The sport of cross-country mountain bike racing has gone through some significant changes in recent years. A push to make professional racing more exciting for those at home has made races shorter and courses more technical with high-risk features. In turn, we often see races being won on trail-like bikes with 120 mm of travel front and rear, while hardtails are so rarely picked they kickstart conversations about boring course design when dusted off.
Further playing a role in bike design is a UCI rule that requires pro athletes to use the same bike between the Short Track (XCC) and Cross Country Olympic (XCO) races over a single World Cup weekend. The hardtail may be best for some short track races, but it’s rarely the fastest choice on modern XCO tracks. Instead, most riders pick the bike for the main event and make do in the short track by locking out the rear suspension, or in rare cases, swapping out the rear shock for a rigid strut.
And that gets us to the Specialized Epic WC (World Cup). It’s intended to be a full-suspension bike that pedals like it isn’t one. With the American company believing full suspension is always the faster choice for the discipline, the Epic WC boldly supersedes the top-tier Epic hardtail, and so, like how Trek did with its latest Supercaliber, Specialized is now done with premium hardtails.
Both James Huang and I have tested this intriguing new model for a number of months, and my procrastination in writing this review is telling of the uncertainty that ensued. This detailed review questions what a modern cross-country bike should and shouldn’t do, and raises doubt about whether more efficient-feeling suspension truly is more efficient.
- The short of it: In believing that full suspension is always the faster choice in mountain biking, the Epic WC is Specialized’s replacement for its top-tier cross-country race hardtails.
- Good stuff: Can be set to pedal like a hardtail, is incredibly efficient on smooth surfaces, dialled geometry, lovely frame build quality, good frame rigidity with no creaks or groans, no fiddly remote lockouts means an ultra-clean cockpit, solid component spec choices with nice wheels and a powermeter.
- Bad stuff: Suspension can either feel choppy or have you wishing for a lockout, poor headset sealing, minimal weight advantage over a longer-travel full suspension, Brain-equipped fork still has a thunk, no dropper provided, SRAM Level brake lever feel and power.
An Epic intro
Since its release in 2003, the Specialized Epic has remained one of the most competitive and best-selling full-suspension cross-country bikes globally. For two decades, the full suspension Epic was based around the use of Specialized’s “Brain” damper technology, which automatically (and hands-free) kept the rear suspension locked out like a hardtail until a large enough force from the rear wheel would open the shock’s damper to absorb impacts.
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