Must be carbon 140mm and light 25-26 pounds around 3-4k any ideas? I’ve thought specialized lapierre trek

Ibis Mojo SL (or SL-r) should be on your list…

Mojo SL or SLR 🙂

Pivot mach 5 carbon

Blur LTc, best bike ever

If you want an absolute steal, check out the deals that Spesh are doing on the Stumpy FSR’s. Recently bought a Stumpy FSR Carbon Comp with 20% off, and I’m very pleased with it – particularly for just over £2k! Stuck some old lightish Pro2/Stans 355 wheels on, Tommy stem and a pair of carbon bars I had knocking about, and the wieght is 26lbs dead on, inc. pedals! I’m sure there’s plenty of scope for more weight reduction. (Dunno if there are any deals on the higher specced carbon model – but that comes with Brain shock, if that bothers you)

Also demo’d a carbon Trek Remedy a few months ago – VERY nice indeed, in fact, if I’d have had the dosh at the time, I’d have bought it.

I’ve got a carbon Stumpy FSR & love it. God knows what it weighs though – not that light, as it’s the bits from the alu Elite on the carbon frame (warranty replacement). Good base to upgrade on though.

Mojo

That new intense looks very nice indeed.
http://www.intensecycles.com/carbine/gallery

Zesty 714

For the sake of 6mm, Whyte 146. Love mine.

ooh…the Zesty suggestion has reminded me, er..if it’s of any interest to ya?!

I had a Zesty 514, which was a nice bike, but very different in character to the Stumpjumper and Trek Remedy. IMO, the Zesty has a naturally more ‘perky’ XC-ey type character than the others (even in it’s saggier AM setting) – that’s not to say it doesn’t like proper techy terrain, far from it! It absolutely blitzed up technical climbs. It’s just that compared to a lot of other 140mm travel bikes, it has a relatively high bottom bracket, which combined with the suspension action, feels very different to say, the Stumpy or latest Oranges Fives – to me, the Zesty isn’t as confidence inspiring on very fast stony descents as the lower & plusher bikes. Difficult to explain the suspension feel, but it was a bit like speccing ‘sports-type’ suspension on a car, in that in some circumstances, it could feel a bit jittery and lacking in grip – flip side is that on ascents, my Zesty felt very nearly as quick as my Anthem X race bike! The slightly higher BB on the Zesty also means that you’re not tapping the pedals on rocks and ruts as much as ‘low rider’ bikes. The slightly annoying thing I found with the Zesty was that, IMO, the bike was crying out for decent volume tyres to cope with the speeds it was capable of, but the larger volume tyres just exaggerated the high BB.

TBH, if I was limited to one bike, and did longer distance rides, a full carbon Zesty in XC guise would be very tempting. Obvious stuff, but if you can get a test ride on a Zesty, it’s definately worth a try.

HTH, happy hunting 🙂