Turner 5 Spot - DW All Mountain Fun

Posted: Aug 18, 2009

Dave Weagle’s DW Link made a big splash on the suspension industry in Sam Hill’s beauty days. Now, even though he is still winning races, the DW Link has moved on to a new owner, Turner Bikes. Turner has adapted the DW link to there complete line of bikes, however we selected the 5 spot out of the fleet to test.

Click here for a Turner 5 Spot preview...

Turner Bikes has adapted their entire line up of bikes to the DW Link, and with a bit of help from the designing department created a line up of extremely high end frames, and build kits. Recently I picked up Turner’s contribution to the 140mm riding group, the Turner 5 Spot.


Weighing in at 6.8 pounds for the medium sized frame, the Turner 5 Spot has been designed around an all mountain pinning rig. Turner categorizes the 5 Spot in the Enduro Trail and Adventure XC class, meaning its light enough to be a trail bike, but responsive and stiff enough to be an XC bike. Dampened by a Fox RP23 HV, the 5 Spot features 5.5 inches of responsive, and efficient travel. Fox has pre tuned this shock with a minimum setting for compression, and rebound.


Clearly Turner’s 5 Spot is designed to be light, and fast. The minimalist tube set visually expresses a limited material list for the 5 spot. The Top tube is very low slung for stand over height, while the seat post mast is large for proper seat height, and visual appearance. The 5 Spot does have an interrupted seat tube, but still has substantial space for your seat post. The 5 Spot is also compatible with a front derailleur. Turner has put a different lower link in on the drive side to accommodate the front mech during suspension motion.




Turner has cleaned up the bottom bracket mounting area to allow for the most weight savings, while still offering a structurally safe place to mount your cranks. The rear triangle features very clean lines, and is straight chrome. Turner’s machined dropouts have been connected with the chain, and seat stays, to construct the rear end. They were also kind enough to make it a replaceable derailleur hanger.



Turner has clearly invested some time into the overall design of the 5 Spot. All the welds are clean, and well thought out. Turner prides themselves in their well thought out Journal Bearing Pivot System. Essentially it consists of Hex Lock’ing pivot links, quad wall o-ring seals to keep the dirt out, Kevlar Composite bushings, and spiral grooved pivot shafts. This spiral groove allows the grease to be applied to the complete pivot system. All this is accessible via Zerk fittings added directly into the frame for easy grease application.


And last but not least the most notable technology on the 5 Spot, the DW Link. DW Link was fathered by Dave Weagle to be the most efficient suspension system on the circuit. Efficiency means speed, and to be efficient is to be faster, and more productive. DW Link controls suspension rate, and wheel path, to ensure traction, power, and stability under any forces.


Turner took it back to the roots, and looked at what some bikes were really missing. Nice touches like a standard 1 1/8 headtube, water bottle cage mounts, and normal standard 135mm drop outs were added to the 5 Spot to keep things original, and simple. Our Turner 5 Spot came in Granny Apple Green.



I am stoked to see what the 5 Spot can do on the ups and downs that I am going to provide it with over these next couple of weeks. The DW Link is a sought after suspension design that did not take long to be scooped up and put back into production by high end frame constructors Turner Bikes, so im interested to see what they have done to the 5 Spot. With a US MSRP of $2495 I am excited to see how the 5 Spot rides, and holds up.

Jordan