[Closed] 2005 enduro vs my new ibis mojo HD

I test rode one in January.

I couldn't wait to ride it but when I did I was very disappointed after all the hype they receive. The rear suspension made everything feel as if it had a square edge no matter what sag I set it at.

OK here's the bad news: this is not the first time I've heard reports like this relating to a Mojo HD. My riding buddy (HeiHei) has an HD and he had exactly the same problem. The 'skipping around' is exactly what he reported; he also commented that he initially always felt 'on' the bike rather than 'in' it.

Now here's the good news. It's simply down to set up and it takes time to get it working so that it benefits you.

It took HeiHei around three months to start to feel comfortable on the bike and even now, six months later, he's still trying to find the ultimate sweet spot; it works well by all accounts but still he's not quite getting the same compliance as me and the other guy we ride with are getting. To that end, he's just ordered a Cane Creek Double Barrel, which is what we run.

I've ridden his bike a few times and each time I ended up setting the rear up to be far softer than I thought I would want. Certainly I've never had any pro-pedal on and the sag has been around the 35% or more mark. Set up like that, you sacrifice some pedaling stability (they do move more than the marketing would like you to believe, but then most bikes that work well DH are guilty of that) but the rear over square edge hits is excellent.

So the two messages, are take your time to get it set up and stick with it, don't be disheartened. You've bought an amazing bike and it will get better the more time you invest to set it up right. The second message is to try running it softer than you might expect; don't turn the pro-pedal on and run at least 35% sag and see how that goes for you.

Enjoy.

Pretty much what gee tee says. Mine (HD140) has ended up with a bit more sag (around 35%), and a bit [b]less[/b] rebound damping than I would have expected. It did take a bit of playing around with the settings.

I rebuilt my 2004 enduro with new bits and although some would say that design is out dated it is still more bike than I will ever need.

i read somewhere that swapping the rp23 for a pushed rockhox shock made a world of difference - was probably on a mtbr forum (turner or ibis) is you wanted to go looking for the thread...

good luck with getting it sorted, i'm sure you'll end up loving it!

If you pop over to MTBR and look at the Ibis forums, there's guys on there talking about Push'd Rock Shox kit.

PP is opposite valve as http://www.foxracingshox.com/fox_tech_center/owners_manuals/011/index.html

Mine felt good to start with but definitely felt better once the suspension had broken in. The rebound control does make a difference and as vinnyeh says a bit less seems the way to go. I'm very happy with the way mine is running at the moment, tracks better than my old Meta and I feel I have moved my riding on a bit.

Just ride it and play with the settings for a few weeks while it breaks in, then if it still annoys you check out the Push kit, I think it's TF Tuned in the UK, or contact Mojo for a custom setup on the RP23. My mate done that for his Intense and he reckons it made a world of difference.

Hi all,

I definately need to tweak the set up, I literally had about 10 minutes last night ,so put it to ball park right and went for a quick ride.

I thought I'd give everyone an honest review on my experience so far, as a lot of people on here think that nobody says anything bad about the bike they own.

Good to hear you can improve it, I did suspect I could,I havent written the mojo off yet,I'm actually nowhere near writing it off, but i dont think I'll be selling the enduro just yet.

The aim of changing to this bike was to get something that was better up and down hill than the enduro, and also to see whether going 'boutique' does gain you a significant improvement on a 6 year old 'mainstream' bike (ok, the old bike was light years ahead of its time, but its still 6 years old).

I will spend a bit longer riding a section and tweaking the pressures, rebound etc and report back, my gut feel was lower airpressure and more rebound damping needed.

Pro-Pedal is on when the lever is closest to the valve.

@vinny - HD140 - that's the HD with the travel adjusted down, right?

Does that slacken the angles?

I've recently resurrected my garage dwelling 2004 Enduro with modern kit and it's an absolute blast - I've commuted to work on it today in fact.

I have been pondering the very same conclusions as the OP. Despite the fact that it's a seven year old frame and a decade old design, it seems to take everything I throw at it and feels plenty plush. With wider bars and a Rockshox Revelation up front it feels contemporary and tips the scales at just under 28lb too.

My only complaint is that I can't find an RP3 to fit it...

Does that slacken the angles?

It does but only by a little. The most significant change is that the static BB is lowered. Not sure if that means you end up lower once your sagged into the bike though; you can do the maths.

The Horst Link design may be ancient relative to modern designs, but it still works really well. There's a reason why Spesh paid for the patent and why they've religiously enforced it.

Apparently it runs out next year I think, so then anyone and everyone will be able to use it. It will be intersting to see how many companies end up going over to it.

My only complaint is that I can't find an RP3 to fit it...

I've got an RP2 on my '04 Enduro and it works very well.

@geetee - interested in a HD frame myself, if next year's bonus permits (no, I'm not a banker)... like the idea of having a lower, slacker, shorter travel option. Is it mich hassle to swap between settings?

It does but only by a little. The most significant change is that the static BB is lowered. Not sure if that means you end up lower once your sagged into the bike though; you can do the maths.

Not quite that simple- you're not only changing the shock length, but the placement of the top shock mount- HD140 with a 150 fork is around a degree steeper for both seat and head angles than the HD160 with a 160 fork. There's next to no difference with bb height- the 140 with 150 fork is less than half an inch lower than the 160, with a longer fork the difference would be less.

In the real world, if I'm lazy about crank positioning I get an awful lot of pedal strike, otherwise the angles are pretty academic to me- the bike just works really well for me.

@geetee - interested in a HD frame myself, if next year's bonus permits (no, I'm not a banker)... like the idea of having a lower, slacker, shorter travel option. Is it mich hassle to swap between settings?

You'll need two rear shocks - 7.875" x 2" travel for the HD140 and 8.5" x 2.5" for the HD160, plus you'll need a set of 'limbo chips', it's not just a matter of changing the shock mounting point.

The plan for mine is to run a Vipr for HD140 mode and a Stoy (or maybe a PUSH tuned Vivid R2C for HD160 mode...

Is it mich hassle to swap between settings?

Well I don't own the bike myself, but from what I've heard from my mate, it's realtively simple to do. Vinnyeh points out that you're not just swapping the damper but also the mounting brackets.

I doubt you'd want to do it every time you ride, but if you were say going to run it in 140mm mode for 80% of the time and then swap out for the occassional DH day, it wouldn't be too much of a hassle I guess.

[i]the enduro would have just absorbed it and felt smoother[/i]

That's Enduros though isn't it? I demo'd a 2006 model and downhill it was just as you say.
I didn't buy one though because it's not as much of an allrounder as what I did buy (not a Mojo).

PJM1974

You should be able to fit either a 7.5x2 or a 7.875x2 shock to a 2004 Enduro. Try a Monarch they are quite good, I have a Monarch Plus on my 06 Enduro and its great.

Pointless review until you spend more time on it, especially if you can not tell which way PP on and off is. Ride more, report back.

Oh. right. I didn't realise it involved two shocks.

I can forget that then, there's no way I'd ever bother.

Ah, I want to find a shock with the correct (7.675") eye to eye. Too little and it'll slacken the geometry and lower the BB, too long and it'll steepen the HA. I find the angles pretty much spot on as they are, I wouldn't want to mess with it either way.

A couple of years back I spoke with Mojo who suggested it might be possible to machine the shock body of an RP3 to the correct length, but I opted to have my Float PUSHed at TFT instead.

Mr plow,

I'll report back with more feelings when I've ridden it more, and tweaked it more, but it sounds like my initial gut feeling isnt miles off the mark going on feedback from geetee etc.

Sounds like it has quite a narrow sweetspot that might be difficult to find, and outside that sweetspot its not super smooth on the small trail chatter.

Might post an update later tonight after another ride, but I'm thinking that its not going to descend better than the enduro and the best i can hope for is comparable performance .

Maybe get some more miles in on the Mojo to fully get a feel for it. The RP3 is going to feel a little odd for a while, as there is a very distinct "step" between each of the pro-pedal settings. The RP3 on my Wolf Ridge makes it feel like it's skipping all over the place if I forget to disengage it on a descent.

The FSR on Specialized bikes is legendary for it's plushness, not to mention that they're very forgiving of imprecise pressure settings (compared with my Marin WR). I suggest there is an element of trial and error.

The more you ride the mojo the less you will remember the comparison of the enduro. Within a month you will say it is better so don't worry about it too much. 😆

PJM1974

Its only 5mm either way I doubt you would notice it. It probably equates to something like 0.25 degrees.

Ah, I want to find a shock with the correct (7.675") eye to eye. Too little and it'll slacken the geometry and lower the BB, too long and it'll steepen the HA. I find the angles pretty much spot on as they are, I wouldn't want to mess with it either way.

I've got two shocks for my '04 Enduro - one is a 200x50 Pro-pedal Vanilla Coil and the other is a 190x50 RP2. The bike is absolutely fine with either, in fact I can't detect any handling change due to the different shock lengths.

The HD is certainly not a bike you jump on regardless of set-up and get the best out of, certainly compared with a typical 4-bar say.

As GT notes, it's taken me a while to get comfortable with my HD, and to be honest am still not there in the 160mm setting, hence the CCDB order ahead of a trip to the Alps. I have it pretty much dialled in the 140mm setting, running with 160mm forks and a Pushed RP23, and love the way the bike rails due to the low BB height and snappy acceleration.
I'll keep you posted as to how the CCDB works!

I spent some more time on it tonight.

lowered the air pressure from the recommended 200psi to 180psi, and decreased the rebound damping to 3 clicks away from no rebound damping.

It now sags by about 40% when I'm sat on it, and bobs a bit more under pedalling, but turning on the pro pedal sorts that out.

Its a lot better now, very nearly as smooth as the enduro, I'm hoping the rest of the smoothness will come as the shock breaks in.

I need to give it a proper run out on some rougher terrain now and start to get to grips with it.

heihei, let me know how the ccdb works out, im loath to go that way because of the cost and weight, but interested to hear your experiences still

julians

Why didn't you test ride one before buying?

I mean you would test drive a car right?

flow, I couldnt be bothered with the hassle, and I'm dubious of the value of a quick test ride. I think you need to ride a bike on lots of different rides to get a true picture, which is pretty difficult on a quick test ride.

If I dont get on with it after giving it a good go, I'll sell it on, and put it down to experience.

My conclusion so far (and I caveat this with the fact that I've only ridden it twice so I may change my mind one way or the other) is that its a very good bike, probably slightly better than my old enduro and the current 10/11 enduro in an all round sense (but that would depend on what you want from a bike), but its not the second coming of christ that some people and the professional reviews make them out to be, and not light years betters than a 6 year old mainstream bike.

Surely its better than not testing it at all?

I managed to get one for a whole day.

@GT: I'm sure the answer here starts with N and ends with icolai?!!

I couldnt be bothered with the hassle, and I'm dubious of the value of a quick test ride. I think you need to ride a bike on lots of different rides to get a true picture, which is pretty difficult on a quick test ride.

THis is a good point and it relates to the fact that some bikes take a while to get the best out of, something you wouldn't ever do if you test rode one even all day.

I understand the value of test riding, but on the basis that you use it to make a decision, probably a lot of people would never end up with something like the Mojo because they wouldn't think it very good.

Something like a Nicolai however feels great almost immediately. Whenever HeiHei and I swap bikes, he always comments that my Helius AM just feels 'right', even if the spring rate isn't always perfect.

Some bikes are just much easier to get on with immediately.

But, and it's a big butt, there is a lot of value to be had from some bikes that you don't immediately gel with.

The Mojo HD is DH capable (remember it's the bike that Lopes ran at the World CHamps in Australia when Peaty won), it can take a 180mm fork or be run with a 140mm fork as a trail ripper and it will still easily build into a sub 30lb bike (HeiHei's weighs just on 27lbs IIRC).

Plus the suspension action of the Mojo HD is a bit better over bigger square edge hits than my Nic. My Nic is more accessible and much more 'neutral' in the way it feels, but it's also almost 2lbs heavier.

I wouldn't give it up of course, not yet anyway.

I think the Mojo HD moves the game on in a big way primarily because of it's strenght and weight and versatility. But suspension design is more of a moot point.

Having to run at 140mm travel bike at 35-40% sag to get it to 'work' doesn't sound too clever to my untrained ears.

Either the frame is a turkey or people are expecting the bike to do all the work for them.

Either the frame is a turkey or people are expecting the bike to do all the work for them.

Euro what do you mean? I'm not sure why running a bike with 35% sag is a bad thing?

I've pretty much always run my bike like this and it only seems to make me go faster.

I'm not sure either 😆

Just seems a bit odd to have to run a 5" trail bike with 3" of usable travel for it to feel 'right'. I'd expect a DH bike to be running at around the 30-35% mark. But that still leaves a fair few inches to soak everything up.

Suppose it's a personal thing really. I requested TF to set the sag on my 6' forks and shock at 25% when they worked on them for my Supreme. I'd consider this more XC territory, but i'm fairly smooth with jumps/drops etc and was wary of eating up too much travel for the bumpy stuff by just sitting on my bike 😕

That's a good explanation. To be honest I do see your point entirely; if you have to go to such great lengths to make the design work for you, then maybe the design is compromised?

It will be really interesting to see what the manufacturers do when the patent on the Horst Link expires next year (if I am right about that). While everyone has been saying/marketing their own design as the next best thing, simple economics will tell us whether they've been telling the truth or not.

If the Horst Link really is the best design, everyone will start using it, or at least their differentiated version (marketing will still be crucial to differentiate in the market).

geetee1972 - Member

...if you have to go to such great lengths to make the design work for you, then maybe the design is compromised?

Possibly, but maybe the OP is trying too hard to make the Mojo feel like his old bike. There's bound to be vast differences when riding a presumably tired (6+ yr old) Enduro rear end to a spangely new one. I'd suggest putting the shock back to as close as factory as possible and ride it for a week or two. Either Julians will get used to it and 'learn' how to get the best from it, or at least have a better idea of what needs changed.

Bikes that feel "right" straight away generally are. I test rode loads and ended up buying a Five (the most hated bike on STW) because it felt right straight away and still felt right after 7 hours riding it on the test.

One thing I will never do again is buy a bike without riding it. I made this mistake with my EX9, I purchased it based on the reviews. Don't get me wrong it was a decent bike, just not for me.

Hi, Julian, like others have said you want it set-up right with the pro-pedal off. The way the DW link works doesn't lend itself to platform shocks. I only use PP on long climbs and tarmac, even then it's set to 1. Like Vinneyeh says, use less rebound than you would think too.
40% sag and you'll need steel toe-capped boots on rocky stuff and you'll bottom out on any drops over 2ft.
You're right about it being harsher on smoother stuff than a four bar but it should open up on the rough. It does take a few rides to bed in, I've had to put 10psi extra in after I thought it was set-up perfect (I haven't been at the pies!). My last bike had a VPP linkage which was more sensitive too but I find the DW uses its travel better and doesn't bottom out as easily.

05 enduros were ace, still not sure why i did not buy one.

05 enduros were ace, still not sure why i did not buy one.

Because they had a nasty habit of snapping at the juncture of the left hand chainstay and BB.

Broke two myself.

Oh and I cracked the mainframe.

Well, there was that. Did they give you a new one?

Well, there was that. Did they give you a new one?

You know the very nice chaps at Spesh UK did give me a new one, a 'not yet released to the public' (at the time) 2010 Enduro in fact. ]

I sold it and bought a Nicolai!

Result!

Further update:-

went on a decent ride tonight, and it seems the faster you go the smoother the back end gets. it really is pretty good over the proper rough stuff at speed.

Need to get the front end sorted now and stop the twanginess I seem to be feeling - fox 36 talas RLC FIT forks, probably just need more rebound damping.

That sounds much better - there's always an element of acclimatisation with any new bike, especially if you've had your old one for a number of years.

Was in Llandegla at the weekend, awfully nice Mojo HD in my size in the shop, Crank Bros wheels and Fox 36s. It called out to me. I resisted, just.

So, its been a couple of weeks since I last updated this, and I've been on a few more rides.

At the point of my last update I was thinking that the bike is a better climber than the enduro, but about the same in terms of going downhill.

I've now decided that its a much better climber than the enduro, and it also goes downhill quite a bit better. It seems to have a big depth of ability that takes a while to find out (that or the suspension takes some breaking in and setting up).

The faster you go the smoother it gets it seems, there must be a limit to this but so far I havent found it. In terms of going downhill I'm finding at the moment that its the forks (and my ability) stopping me from going faster, whereas on the enduro it was the back end holding me back.

Not sure if the forks need to break in some more, but they definately dont seem as smooth as the back end.

On the undulating stuff, it goes well, as is noticably easier to keep the momentum up and accelerate.

Weighed it on some more accurate scales and it came out at 29.2lb.

That'll be it for updates from me, but I'm pretty pleased with the purchase. Theres no doubt its a very expensive bike, but in my opinion its worth it, and is generally every bit as good as the reviews say it is, and I'm not saying that just because I bought one.

The main thing is that you're having fun on it :D. Enjoy!

I feel the same about my SL coming from a broken Heckler. Much better climber, descender and also better on contours single track. Not sure if it is twice as good as the Heckler was very goof VFM, but I wouldn't go back :).

I had a similar problem coming from an '06 Enduro to my current bike - an '08 S-Works Enduro.

I bought the frame, forks, shock etc in '09 and built the rest up to my own spec.

The '06 was so plush and nailed DH's with ease, but at around 33lbs I got sick of dragging it uphill and the propedal on the DHX air wasn't exactly effective.

So, to the new bike (not so new now) - built it up and rode it for 6 months before a lay off due to working away. The small bump sensitivity on the proprietory shocks has always been reported as poor and this was apparent with the bike feeling skittish. Big hits and drops are great and the fork is so stiff. At around 28lbs and pro pedal that stiffens the rear end very effectively it climbs like a dream, allowing me to clean stuff I'd never managed before.

The BB on the old Enduro was low - to the point that I ended up putting it in the high frame setting to avoid pedal strikes and improve climbing. In contrast the newer Enduro has a higher BB and I use it in the low frame setting. Initially I had the sat on it, rather than in it feeling, but seem to have now dialled in the positioning after getting back on it following an 18 month lay off.

I don't know if I've just got used to the skittishness, or if it has bedded in, however I'm now feeling more in tune with the bike - maybe as intimated elsewhere I've just forgotten how good the old Enduro was.

To sum up, I'm happy with the bike and 90% of the time it beats the '06 hands down, just lacks a little bit DH, but when I put things in perspective it is by far a better all round bike.