Recap: The Ride
Specialized Demos, in all of their iterations, are probably the most common DH bikes out there. From local lift-accessed hills to the Whistler Bike Park, they’re everywhere, and for good reason. The Demo is a solid, well spec’d bike that strikes a pretty good balance between a purebred race bike and a bike that’s still fun for dorking around in the bike park.
In my time on various Demo models, I’ve found that they all do everything pretty well, but if there’s one thing that the Demo does particularly well compared to many other DH bikes, it involves its short rear end. As I mentioned at the top of this review, the Demo is exceptionally easy to manual, and its rear wheel can be thrown into tight corners more precisely than most bikes I’ve ridden. This is aided by the fact that the rear end is plenty stiff.
Personally I have something of a love / hate relationship with the Demo’s rear end. There are times when I wished it was just a little bit longer to give the bike a bit more composure through nasty stuff. Also, while I’m not particularly tall, I also occasionally felt like I was getting too far behind the bike. Sometimes I feel like I was starting to unintentionally lean back into a manual. Of course, the obvious solution would be to keep my weight over the front of the bike, and if I could perfectly throw my weight around in every situation, I’d probably be winning more races.
POV footage of Noah Bodman on the Speclialized S-Works Demo 8
The S-Works Demo is somewhat lacking in pedaling efficiency. Yeah, it’s a downhill bike, but DH courses get flatter every year, and there aren’t many “two pedals off the line, then lay off the brakes to the finish” type tracks anymore. Pedaling efficiency still matters, and the S-Works (and all Demos, for that matter) aren’t winning any medals on that front. The GT Fury and Giant Glory were noticeably more efficient when it came time to lay down some power.
The thing that surprised me most about the S-Works Demo was, again, how much work it took to get off the ground. Of course, this isn’t to say that it wouldn’t jump at all. Obviously, as you can see in the pictures and video here, I was still pretty comfortable hitting jumps on the S-Works, but there’s no question that the S-Works took more work to pop off a lip than any other bike I rode at Whistler.
But what the S-Works Demo lacks in jumping prowess, it makes up for in high-speed plundering through steep, rocky, rooty trails.
Out of all of the bikes I rode at Whistler, the Demo was the most composed when the going got fast and rough. The bike is also extremely well composed under hard braking, even when hacking sideways through big brake bumps. The rear end stays active, and the Ohlins shock keeps everything copacetic.
The Trek Session 9.9 smoothed out trails nicely, but felt small and twitchy by comparison. The GT Fury Expert didn’t have any issues, but its suspension wasn’t quite as smooth as the Demo’s and it would occasionally hang up on trail detritus. And while the Knolly Podium was really fun through rough stuff, it wasn’t as willing to just lay waste to rough trail quite like the S-Works Demo.
Bottom Line
The S-Works Demo 8 sits above the other models in Specialized’s Demo lineup with a set of features designed solely to give the bike the edge when you decide to hurl it down the hill at race pace. Some of those features can be a little annoying when you’re just out for a regular day of spinning laps at your local hill — for that, I’d want a bike with more gears, more pop out of the rear end, and a clutched rear derailleur.
The S-Works Demo 8 is a race bike, built to keep things smooth on fast, rough trails, and it does that very well. So if your primary goal is to go as fast as possible over rough terrain and win races, then the Specialized S-Works Demo is a solid bet.