I finally bought a Stooge MK4

Back in November 2020 I was scrolling around Pinkbike in bed, probably nursing bruised ribs from repeatedly washing out the front end of my recently stolen Rocky Mountain Growler hardtail, and I came across this bike check:

I was immediately taken by its clown car vibes thanks to the 80mm fork offset, giant tires, and double top tube. Thus began my love for Stooge.

My tastes for mountain bikes continued to evolve, culminating in selling off my single speed Canfield Nimble 9 (which replaced the stolen Rocky Mountain Growler) and getting a Starling Murmur. I also got my hands on a Surly Pugsley, which I eventually sold and replaced with a REEB Donkadonk which switched between 26 fat, 27.5+, and 29+ wheels, all trying to get that rigid Stooge MTB feeling.

I finally got my hands on my beloved Stooge Rambler, which is remarkably capable and fast. I think it’s the quintessential all arounder, be it paved roads to bumpy singletrack.

After spending more and more time on the Donkadonk and reading more and more about rigid bike design thanks to Jeff Jones and Andy at Stooge I realized that the suspension corrected Donkadonk with a stiff carbon fork was leaving a little bit to be desired on the shreddy MTB front.

part of my problem was that I accidentally overforked the poor thing by 25mm

Then to my joy and surprise I saw a MK4 come up state side for a very good price, complete with Junker bars, a gold Chris King headset, matching gold Box BMX stem, Saint brakes, and a custom frame bag. So I bought it and threw the parts bin at it to get it riding as fast possible.

here’s how the seller had it setup

I went for the classic Stooge MK# 29er build with a Duro Crux 3.25” up front and 2.6” rear tire. I laced up an Alexrims MD50 for the front and a Sunringle Duroc 35 for the rear. I had some 155mm Goldix cranks in my parts bin and put those on. I chucked on the surviving 7 hardest gears from a bent Advent X cassette + a random 8 speed 34t steel cog I had laying around for a weird 8 speed 11-34 cassette that is indexed as if it’s 8 speed. Not that the indexing matters because I put on a left side Microshift thumbie on a Paul pod flipped over on the right, actuating a SRAM GX 2x10 clutched derailer. I think I have a knack for putting a bunch of seemingly bodgy parts together to create a bike that rides really well, and that was definitely this build!

I immediately took it to our big bad trail— Potawatomi in Pinckney, MI. It’s the platonic ideal of a trail ride IMO— about 18 miles and 1800’ of climbing, natural flow with some new school flagstone armoring. There’s some super punchy climbs and it’s pretty rough, so I figured I’d be walking up some stuff and taking the descents fairly slow.

That ride was one of the most fun rides of my life. The Saint brakes were in horrible condition so pulling the brakes was more of a suggestion than actually stopping. I had one of those office chair style droppers, and coupled with the friction shifter I was reaching all over the bike delicately to ride the way I wanted. The bike felt long but cornered like a dream, especially on the smooth long sweepers. It definitely held its own on the chunk though.

I was completely smitten by this “proof of concept” ride, and decided to really dial it in. I sprang for some Doom titanium bars in 800mm to be basically a shrunk down version of the Stooge Tracker bars. I put on the shortest BMX stem possible, which ended up being a 26mm S&M Redneck stem. I put in Cushcore 29+ up front and Cushcore pro in the rear. I also put on Paul 2.5” Love Levers + Avid BB7 brakes with nice compressionless Jagwire housing.

I recently built it up with carbon hoops (45mm Light Bicycle front, Nextie 31mm all mountain rear) with DT Swiss Competition Race spokes, gold alloy nipples, and Tairin Shogun silent hubs. The rear XR2 died so I put a 2.8” light casing Terrene McFly on there. And with the upcoming imminent freeze-thaw in the forecast I decided to try single speeding it finally. Now this is simple fun mountain biking. The supple casing tires + Cushcore eat up chatter remarkably well. My poor Starling Murmur hasn’t seen much ride time since getting this built up, although I’m sure now that it’s setup single speed I’ll ride the fussie more often.

32×19 is good for my local trails

In a future blog post I’ll ramble on about my feelings about the geometry, but it’s remarkable how much you can get away with when you have giant tires, a slack head tube angle, and a huge fork offset to keep the steering light. Whether I’m trail riding, ATB’ing, or gravel mile munching, it’s such an incredible bike. And I hear next year’s MK7 is going to be more similar to the MK4 than the MK5 or MK6 were… you’ve been warned.