I have Reynolds wheels on my Lux. I rode the Lux on some very enduroish trails and took a monster rock strike to the side of the wheel. I ended up with a big ding in the wheel that was all the way through the carbon. To my surprise, Reynolds was really easy to deal with and they fix the wheel for free. I just have to get it out to them at my cost and then rebuild it and send it back on their dime. Couldn’t be happier with the result.
The forks are some Manitou Machete’s, a fork that came OEM on a bike specced with X5 level components about 4 years ago. Pretty cheap and not great damping but it gets me riding until the good stuff arrives.
It’s exceeded my expectations I had when I bought it, very trail capable but no slower than my hardtail in any conditions I’ve ridden in so far (except for a particularly wet ride, but I’m putting that down to the wider tyres sticking to the mud rather than the bike)
Nice. I like the look of it. Are the Manitou’s longer than the SID’s? It looks slightly slacker or something?
What colour SID did you order? I’m picking the bike is a P1?
The 9.8 (red/smoke) has just come back in stock in NZ, it’s quite pricey though for the spec level, but I like the Top Fuel design!
Blue SID of course! I started MTBing in the 90s so it feels right to me. It’s not P1, I built it up from a stock frameset
I don’t know if it’s longer than the SIDs but I suspect it’s the angle of the photo playing tricks rather than the angle of the fork.
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Hi, can you write me an email about your OIZ? I’m looking for directly to buy 
Thanks
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Went for a short hour long ride on a technical trail today. It’s my first full suspension mtn bike so I don’t have a comparison to others, but it felt like my hardtail on the faster stuff and climbing. In addition I was able to take some more rougher lines without getting the bike out of sorts. I am hooked. I ended up converting to tubeless this morning, saved 350 grams in the process and took nothing more than removing the tubes, screwing in some valves, putting 75ml of stans per tire and pumping them back up.
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I really like that grey. Leaning toward the white EVO Comp myself but I’d be happy with yours for sure. Congrats!
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~200 made in this color according to a spec employee. SUPER ugly in person… Ask me how I know 
Got mine down to sub 10 with heavy tires, dropper, and pm. Might get it to sub 20lbs at some point with race tires, gemini bar-stem and a garbaruk cassette. Sid Ultimate coming soon which should drop another 100g
Here’s a dated photo before I got my control SLs and power meter. Ignore my b-tension LOL.
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Anyone with a 18-20 epic know how servicing the rear shock works?
Take it to a dealer and have them send it in to Specialized.
I think it looks great, congrats on the build. 
This is super impressive. It has me wondering where the weight difference is between my Epic EVO and your amazing build, and if there are a few key areas or if its “100 grams here and 100 grams there”. Ill have to start weighing all the stock stuff on the base bike as I work on it to get some ideas. Also, maybe I am in the minority here, but I like the color scheme (at least in the pics).
Curious, does anyone have any experience with NS bikes? They seem like a more trail / enduro / DH company but they have a pretty shreddy XC rig too: Review: NS Bikes Synonym TR1 - Not Your Typical XC Bike - Pinkbike
As i have been spending more and more time learning to handle and rail, this kinda thing gets more and mroe attractive to me
Well, your post cost me a lot of money and a little pride 
. I have owned an Epic and I didn’t like the brain. I’m pretty sure I made that point in this thread (I know I did actually hehe) so now I have to eat a little crow 
I raced my Lux for the Leadville qualifier last weekend in Austin and I had raced the Rattler in 2019 on the Epic (I’ve also raced it on a Scalpel but prior to the change of venue). The Lux in my mind was a better bike for that course which had some rough sections but was also a combination of double track and fire road for significant portions of the race. The Lux per popular opinion and the PinkBike XC bike shootout is an efficient bike for that type of course. But, my lap times were faster on the Epic and not by a little. The course did have year over year changes so for apples to apples comparisons I looked at section times for parts that did not change which were plentiful. For a punchy XCO course where efficiency matters (and climbing wattages are very high) I still feel like the Lux would be faster but at this point, but my confidence in that prediction is low.
I had an issue with my Lux that Canyon was insanely unhelpful with. When I found a way to get my issue fixed (should have been warrantied) through channels outside of Canyon where I had to pay for the repair, wait for months and spend a bunch of time chasing solutions, I determined that I was going to build a new ride for 2021 anyway and it was not going to be another Canyon.
So, my Epic S-Works frame will be here on Friday 
. I am fairly certain I have everything I need to build it up other than grips and I am going to try it with the factory brain fork and give that a shot. If the race situation dictates me wanting something with a hard locked out fork, I have an RS SID World Cup with the Charger 2 damper that I can swap out easily. Best of both worlds.
Thank you for the inspiration, I’m looking forward to this build.
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If you don’t mind expanding on the lap times or sharing a few public links, I think many of us would be interested, assuming you have reasonable power data and roughly similar tire compounds.
It is also surprising to me that the previous Epic would be faster on that course 
I don’t mind at all, let me think about the best way to make that happen.
I’ve never met you irl but it was funny when a few days after some of the guys I raced with and I were discussing the event and I started analyzing the realities of the results, I had a few flashes of conversations run through my mind and I thought I might have some 'splaining to do haha 
But, I am never too old to learn from my experiences and if sharing them helps others then I’m happy to share.
One thing that did dawn on me (but truthfully I don’t know if it mattered) is the Epic with the brain was probably rigid (ish) for sections of the race and I never touched the lockout on the Lux (blasphemy, I know, I confess). Not trying to start that back up but it was one element that I did at least have a passing thought along the lines of, “Would that have made THAT big of a difference?” I would put that in the I can’t imagine so column but it was one of the elements I considered when trying to get my head around things. There just seems to be an efficiency component that appears to be real between the two bikes over a 5+ hour race.
I know Nate has mentioned he’s faster even without feeling faster on the Epic. Looks like there is something to that for me as well even though I think I would have argued with myself on that
I will see what I can put together and it will be good to hear your thoughts.
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This doesn’t surprise me at all, actually. I havent raced on it but at this point, all of my fastest segment times and KOMs are on my 35 lb trail bike, despite the fact that it feels so slow and ponderous and heavy and so much slower than my racy xc hardtail. It took a loooooong time to work through that cognitive dissonance, but it’s made me really, really excited to finally get my hands on a light, fast full susser.
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On the note or customised builds, and having just gone down the rabbit hole that is “Dangerholm” on Instagram with his super light bikes. What are some parts people would choose to make performance/weight improvements that won’t turn it into a €14000 bike?
I’m thinking what’s the sweet spot for lightweight bars, components, wheels?
Some of the bikes I’m looking at that are in the affordable range are a bit on the podgy side.
You know the saying, “Strong, light, cheap. Pick two.”
Basic cranks are many times hundreds of grams heavier than their carbon siblings.
NX Eagle Cranks 700g
XX1 Eagle 425g
Cassettes are usually also significantly different.
NX Eagle 629g
XX1 Eagle 371g
Seatposts and saddles are generally big potential savings.
Specialized Phenom Comp - 254g
S-Works Phenom - 149g
RXL SL Carbon (Amazon) - 100g
One of the cheapest options, tires:
Maxxis
S-Works Renegade 2.1 - 510g
Schwalbe Rocket Ron - 520g
Schwalbe Nobby Nic - 720g
A friend of mine loves these wheels:
If you don’t need brandname wheels, hard to beat the weight/specs for the price.
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I have full weights for everything in my post above for reference, it’s nowhere close to dangerholm’s spark but it’s also a lot more capable and half the price. As already mentioned, a lot of the weight is going to be in the tires and wheels, but don’t miss out on the small stuff.
Your best bang for buck on a lot of items is going to be items that are 10% heavier than the lightest out their for a fraction of the cost.
- LB wheelset to bitex hubs as mentioned above.
- Kalloy uno stem with ti bolts ~20$ and ridiculously light
- Mt. Zoom carbon bars, lighter than MCFK for 1/3 of the price
- Chinese carbon saddles
- race tires
- 15$ lizard skins 22g dsp
- ashima ai2 rotors, stupid light for 15$/ea
- lightweight axles from j&l or equivalent
- garbaruk makes a cassette lighter than x01/xx1 for 2/3rds the price.
Weighing everything and then comparing $/g saved is a good place to start.
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