Choosing the second bike for Team Mule Bar/Bikemagic.com’s Ben Spurrier for our assault on the Absa Cape Epic starting this weekend was a fairly easy choice. One of the popular bikes of choice for many entrants of this 8-day stage race is the Specialized Epic. It’s also the choice of Christoph Sauser, so there are certainly no qualms about its suitability for our more modest ambitions.
So delivered last week was a Specialized Epic Marathon Carbon, a race-proven bike that has been around since the early 2000s but has changed significantly over the years. Despite the changes, its still pitched as a race-ready bike with 100mm of travel front and rear, a carbon frame and race sharp geometry. Perfect for Cape Epic then.
The Epic has changed all that much for 2010, aside from a Fox rear shock in place of the previous Specialized own-brand unit with a reworked Mini-Brain that is more sensitive to smaller bumps a with improved damping.
Pricing for the Epic range starts at £1999.99 and stretches right up to the S-Works £5,499 version. The second peg Expert here uses the same FACT IS-constructed 9m carbon frame with M5 alloy rear triangle as the top model but with a Shimano XT and SRAM XO groupset mix keeping the price more realistic.
The fork is Specialized’s own E100 FutureShock fork with the Brain technology keeping the 100mm of available travel in check, and there’s Specialized’s own Roval Control AL XC wheelset fitted with S-Works The Captain and Fast Trak LK tubeless ready tyres. Bringing the bike to a halt are Avid’s Elixir R CR magnesium brakes.
A first ride report and full review after the Cape Epic…
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