My mate’s SB160 is a phenomenal bike, if they can bring that sort of platform to a ~110mm XC bike and update the geo a bit so the bikes fit a bit longer it’d be a hell of an option.
I’m hoping they land near Transition Spur geo/Vitus Rapide/Carbonda 936 geo.
Nope, good with that and hope that is what we get.
My concern was that I don’t personally see the value prop for the Epic WC since the Evo can be almost as light with a lot more capability, hence we see the Specialized factory team racing XC on Evos most of the time.
My fear is that Specialized sees that and says “why should I make 1 bike that makes everyone happy when I can force them to buy 2 bikes”. They could keep the WC as the XC race option, eliminate the old 100m Epic, and re-shape the Evo to an Evo 130 that is heavier and more downcountry focused.
The rumor mill has also mentioned an Epic 130 a number of times, I’m really hoping that isn’t the only Evo we get.
Yeah, I get it. Every time I’ve read a comment about the Epic/Epic Evo it’s always mentioned both the 120mm Epic and the 130mm Evo.
I think it’s a safe bet that the current Evo won’t be too far from what is available. Maybe even lighter 
.
I’m far more curious about the potential for the aluminium version. It’ll be interesting to see if they could make a proper light one. I suspect it’ll just be a cheaper version though.
Manitou just announced the DH shock officially. I’m hoping that means that the new R7 and Mara will be announced soon too.
The new Rockrider isn’t coming with Manitou though, even in the team version. There was mention on MTBR that Manitou were still pretty deep in development/tuning though.
I’ve just started playing with the MTB shocks. The lightweight XC shocks are all the same hamburger, only the exact valving, damper pressure, and air chamber size are different. I wouldn’t expect anything special from a newer MARA - Fox and RS just renamed theirs. If there’s any innovation, it’d just be wireless lockouts or larger e-bike specific units.
By all accounts, it seems the new R7 is lighter. All the threads I’ve read consistently talk abou the Manitou stuff being the best of any of the brands. The downside being the weight
The Mara the same. I would have gone Manitou if I’d not already had the factory DPS on the frame I bought.
Supposedly the Manitou is hugely customisable, that seems like the kind of thing that’s hugely irrelevant to 99.9% of the MTB population though. It’s hard enough to get suspension perfect within the current adjustment options lol.
Yeti had a killer bike with the SB100, all they needed was an update to the Geo, but not much.
And tweak the carbon layup to maybe takes some weight out.
I’m curious, since I was very disappointed in the SB120 weight.
Hump
It’ll be interesting to see where they go. The 120 is squarely a trail bike, the 115 was sort of a halfway house.
120f/110r would make sense to me. Needs to jump up in reach quite a bit though. The HTA still looks relatively steep, but that’s always super hard to pick from an image. Especially at angle.
I’ve tired the Deluxe, DPS, and Mara. The RS and Fox were Spec XC tunes (light compression tunes). I mostly didn’t like the Deluxe’s tune, then the DPS ability to hold air, and then like the Mara until the rebound knob pulled out.
My impression was the following -but it’s not really going to be everyone’s experience.
The Mara (aftermarket - probably medium-ish valving) seems to have more range of the compression adjustment than the DPS (on the lever) and need the lockout less. While it has "4"modes, but the middle open mode “2” isn’t far enough different than 1 or 3, though 1 and 3 are different enough. The Mara use a lot lower pressure and doesn’t need as much attention. It seems to use the travel better than the Deluxe. It doesn’t seem like there’s a way to keep the rebound knob in the unit, as you can unscrew it all the way out. You then need to take it apart to get it reset.
The Deluxe/Monarch (OEM light valving) 2-mode was open or closed, but you don’t need lockout as much. The Deluxe (came with the bike) doesn’t seem to have as much damper control - relying on the air spring to do most of the work- but once you get it setup it basically works. It seemed to use a lot of the initial travel and then never use the remaining travel. I used the most sag on this.
The DPS / Float (OEM light valving) seems like you either need to set it up to pedal well or be more active in the open modes. If you can pedal, you’re not using more than 50% of the travel. It didn’t have the compression adjustment of the Mara or rebound adjustment of the Mara / Deluxe. You focus on how it either works when you’re pedaling or ride quality. It also needed to be locked out the most. The DPS also seems to lose can pressure a lot quicker than the other two - probably because it used the most pressure by 50psi. The new ones, as far as I can tell, are just the DPS Large Volume(LV) and Std Volume(SV) with the names changed.
All three basically do the same thing, so there’s no reason to change if you are more or less happy with what you got - a fork is a much bigger change.
Parts support on the RS is way better than the Fox which is way better than the Manitou. I’ve taken apart the air can of the Manitou and Fox trying to adjust the travel. They look basically the same inside and the parts diagrams agree.
That’s fantastic information/experience.
It kind of aligns with what I’d suspected, but don’t have experience of. With my bike, I’m trying to set up a bike to pedal and descend well, without ever using a lockout. It honestly seems like I’d have better luck with Manitou, but I’m getting pretty close with the DPS/SC34 combo.
One frustrating thing I’m finding is I can’t just leave my compression in the middle “trail” mode, as when I am descending the rough stuff at full chat it keeps trying to move to the fully locked position. Highly unideal.
Wouldn’t that be the stumpy?
Epic Evo Evo
“Specialized Epic Evo-squared: the perfect double-down country bike”
Gotta be Epic EVO+ or Epic EVOplus or Epic EVOPLUS
…since that seems the global method in use these days 
I have a friend that is a yeti dealer and he said “yeti may or may not have an XC machine in the works too… should see it in a few months.” 1/8/24
Sort of. Travel of everything has gone up. Trail bikes have become the enduro bikes of 5 years ago, e.g. the stumpy is 130 rear 140 front while enduro bikes have gotten even bigger. XC bikes have added travel to fill the niche that used to just be ‘trail bike’ 5 years ago, only we call it downcountry now for marketing buzz.
Basically what the Epic 130 sounds like.
I just looked up the pinkbike articles for the WC and the Evo, and they are within 50g of each other.
And that includes an AXS dropper on the Evo and a rigid post on the WC. Literally any other dropper on the Evo and it would be lighter.
I’d like to tweak my 2022 Scalpel 2 with a 120mm shock which would put me at 120f/120r.
I know the model and PN from Fox, but the head scratcher is if there was a linkage tweak (120 is now standard on Lab21 and HiMod) and how do I get that shock with Cannondale tuning?
I assume (and hope) they bin the Brainon the Epic and add Flight Attendant to the top tier models and maybe a burlier fork for the „Evo Evo“ and leave it at that. What’s more realistic. Specialized stop making an Epic Evo or stop making the Stumpy? If the supposed Epic Evo 130 would be real who‘s gonna buy a stumpy?