical Report


RockShox Boxxer: As we’ll touch on with every Boxxer equipped bike in this test, it is a good fork. But it isn’t great. Constantly needing 15 – 25psi higher than recommended and with many more tokens than the bike came specced with. And still, it has the trait of using a lot of the travel a lot of the time, something that needs more natural suspension with your arms to compensate for. It’s also something we could never really fix to a point of not being there and just had to settle on a setup that reduced the dive and activeness to as little as possible.

Specialized Tires: Big gripe. Getting fired off jump take offs at funny angles is not fun. And while ripping tires off in a corner might impress your mates it’s a pain in the arse. The Specialized Butchers might be OK for the lightest and most gentle of riders, since the compound and tread pattern were grippy when you tiptoed around. But heavier and more aggressive riders should swap them out right away for something with a proper DH casing. I ended up switching to Schwalbe Magic Marys or Dirty Dans depending on the conditions and was much, much happier.


SRAM X01 Drivetrain: The system worked like a dream throughout the entire test and through a whole range of conditions ranging from that fine dust that makes your whole bike creak to thick and sticky peanut butter. Occasionally the upper jockey wheel would jump out of sync with its narrow wide profile, but that’s the only issue we encountered.

Setup Guide: Some brands do a really spot-on job of helping the buyer get setup on their bike, knowing that a severely bad taste can be left from even the best bikes in the world if not setup properly. There wasn’t really much information from Specialized on where to start and a lot was left to the rider to figure out, which did result in it taking a bit to get comfy on the Demo. With such good examples from the likes of Norco, there should no longer be the situation of leaving the buyer to guess, knowing that your brand's image might be at stake.

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Pinkbike's Take

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Posted In:
Reviews and Tech Reviews DH Bikes Specialized Specialized Demo DH Bike Week