Let's get something clear—the Stumpjumper EVO Alloy 29 isn't a "normal" trail bike. It's built to get gnarly, and there's no real way around that. It has a slacked-out front-end and a longer top tube, so the EVO has heavier steering and exceptional front-end traction that begs you to do cutties and boost every lip. And with all the speed that 29ers are known for, you're going to be able to bomb down trails that you thought you couldn't touch without a full-blown DH rig. When the goin' gets rowdy, the rowdy get goin'.

What exactly is the EVO for? EVO is for the shredders—the gnarliest trail riders who live for gravity riding. Big drops, huge kickers, rocks, roots—whatever you throw at it, the Stumpjumper EVO can handle it. EVO uses the same style-specific sizing that's featured on our Demo. This sizing lets you choose the bike that fits the way you ride—not just by the seat tube measurement like with most bikes—and it narrows things down to two sizes, S2 and S3. These are longer, lower, slacker, and have seat tube and head tube heights that allow you to choose the size that best suits your style and terrain.

Our other design goal was simple—build the ultimate trail bike. One that feels telepathic. And it turns out that this feeling all comes down to stiffness. Think of it this way: when the frame's telling your hands one thing and your feet another, your brain gets confused with the imbalance and the bike feels unstable. In order to fix this, we had to get to work on dialing-in the materials and shapes.

We continued down the suspension path with a custom Rx Trail Tune on both the fork and rear shock. Suspension performance is highly dependent on frame, wheel, and rider size, so we use our Rx Tune to get each bike to land in the middle of the adjustment spectrum, and this gives you the biggest possible range to fine-tune your ride. Another focal point of the tune was matching the suspension characteristics between wheel sizes—we developed a specific Rx Tune for each platform. So, no matter what wheel size you prefer, you'll get perfectly linear suspension.

Steps were also taken to make this bike easy to live with. Threaded bottom brackets make a triumphant return, and we made room for up to a 2.8" tire. You're also free to run whatever aftermarket rear shock you want, since we're using standard metric shocks. And customization is furthered with a Flip Chip that lets you to dial-in your Stumpy to your riding style. Switch it from High to Low and it drops your bottom bracket 6mm and slackens the head tube by half-a-degree. Little details also jump out to surprise you, like a newly designed ribbed chainstay protector that makes chain slap a thing of the past and nearly silences the drivetrain.