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Employee Bike Check With Liam Woods' Frameworks Enduro [Video]

Words by: Liam Woods

What Is This Bike For and Why Did You Pick It?

My Frameworks Enduro is a unique enduro bike—truly the brainchild of Neko Mulally himself. It stems from his years of experience riding and racing downhill bikes at the World Cup level. Neko dove deep into creating his own downhill bike, with a focus on race-ready performance and simplicity. It’s a machine that brings together his ideal geometry and intended suspension kinematics for a fast yet well-rounded ride. His downhill bike has already claimed a junior world championship and is being raced at every World Cup this year.

That’s the downhill bike—but I ride the enduro version. Neko and his crew spend more time training and riding on enduro bikes than downhill bikes, so he had the same goal in mind: design an enduro bike that met his needs for riding, occasional enduro racing, and training. The result is a purpose-built machine with a 4-bar Horst Link suspension, external brake routing, easy-to-access pivots, no paint, and dedicated mx wheel geometry.

I’ve been riding it for the past five months and pushing it hard—from 10k+ climbing days to Tasmania and New Zealand, Whistler Bike Park, trails all over British Columbia, and daily thrash sessions on our local steeps.

I chose this bike for a few reasons. First, it’s Neko’s project, and I know the hard work Neko, Logan, and the rest of the crew put into it. Riding one feels special—and almost every time I’m out, people are stoked to see it. That’s always cool.

Second, I love the simplicity. It seems like every new bike adds more complication—whether it’s suspension designs, brake routing (don’t get me started on through-headset routing for mountain bikes), storage, hardware, or fancy paint jobs. This bike strips things down to what matters and does it right. It’s refreshing to build, work on, and ride. It also makes traveling way easier. I knew I had three international trips this year—including one that was a month long with six flights and a mix of bike parks, shuttles, and big rides. The aluminum, unpainted front triangle makes travel worry-free. I can toss it in a bike bag and trust it’ll come out the other end just fine.

Oh, and did I mention the front triangle was welded by Frank the Welder? Yup—legendary FTW. I’ve always wanted something made by Frank, and that’s the cherry on top.

Specs:

Frame model and size: Frameworks Enduro, Medium
Travel: 170mm Front, 170mm Rear
Handlebar width: 750mm
Seatpost height: 77.5mm
Wheel size: 29/27.5”
Weight: 34.5lbs

Frame:

I’ve touched on the frame’s story and construction, but let’s dig into the fit and setup. I’m riding a size medium. At 5’11”, I usually fall into the large category—but bike sizing is complicated these days. I focus more on geometry numbers and how a bike feels on the trail.

The reach on this medium is 460mm; I generally prefer something around 475mm. Combined with the steep 78-degree seat tube angle, the climbing position feels a bit cramped. But this bike is built to descend, so I prioritized wheelbase, front center, and rear center. The medium has the chainstay and wheelbase numbers I like, and it suits my riding well.

I experimented with travel settings too but landed on 170mm front and rear. Initially, the front felt a bit tall on flatter terrain, but overall, the bike feels best with 170mm, especially on steep trails.

Suspension:

The suspension setup has been a bit of a journey. I started with a Fox setup, then tried a RockShox Zeb along with both a Push SVEight coil and RockShox Vivid Air. I ended up sticking with RockShox front and rear—they just work really well for me.

The Rockshox Zeb Ultimate uses the Charger 3.1 damper and comes in that gorgeous electric red color. The RockShox Vivid Air is impressive—it starts off supple and ramps up smoothly with great control through the stroke. With high-speed, low-speed compression, and HBO adjustments, I haven’t needed to mess with volume spacers. I used the stock tune Logan recommended, and it’s been spot on.

The Push SVEight coil is great too but ramps up more aggressively. I think it's best for extremely rough, mid-grade terrain like Santa Barbara’s front country—where traction is tricky and it’s constantly rough with few big hits or jumps.

For the dropper, I’m running the new RockShox Reverb AXS B1. It’s fully redesigned this year with the battery relocated to the collar. That change allowed RockShox to offer longer travel options—200mm, 225mm, and 250mm (up from a previous 170mm max). I went with 225mm, mostly for aesthetics—200mm would’ve left too much post showing.

It’s been flawless. And since it’s wireless, it’s perfect for travel—I just pull the post and saddle out and toss them in another bag to stay under the 50lb limit (which haunts me). Saddle is my usual: Fizik Antares R3. I’ve run the same shape for over 10 years—if it ain’t broke…

Front End / Contact Points:

The front end is the most important part of the bike for me. Naturally, it’s all Trail One Components—gear I’ve helped develop.

Starting with the stem, I use a 40mm Rockville. I run 40mm stems on all my bikes; it feels like the perfect balance of control and steering. Mountain biking is dynamic, and I think adjusting your position around a consistent stem length yields better handling than constantly changing stems.

The bar is the Crockett Carbon in 20mm rise, 750mm width—again, consistent across all my bikes. Same goes for the Hells Gate grips. Having the same bar/stem/grip setup helps me feel at home on any bike. The Hells Gate grips are my absolute favorite. I’m biased, but a perfectly worn-in set just makes me happy.

Brakes:

Brakes make or break an enduro bike. If you can’t trust your brakes, you can’t ride confidently.

I’ve swapped between two brake sets on this bike. Thanks to the external routing, swapping is easy—six zip ties and done. No cutting or bleeding required.

I started with Trickstuff Maxima brakes, which were in for long-term testing. The lever feel and overall build quality are on another level. They’re easily among the best brakes I’ve ever used.

Then I tried the SRAM Maven Base brakes—on the opposite end of the price and spec spectrum. I have a full review on them elsewhere, so I’ll keep it short: they’re surprisingly good. Light lever feel, great consistency, and I’ve only bled them once after over 50k feet of descending. For a base model, they seriously deliver.

Wheels and Tires:

DT Swiss. That’s all that needs to be said. All my trail and enduro bikes run DT hubs when possible, and I’m a fan of their alloy rims.

I have two setups for this bike:

DT 240 EXP hubs with XM481 rims (slightly lighter)
DT 240 DEG hubs with FR541 rims (my go-to setup)

The FR541 setup feels best matched to this bike. It’s simple, nearly bulletproof, and that DEG hub—wow. Amazing sound and top-tier reliability. I don’t care much about ultra-high engagement; I’ll take durable, low-maintenance hubs any day over finicky high-engagement ones.

As for tires, I’ve tried several:

Continental Kryptotal FR (front) and Xynotal (rear)
Michelin DH22 (front) and DH16 (rear)

But for travel or unfamiliar terrain, I default to Maxxis. My go-to combo: Maxxis Assegai DD MaxxGrip up front, Minion DHR II DD MaxxTerra out back. It gives me great front-end traction and slightly better wear and rolling speed in the rear.

Drivetrain:

SRAM’s T-Type transmission is hard to beat, especially for enduro. I went with the GX Transmission version for one reason: value. It shifts flawlessly, is durable, and doesn’t cost a fortune to replace if I cartwheel the bike down a hill. The weight isn’t a dealbreaker for me—the bike’s already hefty.

I run 165mm cranks on all my bikes and a standard 32T chainring. I wanted to see if the Transmission could handle chain retention without a guide. Five months in—no dropped chains. The integrated bash guards have already saved the chainring from some solid hits.

Accessories and Special Touches:

There aren’t a ton of special mods on this bike—gear these days is dialed enough that you don’t need to tweak much.

One constant: I run King Cage stainless or titanium bottle cages on all my bikes. Most reliable cage out there—and if a bottle doesn’t fit snug, you can bend it slightly for a perfect hold.

Pedals are Time Speciale 10 (large platform). The ATAC system feels like the perfect middle ground between Crank Brothers and SPD—easy in/out but with a solid, confident engagement. They’ve been incredibly reliable—I’ve never touched a bearing or axle, and that’s saying a lot. On a 7-hour ride the other week, Garmin told me I did over 31,000 crank revolutions. That’s a serious workload—and the Time pedals handle it effortlessly.

Quick Ride Review:

The Frameworks Enduro is just plain fun. Honestly, it’s the best enduro bike I’ve ever ridden. The geometry is progressive but balanced—and the standout trait is how well it corners.

Cornering is my weak spot, and I really should dedicate more time to drills. But trail riding is just too fun. This bike helps make up for that weakness. A few key factors play in: the mullet setup (grippy front, agile rear), and the longer 450mm chainstays. People often praise short chainstays for cornering, but I think they confuse a snappy turn with a controlled one. The Frameworks offers both stability and a predictable slide when leaned over.

Beyond that, it’s just easy to ride. No funky geometry quirks or weird suspension kinematics. I felt fast and confident right away. It loves steep trails, and I genuinely feel like I’m riding better than ever on descents and in corners.

Climbing is also surprisingly comfortable. Even on a brutal 10,500 ft day at Trans Santa Ana, I only flipped the climb switch once—on the final climb. The rest of the time I climbed with the shock wide open and didn’t feel like I was fighting the bike.

This article was written / authored by Liam Woods. Liam has been in the bicycle industry for over 10 years as a racer, professional mechanic, service manager and as of late, media and content creator. Liam has ridden thousands of different bikes, ridden countless components, tested endless MTB apparel of all kinds and written reviews on it all. He's a key piece to the Worldwide Cyclery "All Things MTB" content creation puzzle. He also makes consistent appearances on the Worldwide Cyclery YouTube channel and Instagram.

If you are one strange human that would like to read a transcript of the video above, continue reading below!

00:00:00:05 - 00:00:31:00 Unknown Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another Worldwide Cyclery Employee Bike Check. I'm Jared today I'm here with my man Liam. Hello. Internet people and his wonderful Frameworks Enduro bike that we are going to go through with you guys tip to tail and go through all these beautiful little details that Liam has curated on here for his ride experience. 00:00:31:02 - 00:00:51:19 Unknown So let's go tip to tail on this bad boy. Tell me what you got going on. Actually, first off, tell me a little bit about this frame and what makes it so cool and special and unique. Well, we have the Frameworks Enduro frame. So friends of the shop Neko Mulally and the Frameworks crew started off building downhill bikes and then they made an enduro bike. 00:00:51:19 - 00:01:14:00 Unknown They mostly ride enduro bikes as a daily. So this is his creation. He wanted to make a race purpose enduro bike. That is exactly that. It's just for racing and simple. Easy to work on his Geo his kinematics. So that's what this is. This is a size medium. I'm about 5â€™11â€-ish. And I went with a medium that kind of size down a little bit. 00:01:14:05 - 00:01:31:04 Unknown But based on the front and rear proportions as well as a stack, it's kind of where I wanted it to sit. It's all kind of relative. Bike sizing is funny like that. My XC bike is an XL and this is a medium, so sizing is weird. It's not like a t shirt. That puts me with a 460mm reach. 00:01:31:04 - 00:01:55:16 Unknown I believe with a 450mm chainstay so pretty long chainstays. It is a mullet only configuration on the frame. Aluminum front end welded by Frank the Welder himself. Carbon rear end and some machined parts by FiveDev and some machined other parts holding all together. So that is the frame. It has 170mm travel out back, 170mm front and, yeah. 00:01:55:20 - 00:02:16:07 Unknown Very nice. Yeah. Let's break it down. I guess you mentioned you got 170mm rear shock. RockShox VividUltimate correct. RockShox Vivid Ultimate. Nice. I tried a few shocks on it, and that's just what I found to kind of have the best feeling ramp up all that. I do have a push coil that I quite like for it, but, it doesn't have quite the ramp, so depending on terrain. 00:02:16:07 - 00:02:35:13 Unknown But this is my my daily go to up front. Got a RockShox Zeb with the charger 3.1 damper. I believe this is the most updated version. 170mm travel up front and this electric red color. Cockpit wise I have the Trail One Rockville stem in a 40mm length. That's kind of what I like to build all my bikes around is a 40 mil stem. 00:02:35:13 - 00:02:59:13 Unknown If I can. Carbon Crockett bars 20mm rise, cut to 750 mil ride. So a little bit narrower. But, I like the narrower bars. Between all my bikes and some Hells Gate grips on here. So showing all upfront with some, Maven base model brakes. Maven bases are actually new this year. They came out this year, a year after the original Maven came out, and quite a bit different. 00:02:59:13 - 00:03:24:08 Unknown I'm a full review up on the Worldwide site because they share the same Maven nomenclature, but they're quite different. They don't have swing link, they have direct link, they have smaller pistons, they have a much lighter lever feel, and they stay extremely consistent. So although they are the base model, which, you know, I don't know, this bike kind of funny like the nicest suspension with base model brakes and GX drivetrain, 00:03:24:08 - 00:03:45:04 Unknown but it's purpose selected for what I want. And these brakes have been awesome. Paired to 200mm HS2 Rotors front and rear. And this bike is post mount, 200 front and rear. So I can't go any smaller. I don't really need the 200s that often, but I guess they're there when I need them and the Maven base have like, 00:03:45:06 - 00:04:05:20 Unknown I feel like easier into the power than normal Maven. So nice. I'd have to agree. Super dialed. You got the the expensive bits in the right places, as I'd like to say. Let's work our way back. What else we got going on here? Wheelset wise. I have DT Swiss FR541 rims to DT Swiss 240 hubs. 00:04:05:20 - 00:04:23:15 Unknown I have a DEG in the back and Classic in the front. They're both J-Bend with DT Swiss competition spokes 32 hole front & rear. I could probably go 28 hole, but this is, I think, what I had at the time, or maybe what they sent these DG hubs with. Silver spokes, they make you go a little bit faster. 00:04:23:15 - 00:04:44:16 Unknown It's proven proven at least 5%, 60% of the time. It works every time. I think they look cool. And I did hear somewhere that some extra nerdy World Cup guys prefer silver. They're in their heads a lot, so it probably has nothing to do with anything about performance, but I like the way they look, so. Both currently wrapped with Maxxis tires. 00:04:44:18 - 00:05:10:12 Unknown I swap quite a bit, but the Maxxis is kind of the tried and true combo. Assegai up front. Maxxgrip, Double Down with a Maxxis Minion DHR II out back. Maxxterra compound, and Double Down as well. The Maxxterra kind of helps it just lasts a little bit longer, especially like if you're on a trip. I think this was fresh when we went to BC last couple weeks ago and it is well, it's like slab smoked, so like the centerâ€™s smoked and the side knobs are perfect. 00:05:10:12 - 00:05:32:01 Unknown So that's what riding up there will get you. Yeah. Moving back I have a King Cage water bottle cage. I always have those. Jeff absolutely hates it. He says it looks like a cheap cage, but I never drop a bottle, so they're quite easy. You squish it down, make it tighter. And holding it is my Trail One water bottle made from plants. 00:05:32:05 - 00:05:45:01 Unknown A little bit of a good story there. It's a Trail One product. That's pretty cool. And how you can make a water bottle from plants kind of blows my mind. But Liam, why don't you tell me a little bit about what's inside that water bottle? Well. 00:05:45:03 - 00:05:47:18 Unknown LMNT. 00:05:47:20 - 00:06:15:19 Unknown This isn't your average electrolyte mix. We're talking sodium, potassium, magnesium, the holy trinity of hydration. It's like a spa day for your cells. One sip and suddenly you're not just hydrated, you're electrified. We bring LMNT on our rides, our hikes, our mysterious journeys into the unknown. Because nothing says prepared adventure like a pouch of salty, citrusy goodness. Get a free eight count sample pack of LMNTâ€™S 00:06:15:19 - 00:06:37:04 Unknown most popular drink mixed flavors with any purchase at www.drinklmnt.com/worldwidecyclery. Find your favorite LMNT flavor or share with a friend and the flavors. Oh baby, they're so good they should come with a safe word. 00:06:37:06 - 00:06:41:16 Unknown You guys committed to that 00:06:41:18 - 00:07:00:02 Unknown Use the link drinklmnt.com/worldwidecyclery get yourself a free sample pack that includes all the favorite flavors, citrus salt, raspberry salt, watermelon salt, and orange salt. And so they changed that recently, and now it's awesome. It's all your favorite flavors in the sample pack. Hit the link, check it out. And yeah thanks LMNT. 00:07:00:02 - 00:07:15:11 Unknown We love you guys. And I did this for you. Liam let's check out the rest of this bad boy, it looks like you got a pretty baller dropper seat post right here. Yes, it is baller. It makes lots of baskets. 00:07:15:13 - 00:07:34:22 Unknown It is the new Reverb AXS, this the Version 2. And it is in the big dog. Not the biggest dog, but pretty big 225 mil drop. I don't really need that much drop, but I think it would look funny if I had less drop. So that's literally why I went with it. 200 is plenty for me. It does have the battery up front that is so you can get more drop. 00:07:34:22 - 00:07:51:22 Unknown And with certain setups, especially a 29 rear wheel, the battery when it was up here was touching a little bit. So it's kind of a, the looks might grow on you. I think it looks normal now, but at first it definitely was like not quite right. Function over form in this case perhaps. Yeah, I guess I mean, it's fine. 00:07:51:22 - 00:08:09:05 Unknown It sits right there and. Yeah, it could be worse. You could look down and see. That's nice. If you have a green battery, that's kind of nice. What kind of saddle you got up here? Fizik Antaras, this is a saddle I've been running for a long time. A few of my bikes have a 3D printed one, but this is like my go to. 00:08:09:05 - 00:08:27:01 Unknown I probably have like, five of them floating around the garage. Just slap on every bike. It fits me. I don't get issues. So moving down GX drivetrain. I went with GX on purpose. I think it was a long term review, it started off as. But it just gets the job done. It's nothing fancy. I don't care about weight on this bike. 00:08:27:01 - 00:08:44:13 Unknown This derailleur is likely to get hit. I have already placed one from my fault. That's why it looks so shiny compared to the rest of the bike. It gets hit on stuff. I don't want an expensive derailleur hanging off. GX works just like the other stuff. Same with the crank. It's already scratched and mangled up. Workhorse. Yeah, 165 mill cranks. 00:08:44:13 - 00:09:12:12 Unknown I run those on all my bikes. 32 tooth chainring standard. Everything else, GX. Very nice, what kind of pedals you got right here? These are Time Speciale 12 with the large platform. Nice. I made the switch to Time a handful of years ago, and I really like them. I kind of in between Crankbrothers and Shimano as far as like feeling goes. On the Speciale, you can adjust a bit of tension so you're not like zero tension, like Crankbrothers and not like Shimano where youâ€™re relying on stuff. 00:09:12:12 - 00:09:30:00 Unknown And they haven't had a single issue like zero rebuilds. I've got like multiple sets, not a single issue on the pedals. So not a lot of pedals. I can say that was kind of always rebuilding in pedals. So yeah, it's pretty rad. You don't see these every day. Trail One valve stems. Those are pretty cool. Yeah, on your DT Swiss rims. 00:09:30:00 - 00:09:51:01 Unknown It's definitely the most important part on here. Yeah, the most important part. And your Trail One top cap and spacer kit as well. Super blinged out, very cool and matchy matchy. I think that pretty much does it. Yeah, yeah, nothing. Nothing too crazy with it, but it is all the parts I choose to run. It goes in a bike bag pretty often. 00:09:51:03 - 00:10:19:01 Unknown It's already been on a handful of trips. The raw frame is amazing for that. Yeah. I could just, like, scotch-brite off all these little marks, so I don't really care when when it goes in the bike bag, Jared's goes in a bike bags and he's checking it at the airport. Let's go. He's not wrong. We did just take our bikes to Tasmania and Whistler and you know, it's kind of like a roll of the dice if you're going to get that he friendly TSA agent or bag carrier or whatever. 00:10:19:01 - 00:10:36:22 Unknown So it's pretty nice that you can kind of have something that's purpose built for that intended purpose and, kind of take a beating and, put it away wet and ride hard again. So it's pretty sweet. Liam, thank you so much for sharing your very sweet bike. And, we'll be back with more employee bike checks. Thank you all so much for watching. 00:10:36:22 - 00:10:40:13 Unknown We truly do appreciate it. See in the next one. Cheerio.