Not a great look when one of the first reviewers snapped the down tubeā¦
wow. yeah thatās not exactly ideal.
The bike on paper looks fine, checks all the boxes of what youād expect for a 2024 bike but Iād really hard pressed to choose any of these over an Epic 8. Each model is $500 less than its Epic 8 counterpoint. On the high end the Lab 71 vs S-Works Epic especially doesnāt make sense - you get a power meter flight attendant for that same price. The Lab 71 IMO needs to be no more than 12.5K for what youāre giving up.
For the other models, Iād always pay the extra $500 for the Epic 8 equivalent to gain the more progressive geometry (including flip chip option), twist lock on the suspension, and frame storage.
Not to be overly critical of the geo as itās extremely close to the ZFS-5 Iām building, but Iām confident that the Epic 8 is ultimately an objectively better bike than what Iām building up. My gambit is just that the marginal gains Iām losing out on are not worth the 5 grand Iām saving. Not saving much in the case of this Scalpel.
I found this bit interesting in the BikeRadar review:
ā¦to make it as simple as possible, Cannondale has enlarged the top headset bearing to 1.5in in diameter. This, it says, means most XC brake levers can be fitted through the bearing, making bearing swaps that little bit easier.
Is this the only headset routed bike with this feature?
Threaded bottom bracket 
Internal routing bar 
(Too bad for folks that want a longer reach)
No Leftys in the US except on Lab 71
Slacker/Longer 
No mention of AI offset? So is it gone as many expected?
Itās mentioned in the PB review. It is gone!
Missed that, but to the writerās point kind of dropping features that made it unique. DUB isnāt a huge step down from 30mm, but threaded 30mm do exist.
Yeah made it unique. But in a good way? Iāve read their marketing about how it makes the wheel stiffer and so on. Is it really true? Is stiffness something that a quality wheel of a regular 148mm boost is lacking?
I would take the ability to run any normal wheel set without having to re-dish it over the āAIā any day.
Pressfit bottom brackets have not been a problem on any of my bikes who have had it. Remember a podcast where the technical manager at Pivot was greiping about the medias obsession with threaded bottom bracket. How introducing a metal to carbon bond at the bottom bracket area was worse etc.
Biggest issue with this bike, except the fact that it failed after a 5-ft drop is the cable routing though.
Are there still places that have the old Epic Evo in stock at decent prices? Or have they all been pretty much sold with the sales over the past few months?
All gone in my size (L) when I looked a few weeks ago.
If you search you will find some listings but theyāre all from scam websites.
I can confirm that no online vendor had Mediums when I was looking about a month ago but I found one at a LBS.
I found a S-Works Epic Evo 2023 in California in my size (large) at the listed sales price. I called the shop and they were able to ship it to a specialized dealer in Colorado and paid to have it reassembled.
To find it I searched for it on Specialized website by putting in various zip codes across the country. I am swapping the fork on shock with RockShox Ultimate 3P) to have remote lockout so will be similar to new Epic 8 but lighter frame.
The more these new bikes come out, the more it seems the Specialized and Yeti are pulling ahead.
The Yeti, just because of it not having internal headset routing and the fact it can be built very light.
Specialized because of all that you get with the Sworks model.
Just a bummer that Yeti isnāt offering the highest end frame as a frame only! As a Day 1 axs user Iād like that without having to buy a full bike build
I bought the old version epic evo frame a couple weeks ago but it was the only size medium I could find anywhere. There might be a few somewhere but going to be really hard to find. Watch out for the scam sites.
Are you speaking of the ultimate frame or Turq?
the ultimate wireless one, also to me the best yeti color the black raw carbon. Itās been a long time since my last Yeti bike which was a SB66 in raw carbon, awesome color!
Dang, I didnāt realize there were any left out there. None online or anywhere near me and I didnāt think to try a scouring LBSā across the country.
I think the bike Iām building up is going to turn out good but just buying last yearās S-Works Epic Evo would have saved me a lot of time.
you can search the entire us if you do a find in store and put usa as address. there is a M sworks in texas but no larg anywhere according to Specialized āFind in Storeā