We know for certain that it’s absolutely nothing new… It’s a wannabe Instagram influencer with zero affiliation with Specialized who put together a bike. To my eye it looks like the 430mm Curve rigid fork(too short imho), in his attempt to get a shorter axle to crown, similar to what I did.
Specialized has a new gravel bike coming, an update to the Diverge… This ain’t it.
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A little off topic for this thread, but how much faster is a drop bar on a hardtail anyways? When I ride mine on gravel, I just hold my bars a bit narrower than I would on singletrack and it already feels very fast. I’ve always kind of liked the idea of putting dropbars on my hardtail as I usually ride it to the trails, but I always then tell myself it would be silly to gain just a little bit more speed on the road at the expense of fun on the trail.
My riding position is not just more narrow but also lower in the front and I have my saddle all the way forward. That changes the bikes characteristics quite a bit. I will probably reduce the travel of my fork to 80mm to have less trail, steeper head and seat angle and lower bb and an even higher bardrop. Will that make the bike faster? Depends on what you plan to ride.
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Interesting… I personally try to have my saddle exactly the same between my cyclocross bike and hardtail so that would be a non-factor. The front end height is an interesting point though. With the hardtail, the front of the bike is significantly higher than the cyclocross bike which is certainly doing something negative in the aero department I would think. I guess, this is where these new breed of gravel bikes with big tire clearance comes in. I feel like reducing the travel on my mtb would just totally wreck the geometry, it’s already so twitchy, it would be borderline uncontrollable with steeper angles.
I think the one thing that really bothers me when it comes to riding the mountain bike on gravel is really just when I’m in a group of other riders. I have how with my flat bars I feel like I’m going to end up underneath or tangled up with the guy who I’m riding next too. When I’m on my cyclocross bike, I feel like I can kind of bump shoulders with folks without risk of our bars becoming tangled up.
Did you mount just the front or front and rear?
Both…it is really tight in the rear. If I get out of the saddle and accelerate hard and really work the bike, I can get some frame run on the non-drive side. But since I never actually ride like that, I’m running them for now.
Have a race this weekend and I’m waiting to see what conditions will be like before making the final decision….it may be a little wet.
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While we’re totally off-topic with geo here (should really be in the Dropbar MTB thread) Josh kindly answered me in respect to my musings why no suspension fork. Turns out, he wanted a lower front end and a steeper head tube angle.
And I totally see that! Because… well - that’s what I answered in his post:
“@joshcycling Ohh, front down and steeper head angle! Of course. I’m totally with you there. My main gripe with all recent XC mtb’s is that they are dead set on wanting to overtake trail and enduro bikes with their geometry. The Epic has a HT angle of 65.5° and would be waaaay to slack for me, too. That’s why I always recommend and personally look for appropriate frames for conversion. Case in point: my Exceed has a HT angle of 69° static so with 100 mm suspension fork andn 25 % sag it’s a beauty to ride on every terrain. From smooth and plain tarmac to tight and steep switchbacks. Always cultivated, always precise steering, no wheelflop whatsoever.”
I agree with the desire for a bit steeper head tube angle and lower front end, which was why I went with a 455mm a-c fork on my drop bar Epic build. You are incorrect in your spec though, the Epic HT has a head tube angle of 68.5d with 100mm fork(~500mm a-c). The fork I spec’d resulted in a 70.9 degree head tube angle, which some would argue was already a bit too steep, but I found totally fine. A 430mm fork would put it around 72d, which is as steep as many road bikes on the market.
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Oh, right - I mixed it up or didn’t pay enough attention while briefly looking it up in some bike geo database. The Epic Hardtail indeed is 68.5 ° HT angle in it’s current guise and that I would deem totally cool. I stand corrected then. No need for this one to artificially make even steeper. But - different folks have different preferences. 
Gosh, Specialized… why do you name everything epic? 
Epic Hardtail, Epic, Epic WC… 3 totally different bikes…
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Kinda interesting (and quite fast) addition to the Cat1/easy gravel results:
for a quick summary, this is the fastest tire so far on the easy gravel above 18 mph… below that speed It is the good old Thunder Burt 2.1.
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panics and doubts tire choice before race this weekend
While interesting, I don’t think it’s that surprising. These road race tires are much faster than everything else. I’d be leery of using such a tire on more than a short section of class 2 though.
Now continental, make me a 35-40 gp5000!
Edited for plea
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It’s time for me to just buy some thunderburt 2.1 super grounds, slap them on my 29mm internal width rims, and hope front and rear fits my crux!
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Hmmmm…don’t think that combo will work in the rear. Should be fine up front, though.
Report back and let us know!
I’m pretty sure it won’t fit in the rear because of my 29mm rims making the 2.1" tires run a bit wider. I’m more crossing my finger and hoping the tires don’t stretch.
If they don’t fit in the rear, I’m going to run my current s-works pathfinder 42mm that runs at 47mm actual width.
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I tried this way, and posted photos of this on a thread here, way back in late 2023… Nextie 29mm internal rims, with 2.1" TB’s left about 3mm all around in front, and less than 2mm in the rear… So no, they don’t fit in the usable sense of the word.
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Darn. <2mm, even in the dry, sounds like a potential frame disaster that I shouldn’t risk.
I found the TB’s to stretch 2+mm in the week or so after install on 27mm wheels.
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Or maybe this is an excuse to buy some 23mm internal width Enve G23s
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Solid logic…can’t really refute it.