Assorted Notes on Various Situations
Little Jumps: On little poppy jumps, the Jedi protests. It wants to stay on the ground and plow. The rearward movement of the suspension makes popping off of small obstacles kind of weird.
Big Jumps: Again, I wouldn’t call the Jedi “poppy,” but it does just fine. It’s less inclined to throw hyper-active wiggly tricks and more inclined to lay out big lazy whips.
Drops: The Jedi is a big stable bike, which is always nice for jumping off of stuff. I do find that I reach the bottom of the Jedi’s travel on hard landings, which is one of the reasons I bumped up to a stiffer spring.
Stability: In case it hasn’t already become clear, the Jedi is a ridiculously stable bike. It’s right up there with the most stable bikes I’ve ever ridden. It’s a very comfortable bike when the going is fast and rough.
Steep Shit: The Jedi is slack, low, and it gobbles up the kind of crap that you really don’t want to hang up on when things are legitimately steep. Steep and rough is where the Jedi is most in its element.
High Speed Corners: Once you wrap your head around the movement of the rear end, it does really well. It takes some getting used to the rearward arc of the linkage, but it stays nicely composed when railing around a potholed, destroyed mess of a berm. It’s also a pretty low bike, so it does well it you need to lay a trench into a loose, flat corner.
Slow Corners: It’s a handful. The rear end gets longer on you, and it’s already a slack, long bike.
Manuals / Lofting the front end: the Jedi feels really easy to manual at first. The stays are short. But then as you bring the front end up and your weight shifts back, the suspension compresses, and all of a sudden those stays get a lot longer. Not to say that manuals are impossible, but this takes some getting used to.
Pedaling Efficiency: Pretty good, actually. I mean, you’re not going to forget that you’re on a 40lb bike with 9” of travel, but if you can keep your body position neutral, the bike actually pedals pretty dang well. But the low bottom bracket means you’ve got to keep your eyes open when pedaling. I’ve had lots of solid pedal strikes aboard the Jedi.
Braking: I never noticed any ill effects while braking, and the rear end didn’t noticeably firm up while hacking down rough trails on the brakes.
Comparisons
The most obvious comparisons for the Jedi would probably be some of the high single-pivot bikes on the market, like the new Commencal Supreme V4 or a Zerode G2. Those bikes have a rearward axle path that’s generally similar to the Jedi, but unfortunately, I don’t have any time on those bikes, so I can’t offer much yet on that front.
Compared to the Trek Session: The Session is lighter and more agile in tight spots, and poppier over small terrain undulations. But it’s far less inclined to plow down a line with reckless abandon. The Session’s geometry is also steep and short, so it’s far less stable.
Compared to the Specialized Demo (old / 2 sided version): The Demo is the bike I think of when I think of a well rounded bike. It doesn’t do anything extraordinarily well, but it doesn’t do anything poorly, either. It sits pretty much in the middle of the spectrum of DH bikes. It’s not as stable as the Jedi, it doesn’t swallow square bumps like the Jedi, and it’s less composed when the going gets legitimately steep and rough. But it’s more fun on flowy trails, and even though its geometry is pretty similar to the Jedi’s, it gets through tight stuff more easily.
Compared to the Knolly Podium: The Knolly has a ton more pop and is a lot more fun on jumpy trails. While the Knolly has a very active rear end, it’s not even close to as comfortable plowing through rough stuff at speed as the Jedi.
Compared to the GT Fury: This is an interesting one. I really like the Fury, and it shares some of the Jedi’s traits. It’s a long, stable bike that pretty comfortable at speed. The Fury does hang up on square edged hits a bit, which is an area where the Jedi excels. I did find that the Fury was more playful and poppy than the Jedi, though. Basically, the Jedi is plowier, the Fury is more playful, but the difference is a lot closer than, say, the Jedi and the Knolly.
Who Should Buy this Bike?
If you’re looking for a bike to run bell-to-bell laps on A-line, the Jedi isn’t the first bike I’d pick. Similarly, if your local trails aren’t reasonably steep and rough, the Jedi is probably overkill. It’s not light, it’s not a park bike, and it feels unwieldy and kind of stupid at slow speeds.
Think about the kind of trail that IMBA would approve of: well thought out drainage, manageable grades, and a user friendly trail tread. Now imagine of the exact opposite of that, and that’s what the Jedi is good on. If those are the kind of trails that you ride regularly, the Jedi is tough to beat. It feels most at home on steep, raw, root-infested messes, and in that environment, it does very well.
So if you’re the kind of person who allows themselves a sensible chuckle after blitzing through a steep minefield of roots and rocks at ludicrous speed, the Jedi deserves a serious look.
Bottom Line
The Canfield Bros 27.5 Jedi is an insanely stable bike that plows through the gnarliest, roughest trails more efficiently than just about any other bike I’ve ridden.
The Jedi isn’t a bike I’d recommend to everyone. On the stable vs. playful spectrum, it falls decidedly to one end. But if stability and chunder crushing prowess is what you want, the Jedi is the best I’ve ridden.
Once again, kickass review man. Keep em comin! Need to get you on some of these trails bikes too so we can get a good idea on how they differ.
So much of your review is wrong. I own the bike. Very easy to jump! The suspension decompresses and pops you. Rails in corners like a f1 car. Litterally squats and rails.
Rails high speed corners – yes (as I said in the review). But if you think this bike is a poppy, jumpy little park bike, you’re wrong. It’s got 3″ of rearward travel, a 62.5 degree head angle, and it’s an 11.5 lb frame. Knowing nothing else about this bike, that right there should tell you that this isn’t a whippy oversized slopestyle rig. And in my book, that’s a very good thing – I don’t want a park bike. I want something super stable that’ll monster truck down the nastiest shit I can find, which is why I bought the Jedi. But I’m not going to pretend like it’s something it’s not (i.e. a poppy, jumpy bike that’s designed for dicking around on A-Line at a moderate pace).
I think that there is really a lot of rebound damping going on in the linked video. The rear suspension packs down deeper and deeper into the travel as the rider charges down the rock garden. I’m not surprised that this doesn’t feel poppy off jumps…
I’m actually running a bit less rebound damping than is recommended by Cane Creek. Keep in mind that the video is at 1/8 normal speed – the shock is actually rebounding quite quickly. Going off of Cane Creek’s base tunes, I would say that I actually have less issues with the Jedi packing up than I did on my Specialized Demo.
And I played around with the suspension quite a bit. I’m 100% certain that the rebound settings have nothing to do with the bike not being poppy off of small hits. I’m 95% sure it has to do with the bike’s 3″ of rearward travel that does a really good job of absorbing small obstacles on the trail, which, in turn, means that the bike doesn’t like to pop off of stuff. To be clear, that’s not a bad thing – it just means this bike is really good at some things, and not so great at others.
“The last thing I noticed about the rearward axle path is that I seem to get a lot of rim “pings.” As best as I can tell, this is because as the rear suspension decompresses, the wheel is returning to a more forward position. If another bump comes along right at that moment (which happens pretty often), the rear wheel tends to smack it extra hard. The suspension still does its thing and the wheel still gets out of the way of that next obstacle, but I get those audible “pings” from the rear rim pretty often on the Jedi. So far, it doesn’t seem like this is actually taking much of a toll on the rim, but it makes me feel like a hack.”
This is why overly rearward axle paths suck/are not fast (look at WC results). The wheel literally runs into the next bump as opposed to skipping over it with a more vertical path.
Noah,
Not sure if you still have your Jedi, but…
You wouldn’t happen to have written down your CCDB setting for the Jedi? I started w/ a DVO Jade, then an Avy DHS, but I haven’t had a CCDB on my Jedi, and Cane Creek has changed up their page and Canfield isn’t listed in their bike mfg anymore.
Hey Paul,
Unfortunately I don’t have the Jedi anymore, and I don’t recall where I had the CCDB set. You might be able to shoot Canfield an email and see if they can get you pointed in the right direction.