The cliche of the middle aged repurchasing the car of their youth at great (and baffling) expense has a lot of truth to it. Fortunately, I don’t have any desire to repurchase another VW split window bus, as that appears to fit firmly in the baffling expense category. But, as I mentioned in my Drivetrains post I still do have an old 1995 Specialised Stumpjumper M2 FS that I purchased back in the spring of 1995 while I was in high school.
You can check out the last decent product line Specialized offered in the 1995 Specialized Bikes Catalog. That’s not entirely fair and I am exaggerating a bit, the 1996-1997 range was pretty good as well.
As I’m sure you’ll recall from perusing the catalog, the M2 FS originally came with a mix of Shimano Deore LX and XT 8-speed, Grip Shifts and a RockShox Mag 21. I wasn’t a big fan of Grip Shifts or RockShox at the time and had the shifters and levers swapped out for some nice XT M739s with Rapidfire and the fork swapped for a Manitou 4 with the aluminium steerer. Looking at the original invoice, I can see those old red Ritchey pedals, decent Yeti grips, and some nice Panaracer tyres as well.
That $1471.83USD in 1995 is the current equivalent of about $3235 USD or $4535 AUD as of September 2026. However you look at it, that’s a significant purchase, and I did work the entire following summer at Imo’s Pizza (a few doors down from The Touring Cyclist) to pay it off.
I rode the M2 for years around the neighbourhoods and trails around St. Louis, it came with me to university, moved with me to the east coast, and I recall a few trips out to Colorado as well. I broke and/or replaced most components on the M2 over the years and it strayed further and further away from its original state. The M2 finally ended up as a singlespeed with a noodley 80mm SID fork before it was left behind after an international move in 2009.
A few years ago I brought the M2 down here to Australia and rebuilt it with some period correct(ish) parts and drivetrain. I initially thought I could build it as a practical bike to ride to the shops and leave locked up, but the ’90s parts bin of fancy parts but an end to that idea. In brief, it was a mix of 8-speed Deore LX and XT, some old Paul’s Love Levers and Motolite brakes, some very fancy Mavic Crossmax UST ceramic wheels, an old Lynskey titanium seatpost, a Kent Eriksen titanium flat bar, a Thomson stem, and some sketchy (at least as a front tyre) Schwalbe Racing Ralphs.
I hope you can recognise the restraint displayed in this rebuild as there’s not a single purple, teal or otherwise brightly-coloured anodised part anywhere on this bike. I saved all of that for the grab bag of purple Paul’s parts on the Lynskey R300 and the 29er singlepeed. Maybe I’ll post about those someday.
The eagle-eyed will notice this M2 FS is missing its FS. Those suspension forks from the ’90s weren’t great then in their not so compliant suspension and their far too compliant torsional (and who knows what other) flex, and there’s no way I’m riding a 30+ year old suspension fork now. I found an old Specialized rigid butted cromoly MTB fork on eBay and resprayed it satin black, which is fortunately a pretty easy colour to match. I didn’t bother checking to see if the A-C (axle to crown measurement) on this fork is suspension corrected for the 63mm of travel the M2 FS was (probably) designed around, but it looks pretty close.
I’ve been pretty happy riding the M2 on gravel and some singletrack, but my middle-aged sensibilities and flexibility didn’t always agree with the pronounced saddle to bar drop. On top of that, those Kent Eriksen bars are narrower than the flared drops on the now dropbar 650b Kent Eriksen. Funny, because when Kent made those bars for me when I visited his shop in 2008 these 620mm bars were significantly wider than the Titec 555mm titanium bars that I originally put on that bike. Anyway, none of these flat bars were working for me.
So, over the last few days I’ve been swapping old bars on the M2. I tried some On One Fleegle alt-bars, but they were too alt. I tried some more modern Raceface 720/31.8mm flat bars, but they were too flat (and wide). I’ve settled for some older (but far newer than the M2) Titec Hellbent risers. These are an unfathomable 660mm wide, and the 31.8mm clamp is strikingly modern compared to the 22.2mm titanium bars (shimmed to 25.4mm). However, these old M2 frames have a pretty large O.D. tubing, and the newer bar diameters work well aesthetically, in my opinion.
In addition to the bars, I’ve also swapped the titanium post for a non-remote KS E-ten 125mm dropper. The M2 has a 30.9mm seat tube I.D., which was odd in 1995, but quite convenient in 2026 when looking for a compatible dropper. The dropper probably doubled the weight of the bike (a small exaggeration, but the M2 was under 10kg with the titanium post and bars), but should make it a lot more fun on singletrack and I was never a fan of the off-the-back-of-the-saddle ’90s-style descending.
I wonder what’s next for the M2? 🤔
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