Coming from a XC bike, I was skeptical on how this thing would pedal around the local trails, but after pedaling it for almost 3 hours up and down hills, I was impressed. Not a climber like my epic evo, but when trail goes down this thing is an absolute blast to ride! Its plush as many people have stated and handles really well. I was able to purchase this bike from Roys Sheepshead Cycle in Brooklyn, NY. Great shop and customer service is the best I've experienced from a shop, highly recommend if you are in the market for any Specialized bike.

The bike is fun and fast and brings lots of smiles to my face.The tail end is long on whips but is also very plush and flies downhill. It also climbs really well, better than my other less travel trail bike. Here is the issue, the paint is weak. You need to put protectant all over this thing. I got a nick apparently on my second ride in between the top tube and down tube (small side tube next to the shock) and it looks terrible. Only guess is a splatter tiny gravel kicked up and landed on it from a puddle.It is a black hole and looks like crap against this paint, very obvious and I will need to find touchup to match as close as possible and wrap that little tube area. Any nick you get is going to be black on white and ugly. Dropper is also spitting out grease after 3 rides, may need a new seal out of the box.

I purchased this bike and mulleted it with the aftermarket link. Doing that made the bike alot more playfull and allowed me to put a seat bag on my bike. Sadly the chanistay protector did not work so well, I have gotten chainslap where the chainstay protector is not protecting the frame doing crankflips, about a week later half of the chainstay protector that comes with the bike fell off so I had to glue it back on. Also there is not much protection on the down tube, I have gotten lots of rock strikes up the down tube so I just put on extra protection. It would be nice if it came with downtube protection covering the whole thing instead of just the bottom. I love that it comes with downtube storage, its been super nice not to have a backpack on making my back all sweaty, however it gets very anoying because the downtube storage does rattle when inside the frame. Other than that super great all round bike.

Great bike to ride, coming from an aluminium enduro bike this makes me feel like a climbing God. I love everything about the bike but the only thing that lets it down is the colour. Having said that the colour should not put anybody off of this fantastic bike

Addition to the stable which contains a Santa Cruz Blur as I wanted something which could handle the gnarlier stuff I'm finding in my new home of Northern NV. While not significantly heavier the Evo feels "heftier" than the Blur, a bit of a disadvantage on real steep climbs (12% and up) but for everything else it's an absolute magic carpet ride, the brakes are much stronger and the e-shifting is an absolute delight. Incredible spec for the $ and while costly I don't find myself as terrified on the trails as I would be on an S-works lol.