2023 Focus

JAM² SL 9.0

“What sort of an all-round package and ride performance will a budget of around $5000 get you in 2022? Let’s find out!”  Reviewer // Blake Neilsen  Photos // Matt Staggs For whatever reason it seems that the majority of the bike’s that we get sent in for review here at [R]evolution have price tags upwards of ten grand, or even more. So when Focus reached out to us and asked if we’d be interested in testing one of their bikes […]

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Focus' all-new full carbon JAM² SL takes natural riding to the next level with much lighter frame, Fazua powertrain & adjustable geometry...

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We put the brand new 2023 FOCUS JAM² SL to the test, providing 160/150 mm travel and featuring the 60 Nm FAZUA Ride 60 motor.

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Focus has found an excellent balance that translates to on-trail enjoyment, so long as you aren’t in a rush up the hills

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Focus launched its redesigned trail bike last year with an alloy frame and an impressive price tag for a brand sold through a dealer network. Now the Jam gets a tasty new carbon frame option with internal storage and buttery suspension. Can it toast the best full-suspension bikes on the market? Focus Jam is a 29er trail bike with 150mm travel front and rear New carbon front triangle gets I.C.S integrated down tube storage Flip-chip geometry adjustment on the shock mount gives high and low settings Entry-level model shares the same frame and costs £3,699 What is it about mountain biking that makes us obsess over numbers? If we’re not discussing travel, it’s geometry, sizing, reach, tyre pressures or some other metric to compare and contrast. Maybe it’s that some of us get as much of a kick out of geeking out over bikes as riding them. And while the business trope, “what gets measured, gets managed” helped drag us cave dwellers into the light, do we as riders really need to obsess over every single detail? Well, as the bike test editor at mbr it’s my job to sweat the details, and one recurring theme with the Focus Jam is that it’s a heavy bike. The brand new carbon Jam 8.9 is no exception. Tipping the scales at 15.64kg in stock trim, the latest 150mm travel 29er trail bike from Focus is still over 1kg heavier than the entry-level Specialized Stumpy Evo Comp that won our 2022 Trail Bike of the Year test. And while it would be easy to state that the Focus Jam is heavy and swiftly skip to the ride quality, curiosity got the better of me so I asked Focus why it’s heavier than most of its competitors. The response was both surprising and interesting, and it comes down to safety. All bikes have to pass a certain safety test and Focus merely ups the standard to have a higher system weight (bike and rider) than its competitors. So the latest Jam 2 e-bikes have a generous 150kg limit while the regular Jam is more conservative at 110kg. And with the trend for waistlines on a distinct upward trajectory, that’s probably a good idea. You don’t need to be a math wiz to figure out that if the bike weighs 15.64kg, then riders that weigh up to 94.36kg are in safe hands. But what if you weigh 70kg or less? Does that mean you’re riding a bike that’s overbuilt? Quite possibly, but the same is true of any bike that meets the same standard. Also we love to moan about the weight of bikes but we also hate stuff breaking and the painful truth is, you simply can’t have your cake and eat it. So while the carbon front end on the Jam 8.9 does save some weight over the alloy Jam 6.9, it’s only 250g as the down tube also needs reinforcing to support the cutaway for the internal down tube storage, aptly named …Continue reading »

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