Looking to get a Specialized enduro soon, particularly like the look of the 06's however i've heard alot about chainstays snapping.. how worried do I need to be about this? And is there any way of getting them strengthened if that's the case?

the 06 is a great frame, had mine for 3 years before the left hand chainstay snapped – did give it some hammer though and I think a week downhilling in the alps was the beginning of the end! – don't know about re-inforcing it, spares are fairly common and it can be re-welded as it is usually on the original weld where it goes

Cool thanks. I'll hopefully be hitting Les Gets and Whistler over the summer, so long as it lasts them i'll be happy. How do you find it on the ups?

Great frames but buy one with a decent shock because they are a strange size and a pain to replace. I would quite like to build another up one day but they are quite heavy.

awesome bikes.

i would suggest that the reason we've heard about a few breaking is because they're so easy to ride really fast through / over/ off stuff.

there's a hazy memory in my head that the back end is shared with the sx trail? – so maybe people who broke their chainstays were trying some Berrecloth moves…

i found mine a pain on steep climbs because of the slack angle on the seat tube. i'm so lanky that when i put the saddle up to a comfy pedaling height i was so far over the back wheel that i couldn't keep the front wheel under control.

if you're less than 6'2" you'll get on fine.

mine old frame is for sale if you're looking for a large?

Just brilliant frames. I have one and have ridden it at trail centres, natural trails, Cwmcarn DH course, the Mega.
It does pedal suprisingly well, but it is certainly not nimble going up. Doesn't matter though – when you point it down it just begs you to thrash it. The stability dares you to keep trying bigger and faster things, but I have yet to break a stay.

I have 160mm Marzocchis on it, which makes it even slacker, but you have the option of changing between shock shuttles to play with the angle.

As for shocks, yes it is a funny length, but there are Options if you want to swap, it just takes a little bit of thought. Have a google around

Had my 2005 (same as the 06) for just under four years and went through three chainstays. The third one I received was the newer, strengthened version Spesh released in order to try and counter these problems. It had an extra overlapping plate on the left had chainstay where the problems were seen. I still managed to break this. I also managed to crack the right hand butress on the mainframe that runs either side of the damper. I only noticed this crack at the same time I noticed the chainstay problem and as I was the original owner (and more importantly could prove it) Spesh gave me a brand new 2010 frame.

I did love mine and I did everything on it until I got a DH bike. Mine ended up with a shorter stroke and eye to eye shock direct from Spesh that reduced the travel to 130mm and I had a much lighter fork on as a result the bike weighed easily sub 30lbs.

Personally I don't think they ever pedalled as well as people liked to believe, but the 05/06 was a brilliant bike downhill.

It's hard to say whether you will have an issue or not but the fact that I snapped three, including the reinforced one, proves it's a design issue not a manufacturing issue, i.e. not a problem with just one batch.

You can still get replacements from Spesh, but if you're not the original owner likely you will have to pay for it. I would call Spesh and ask them the current situation. Bear in mind that the replacement is highly unlikely to be the same colour.

Damper wise, you can easily get coil dampers to fit as you just block off the last .25" of travel on the shaft; the eye to eye is 8.75" which is very common; it's the 2.5" stroke that's odd and you usually find 8.75 is mated to 2.75" stroke.

I sold one here a while ago, which had a crack in the stay which I hadn't noticed. While sorting it out, I spoke to Specialized, who said that they had a new batch of strengthened stays due, April or May at around £100.
The buyer also managed to get the crack welded, seemed to do the trick for him.

I was always catching pedals on mine, and it will be a 4+ year old frame…

Fingers crossed my frame goes soon as it seems be the only way to get a 2010 enduro frame alone!

I have a 8.75×2.75 coil on my bike. I have just removed the reducer and the shock cycles with no issue. I guess the BB height will be very low when it does bottom out so it will be a case of riding it to see if there is an issue. This is on the slack shuttle as I do not ride it on the other. I will also have to check it with a 2.5 tire on the back but the little plastic shock guard was on and it was not upset.

Specialized in the US were replacing stays with the SX one which has the extra plate and bolts straight on.

Had my enduro for 4 years now, I've had no frame breakages, probably because I dont ride it hard enough.

Its my only bike, so goes everywhere, its an ace bike, I have no issue with any aspect of its performance.

You can run the DHX coil in 8.75" stroke mode on the med and large 05 or 06 frames, but not on the small apparently. Or just have a plastic stroke reducer fitted. Think you need the low BB shuttle fitted as well.

Mine failed on the chainstay weld, and I got a replacement from Spesh UK for free. They only come in ano green now apparently.

Dammit. I'd just persuaded myself I didn't need a coil shock, and this thread has got me Planning again…

I Recently bought a FOX DHX4 coil shock with "Push" tuning from TF Tuned for my 2005 SX trail. Absolutely great climbs well and feels "bottomless" on drops. It was either upgrading the shock from the old progressive coil shock or getting a new frame. I always liked the Enduro geometry so i just bought the shock. I'm very pleased I did. The ride is superb. TF Tuned were very fast sorting it out and it fitted with no problems at all. Im now using the Enduro as my 1 bike on our 2 week holiday in Saalbach this summer, so i'll be needing it to climb aswell as descend! Ps My left chainstay cracked a quite number of years ago and Specialized replaced the chainstay unit with with no fuss. The frame has been fine since…I think the new chainstays are the reinforced type.

Dammit. I'd just persuaded myself I didn't need a coil shock, and this thread has got me Planning again…

Then you won't want to be told that in actual fact there is a shock that you can buy, which is 100% the right dimensions for the Enduro, i.e. 8.75" eye to eye with a 2.5" stroke.

It's called the Cane Creek Double Barrel 😆

So there you go; not only is it the best shock by a country mile that you can buy, it's also been made specifically to allow fitment to the 05/06 Enduro.

Ive said it before and I will probably say it again but I really want to try one with a 200×50 RP3 and some Pikes. It should ride very well bb will be a little low but think of the stability.

Ive said it before and I will probably say it again but I really want to try one with a 200×50 RP3 and some Pikes. It should ride very well bb will be a little low but think of the stability.

Hehe – I tried exactly that combination myself. Bought a cheeky cheap can of CRC for about £50 in a sales. Zero risk as I saw it. However the rear wheel interacted with the seat tower on full compression. Never got to feel how low the BB was. I did run mine with a 215mm by 57mm can though, with 130mm forks (coil Revelations) and that worked really well. Yes the BB was very low but oh my how it went around corners.

When I had mine I Used it once on a knackered 200×50 Van rc and it was fine. I was using Wotans at the time and with them set at 120mm it was good and at 160mm it was very slack which was great DH but too slack at any other time. I think I might have to save up for an old frame.

No issues with the chainstays on mine which I've owned from new, picked up as an end of season bargain. I'll echo others comments in that it's a great bike, it climbs perfectly well, just not quickly so unless the up is more important than the down then the balance is right imo!

Descends like a demon and I've happily used it everywhere, Wales, 7Stanes, Chicksands, Esher etc.

Cheers for the replys so far, i'm getting more and more tempted – It won't be a new frame though, so I doubt it'll be under the lifetime warrenty – are the replacements fairly easy to get hold of if it does go?

Cheers for the replys so far, i'm getting more and more tempted – It won't be a new frame though, so I doubt it'll be under the lifetime warrenty – are the replacements fairly easy to get hold of if it does go?

Even though I've not had to use Spesh warranty / service they are always spoken pretty highly of.

Cheers for the replys so far, i'm getting more and more tempted – It won't be a new frame though, so I doubt it'll be under the lifetime warrenty – are the replacements fairly easy to get hold of if it does go?

Specialized are still awaiting a shipment of stays. I tried to get one in March for my '06 SX Trail and was originally sent the last that Specialized UK had in stock. This turned out to be too short – nobody could actually work out what frame it was meant for – and so had to wait for the new order coming in from abroad (Taiwan, I would imagine).

After initially being told that the order was due in April 30th, I spoke with Specialized today and they've said that it's due in on the 19th of this month, although this date could easily change.

I know that doesn't exactly answer the question of how easily the chainstays are available, but you can be sure that, at least after a few months, it's not necessarily going to be something that you can get at a few days notice.

it climbed as well as any 6'' bike, not terribly quick but not a complete drag either, especially if you run a dhx 5 with propedal

took about 3 or 4 months to get replacement stays for mine. And as said above the wrong one was sent out first, didn't fit, then got the correct one about a month later. But it was free 🙂