so i changed up my stumpy

so i have been riding my 08 specialized stumperjumper for about a year now. i ride xc with my gf and then kind of push the limits of this 100mm bike and ride some techincal freeride stuff. so i wasnt happy with a few things. i felt like i was going over the bars alot. i also felt like i was trying to turn a mack truck on single back switchbacks.

i had a goal to make it more of a all mountain bike vs xc. so i switched the fork out from the stock 100mm reba to a 120 manitou minute with a 20mm thru axle. i also put a 80mm stem on instead of the 110 that was there. i also took the two spacers out underneath the stem to set it right on the headset. the fork raised the head tube about 1" which should put the head tube angle around 68.5 or so, and the manitou puts the axle about .5" out further from the fork than the reba.

all i can say is now, wow! what a difference it made. the extra travel of the manitou plus the slightly changed geometry of the raised head tube, and axle offset, and the shorter stem has made this bike fit me like a glove.

even though the head tube is higher i feel like my cog is lower, maybe cuz of the slack head angle and the manitou axle sticks out further than the reba effectively giving it more of a downhill geometry. i dunno, just a feeling

i changed this fork on advice after talking to 3 other people who have had this bike and changed to the same fork.

so to anyone who has this bike, this is what i have done and it works great! (for me.)