Coil shock on 2003 Enduro?


Hey Lee,

Firstly, let me express my adoration for your writing. Being a mountain bike journalist is an admirable career, and you are the best of the selected few. I enjoy reading your blog (and your book) very much – that is when I do not ride my bike.

And it is the bike about which I have a question. I would like to have a coil rear shock on my old Enduro 2003. Although this bike is not the latest word from Specialized, it is so great I do not intend to change it for anything – it just rocks. However, I would like to have a plushy coil at the back, such as Vanilla R.

The problem is that Enduro shocks come at unusual eye-to-eye length (7.765 to be exact). So I wonder whether it would be feasible to put a longer eye-to-eye shock, e.g. 7.875, or maybe a shorter one (7.5 e2e).

The other question is what kind of a shock would fit the Enduro. Is it feasible to install a Vanilla shock? Wouldn’t the piggy back reservoir be a problem on the frame?

Sincerely Yours,
Omer Shapira

The more you click, the more I can post. Lee Likes Groceries dot com!




The Mighty Enduro near the Continental Divide. Yeah, there was some braaap …

Hi Omer,

Thanks for the kind words. I like what I do — that makes it easy.

The 2002-2004 Enduro is indeed a supersweet bike. Climb it, descend it, jump it, braaap it.

– You can fit a Vanilla coil shock on that beauty.

– There is no room for a piggyback. I’ve seen guys run piggybacks, but they had to file down part of the frame — not a great idea, especially if you’re not a factory pro. Forget warranty!

– My 2003 S-Works Enduro had a 7.5″ shock. This lowered the BB and slackened the head angle, which made the geometry more like the newer Enduro. As great as the 2002-2004 Enduro was, the 2005-2006 is even better … and the 2007 is EVEN BETTER!!!

Rip it,

— Lee

3 replies
  1. Micke says:

    Hi all.
    I fitted a 200mm (7.875″) i2i Swinger 3-way (no piggyback) to my -03 S-Works Enduro. Paired with an -03 Marzocchi Z1 at the front (518mm a-c) and the shock link in the slack position I ended up with a 69 degree head angle and a 14″ bb height. The ride was very sweet indeed. I felt the higher bb made the bike a bit more usable for my usual rocky terrain as the bb is pretty low to start with.

    /Micke

  2. Ryan says:

    Another option if you want to keep the light weight is the RP23 in the readily available 7.875 length. Even though it’s longer, if you run the link in the slack position, you retain basically the same geometry as with the stock shock in the steep position.

    If you can still find one, Romic made a coil shock that worked on that bike too.

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