I love my Orange, it works fine, has been upgraded over the years, but its 6 years old and I feel its time (cycle to work scheme at work doesn’t help!)

England vs France vs America? where is my loyalty?

It the new 5, going to feel much differenct to the old one for £2500! I have the manitou 4 way swinger shock and rockshox revelation U-turns on. It feels very nice.

Test road a mates top of the range stumpjumper and it was nice. Maybe i need to test ride the other two. I live in the the Lakes BTW, and use 5 inches of travel.

Opinions most welcoome.

Well . I can’t speak from personal usage but like you the other 4 members in my club all love their Orange 5’s . They can build them up to do anything as you know. We have two Lapi’s a 514 and a 916 – both of these are newish but both riders have certainly upped the pace or I’m getting slower . They fly down and up and do ‘look’ a great bike. The 916 has been falling to bits though- XTR mech, Carbon Fizik saddle rails snapped, Brake lever snapped R1’s, but he does ride it hardish.
Specialised are boring IMHO but I confess that for some reason they’ve never appealed to me over all the years( strange really ) but we have a few in the club and they all like them but don’t rave on .
Anyway not much use I suppose . I’ve just done C2C last week with two Orange 5’s and they did exactly ‘ what it says on the tin’ 🙂

That’s great real experience advice, thanks. Do they take the big hits on the downhill (compared to the others?)

The unknown reliabliity is the thing that puts me off the Lapis. Not the components of course, more the suspension bushes. The headsets are a negative – we all prefer a nice Hope/King headset don’t we?

Stumpys are the Ford Focus of the bike world (what persona the others?). Do the job perfectly well. I’ll would put my crossmax XL wheels & XT Chainnset and maybe Hope Brakes on, so it will individualise it a bit. Its annoying as they don’t offer the uprated suspension (brain) with the alloy frames. I’m still very sceptical about carbon in the Lakes. They don’t do just frames (I’m medium).

I’m getting used to the idea I may have to have a WHITE bike! Never thought I’d say it. My stable of bikes is all black. Sign of the times eh!

Late last year I swapped my 2004 5 (which was a massive step forward from my sub5) to the latest model.You’ll definitely notice a big difference in the rear shock, and QR15 forks will really help through the ruts and roots, I wouldn’t hesitate in recommending it(but do spring the extra cash for a decent headset though).

Do you think the rear maxel option would be good then?

My mate Carlos has a Zesty or is it a Spicy(the 5″ one) out here and it’s a year or so old and he rides it hard and it’s going strong. He alternates between that and an 06 (?) enduro with 36 Vans and says he would do anything on the L-P that he would on the Enduro. The riding here is quite tough and like I say he’s had no prob’s with the frame. I think it looks great.

for reference on carbon in the lakes (and i assume you mean rocks)… i had a 2001 super lightweight Scott Strike which took a hammering, and was MUCH tougher against knocks from rocks than any alu frame i’ve owned.

Isn’t the Spesh Enduro more comparable to an Orange 5/Zesty? Still a few places selling 08 s-works framesets, I was tempted but went for a Zesty instead.

Keep the old five, run a 10mm bolt through rear wheel, get a new shock and some better forks.

Jam bo – 10mm bolt through. Does that fit the standard 9mm swingarm? Who sells the bolt trough shafts? Is this the maxle thing? Thought that needed new swingarm. The crossmax wheels will need the caps drilling out – not sure how possible that is. Interesting performance upgrade. The revelation forks are only a few months old. The shock seems fine and i can tune it for whatever i’m riding.

MBR reviewed the 5 and the Lapi. The 5 won the test, but I got the impression the new 5 is less versatile having moved more away from XC….still it was an MBR review so if Specialised had sent a bike that would have won anyway.

10mm bolt through fits in a standard QR dropout frame. Will need a 10mm bolt thru wheel though: Hope Pro2 are an easy conversion. Hope do a bolt-thru axle. Don’t think you can convert a Crossmax.

I came from a Spesh Stumpjumper circa 2006 to my 2008 5 SE, I rate the spesh for appeal to the masses spec(yes i know there are lots of 5’s out there as well), but I will never look back.
I have raced the 5 xc one weekend, done a marathon the next and thrown it down the DH course at Cwmcarn the next, the best bike I’ve owned bar none (and i’ve had a few!)It will get 180mm rotors and some burlier wheels in the summer and accompany me to the alps, upto 140mm on the Talas and down I go! Also the simplicity of it is fantastic, 1 set of bearings not 6+!
Also I like British built kit so why look elsewhere when one of the all time best is built on your doorstep?

Its a tough decision.

pimp it up and get an orange 5 with a TALAS 150mm. you know you want to!

The bike is black Not sure silver forks will look right. Sorry. £700! that’s scary. Isn’t the maintenance a bit extreme on Fox Forks? That’s what mainly put me off when I replaced them recently. Is the extra performance worth it. Maybe not for me. Then again, would I be able to tell the difference between these bikes!

I’m just getting used to how good the revelations are.

Nice to see a bit of support for Orange.

My mate’s Stumpy I testrode was very well behaved at the back end was under braking with all those linkages on it. Speaking with people in the know, that seems to be the advantage of the Stumpy/Lapi.

Maybe i better book a test ride? See if I can love a Stumpy or a Lapi?

rode the lapierre, but rode both a spicy and a zesty, and to me the zesty was the better bike – like a jackal up the hills and took everything stainburn trail could throw at it whereas the spicy was slower up the hills and didn’t seem any better on the downs. i have a friend with a specialized epic and he has had loads of problems with the rear shock. my other riding buddy has an orange five with a fox36 talas and it beasts rocky downhills. i CANNOT keep up with him on my heckler and that’s with both of us pedalling full tilt. fox forks will last a long time if you look after them properly, mine are 2004 and the stanchions are as good as new. it’s all relative. all i can say is that the orange is a great all rounder and with a bit more upfront can excell on downhills, the spicy gets good reviews – maybe it wasn’t set up properly for me but the zesty equalled it on the downs and beat the pants off it on the climbs.