It feels like I’ve been here before with less than perfect suspension on the long travel Scott, but it surprises me, given how excellent the Gambler and that bike’s predecessors have been. The LT now gets the Nude/Fox combination on the rear and Scott’s bar actuated three way Fox CTD bar mounted adjust up front.

It’s far from brilliant. The downside of all the adjustment and desire to conquer every element of riding is that it has also taken away to a certain degree just what 170mm is good at – chewing up and spitting out terrain. In softer grounds with slower impacts the Genius deals with stuff reasonably well and the low speed holds your shape and grip, it’s just when things get noisier that the Genius begins choking on the rear and folding on the front. I’d go so far as to say there’s no bastard damping when you start pressing on and certainly no pocket in the suspension off which to control the dynamic ride position. It’s too weak. And it’s a great shame because in there is an amazing bike waiting to cut loose. In stock form there’s simply not enough engagement between rider/bike/trail.

Apart from the suspension, the cable routing which resulted in broken hoses for us, the damper adjustment levers that we bent on crashing (which is generally what happens from time to time when you ride these bikes) and the binding bushing in the rearmost link, it’s not too bad. Whilst there are some 170mm bikes out there which are plain and uninspiring long travel cross country bikes, the Scott is built to charge and it almost does it. It’s just that when you start charging the rear chokes and clatters rather than delivers smooth progressive damping to ease you through the mêlée.

But it’s because its lightweight all–round ability was in there, just needing to be fattened up in the damping, I called up Scott and Fox with a suggestion to get the bike moving in bigger territory.

The boys at Mojo (UK Fox suspension service centre) undressed the Genius of its Nude and cabling and dropped in a Float X on the rear. I found the three–way easy to adjust lever on the side of the damper a simpler method for locking the shock out for climbing and the damper also aimed to give the Genius more punch on the descents. Up front we opted for a damper that we had tested out in Finale after last year’s final Enduro World Series. It was a simple matter of dropping in a new cartridge, which will be offered by Mojo/Fox very soon. Considerably stronger than the stretched 170mm CTD fork it is a damper that will put Fox back in the game big style. Whilst at Mojo we also put a spacer in the swingarm to get it moving freely again as the whole back end was binding up at around three quarter stroke.>>