Bike Check: Remy Morton's Chainless Specialized Demo 8
As one of the most stylish riders out there, Remy Morton has signed with Specialized bikes and brought along his ultra-personalized set up to his Demo 8 park bike. The new relationship with Specialized, and their Soil Searching program, fits well with Remy as he runs his own trail building business called "Flux Trail", and so the frame receives a custom paint job.
Remy is running a mullet set up, but not the one you see most commonly around your local trail center - this is a 26" front, 24" rear wheel combo. It's hard to glance over the massive 3" wide rear tire, which he says, remains stable in the air while allowing him to move the bike in ways that weren't possible before.
The pressures are set well above what you find in downhill race bikes. The front tire has 35 psi and the rear has a whopping 40 psi to keep things rolling fast as well as avoiding squirming when blasting up the face of massive jumps. The fork pressure is set to its maximum 120 psi and a stiff 600 lb coil spring is called upon for the DHX2 shock.
You’ll also notice that the bike is set up chainless. A custom-machined cassette body allows for the occasional grind and also saves weight over a chain, derailleur, and cassette. On top of that, he’s running mega short 135 mm kids cranks from Hope Tech for a more natural and centered riding stance.
Remy is running a mullet set up, but not the one you see most commonly around your local trail center - this is a 26" front, 24" rear wheel combo. It's hard to glance over the massive 3" wide rear tire, which he says, remains stable in the air while allowing him to move the bike in ways that weren't possible before.
The pressures are set well above what you find in downhill race bikes. The front tire has 35 psi and the rear has a whopping 40 psi to keep things rolling fast as well as avoiding squirming when blasting up the face of massive jumps. The fork pressure is set to its maximum 120 psi and a stiff 600 lb coil spring is called upon for the DHX2 shock.
You’ll also notice that the bike is set up chainless. A custom-machined cassette body allows for the occasional grind and also saves weight over a chain, derailleur, and cassette. On top of that, he’s running mega short 135 mm kids cranks from Hope Tech for a more natural and centered riding stance.
 | I’ve got some personal trauma from riding too fast at things, removing the drivetrain eliminates most chances of questioning my speed and trying to go faster. This also makes me build with flow in mind, not being able to pedal means that everything needs to be built to perfection to roll through as it sits. |
Bike Details:
Frame: Specialized Demo 8, S3 size, (Soil Searching paint)
Fork: Marzocchi bomber 58, 120 psi (Soil Searching paint)
Shock: Fox DHX2, 600 lb spring
Wheels: Sun Ringle Double Wide rims, Hope Pro 5 hubs w/chainless driver
Tires: front - Maxxis Minion DHF 2.5x26”, 35 PSI, rear - Duro Razorback 3.0x24”, 40 psi
Brakes: Hope Tech 4 V4 brakes (Flux Trail engraved)
Cranks: Hope Evo Kids, 135 mm length
Drivetrain: N/A
Bars: Chromag Fubar OSX bars, 780 mm width
Stem: Chromag Director stem
Grips: Sensus Swayze lock-on
Pedals: Chromag Dagga
Saddle/post: Chromag Overture LTD/Thomson post
Additional: Hope head set, bottom bracket, and seat clamp
Frame: Specialized Demo 8, S3 size, (Soil Searching paint)
Fork: Marzocchi bomber 58, 120 psi (Soil Searching paint)
Shock: Fox DHX2, 600 lb spring
Wheels: Sun Ringle Double Wide rims, Hope Pro 5 hubs w/chainless driver
Tires: front - Maxxis Minion DHF 2.5x26”, 35 PSI, rear - Duro Razorback 3.0x24”, 40 psi
Brakes: Hope Tech 4 V4 brakes (Flux Trail engraved)
Cranks: Hope Evo Kids, 135 mm length
Drivetrain: N/A
Bars: Chromag Fubar OSX bars, 780 mm width
Stem: Chromag Director stem
Grips: Sensus Swayze lock-on
Pedals: Chromag Dagga
Saddle/post: Chromag Overture LTD/Thomson post
Additional: Hope head set, bottom bracket, and seat clamp
| As jumps get bigger each year, air draft has become a huge factor to account for also, when in the air having smaller surface area (wheels) actually helps me manage the Angular momentum quite a lot which might sound funny, but it works for me haha! I also like running as heavy wheels as possible as it also helps with this factor and plants the bike at high speed. although my rims are 20-years old they still ride like a dream laced to fresh hope hubs! |
Numbers, numbers, numbers... 24" Double Wide rim, Pro 5 32-hole hub with 148x12mm dropout spacing, 4-cross lacing pattern, and the custom, smooth-finish stainless steel driver body.
I haven't seen these since the Santa Cruz Super 8 and Kona Stab Primo stair-hucking era.
| Having short cranks gives your body much better posture and creates a lot more central body weight. This allows you to pump much better. Having a chainless specific rear hub means there is zero drag from any engagement points or chain tension and the small wheels accommodate this set up to roll much quicker. |
Chromag's Dagga pedals have a lethal grip. Those are bolted to short 135 mm Hope Kids cranks. Chains are unnecessary equipment here.
| People often think that not being able to pedal would be a huge inconvenience but in today's age with enduro bikes filling such a large portion of disciplines and bike parks being so accessible, if owning a downhill bike is still a necessity in your life it’s pretty rare you actually need to pedal. |
Hope Tech 4 V4 brakes with custom "Flux Trail" laser etching, Sensus Swayze lock-on grips, and a Chromag OSX bar cut to 780mm.
203mm floating rotors from Hope.
A Marzocchi 58 fork is built for a 27.5" wheel, but there's a 26" in place for flicking the bike around quickly. The pressure is maxed to 120 psi.
You can't argue with Remy's setup when he can get his bike that sideways.
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www.instagram.com/retro_downhill_mtb?igsh=cmZsOHA0cXhrMWlw
a vehicle with two wheels tandem, handlebars for steering, a saddle seat, and pedals by which it is propelled.
Does not meet the definition.
Man those things were indestructible, brings back some memories
Sworks Specialized Demo Rem-E edition: $14k, drops next week. Payment accepted in NOS Sun Doublewides.
If anything you’d have more leverage with pegs because you could stand on them and they wouldn’t move; instead the bike would move.
www.pinkbike.com/photo/2706818
I am only a cupboard physicist but, but, but
smaller wheels have less angular momentum
heavier wheels have more angular momentum
less is more?!?
That’s not really how this works, outside of really tight, vertical backyard jump trails that only a BMX bike will ‘fit’ on.
Once your features become large enough that your bicycle’s wheelbase is only spanning a small fraction of the takeoff and landing transitions, the exact bike used to hit the jump becomes less relevant to the trajectory of flight. The jumps Remy Morton is building are well past that point, and despite the wheel sizes, his bike is not ‘small’ by any standard.
The benefit of smaller bikes on big jumps is simply faster response to rider input and more maneuverability in the air- the trade-off being stability and margin of error.
I guess I've just ridden too many bike parks designed by guys who seem to test ride and shape features based off of BMX or 26" DJ bikes, and then you get with them later and even they admit the jumps feel awkward on a big bike. You look around and all the locals are on 29" trail bikes. Well then why are we making features with funds donated by the community that most trail-bike riders won't feel comfortable riding even if they could shred most jump lines?
I'm all about weird bikes that shrug off convention to suit the owners desires, but I can only imagine if Remy brings this bike to build days how that will impact the overall design of a trail. Perhaps in some great ways, and perhaps in some negative aspects too.
Probably a great example of the personal touch that a rider can bring to a trail build, for better or worse.
I'll take your challenge though and investigate the possibilities of perhaps reshaping and reconfiguring some of those features to get more use.
End of the day, a 29er trail bike isn’t really the right tool for the job, even if a skilled rider should have no problem. Nobody wants to be kicked in the butt by a 29er wheel when they come up short on a landing. Maybe you should try a different bike. Or learn better bike handling skills.
No offence, but dumbing all the features down to low & fast rollers that feel ‘easy’ for trail and XC bikes is simply a race to the bottom that will never please everyone.
I don’t know what happened at your local community bike park, but unless it was built by Remi Morton, it’s frankly irrelevant to this article. The point remains- even if jumps built by BMXers are ‘unridable’ on a trail bike, (which as noted is more of a skill problem then a bike problem) a modern downhill bike still has a huge wheelbase, even with smaller wheels. Using it to test jumps will absolutely not introduce abnormally tight or small qualities into the design of the jumps.
I managed to hit them a few times without dying. Did it feel awkward? Hell yeah, but I’m not going to pretend it was the builder’s fault. I suspect I could do quite a bit better with my 2023 Norco Torrent, but it still wouldn’t be ideal.
So that’s a linear relationship, right?
Torque spins things
However, the bending moment is linearly related to its length.
@pmhobson : A crank arm is subject to both bending and torsion as the pedal platform is offset from the crank.
www.paulcomp.com/shop/components/hubs/rear-hubs/boost-disk-word-148mm
Here's my version from back in the day
m.pinkbike.com/photo/8552873
Also maybe for extra weight because of longer spokes? I have no idea honestly lol this is confusing me
Now get rid of the saddle
m.pinkbike.com/news/mountain-scooter-shredding-video-2014.html