£12,000 • 29in • specialized.com
This bike is designed to replace Specialized’s Epic XC hardtail
With XC courses becoming increasingly hardcore and bikes growing in travel and tyre width to cope with the additional demands, the first leaked shots of Specialized’s new Epic World Cup race weapon were a surprise. And the final reveal only reinforced our shock: 75mmtravel, 1,765g frame weight, rigid seat post and a double-diamond shape. But everything makes more sense when you learn this bike is designed to replace Specialized’s Epic XC hardtail, not either of its existing XC suspension bikes. So how does it actually ride?
With its unique RockShox SIDLuxeWCID shock half hidden in the underside of the top tube, it certainly appeals visually to the hardtail crowd. Specialized also claims the frame sets “new standards in torsional rigidity, for steering precision and upper body power transfer, and BB stiffness, for pedal response and efficiency”. Where a
