Specialized boosts travel on new Epic EVO - longer forks, wider bars and a dropper post

The XC racer with trail flavour

Rachael Wight

Jul 10 2018

News

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The Specialized Epic in its cross-country from impressed us when we reviewed it last year, now it's back with longer travel and a few more trail bike specific parts including wider bars and a dropper post. Specialized are calling this the Epic EVO and if you are an XC'er by nature and want to dabble in some trail riding or marathon racing, it looks like it might be just the thing.

What's new on the EVO version?

The Epic EVO uses the same frame as the regular Epic, meaning it still has 100mm of travel at the rear and comes complete with the Brain shock. The Epic EVO will sport a 120mm fork up front, boosting travel by 20mm. It also gets wider bars and wider tyres, the former is upped by 30mm to 750mm and the latter uses more voluminous rubber in the form of 2.3" tyres. The EVO models also get a dropper post, 100mm or 125mm of travel depending on the size of frame.

What difference does that make to the geometry?

The longer fork and the slacker head angle that produces decreases the reach by 10mm across the whole size range with the head angle now sitting a degree slacker at 68.5 rather than 69.5. The wheelbase is also affected, for example increasing by 9mm on a size medium. The increase in fork length also increases the bottom bracket height by 8mm. The slacker head angle and longer wheelbase should add some confidence when descending but it will be interesting to see if the shortened reach and the higher bottom bracket has a detrimental effect on the ride.

How much is it?

There will be two Epic EVO models available, the Comp and the Expert. The Comp will be the only alloy model in the lineup, whilst the Expert is carbon.

For full spec detail head over to www.specialized.com

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Previously Editor here at off-road.cc, Rachael is happiest on two wheels. Partial to a race or two Rachael also likes getting out into the hills with a big bunch of mates. In the past Rachael has written for publications such as, Enduro Mountain Bike Magazine, Mountain Biking UK, Bike Radar, New Zealand Mountain Biker and was also the online editor for Spoke magazine in New Zealand too. For as long as she's been riding, she has been equally happy getting stuck into a kit review as she is creating stories or doing the site admin. When she's not busy with all the above she's roasting coffee or coaching mountain biking in the Forest of Dean.