The guy who made the fake pic must be laughing. This is certainly doing the rounds 
There was rumor they will introduct a āSā version. Basically top level spec with 10r carbon frame - ie what a lot of ppl ened up doing when they buy and strip down a comp version. Just a rumor but could explain that pic
So when this turns out to be the real bike, you going to go hide for a bit? Or just act like you never made this statement?
If it turns out to be fake, will you? 
If this is real, how is this more expensive than the new Epic
It always amazes me how road and gravel bikes can be more expensive than mtbs when they have linkages, shocks, forks, dropper posts, while all the rest - carbon bars, wheels, and a drivetrain are essentially the same.
But Specialized pricing rarely makes sense. It is often cheaper to buy a frame and build up with the same drivetrain and your preferred contact points than it is to buy a complete.
This is often met with skepticism, but the tube shapes and respective layups and processes, surface treatments and accuracy, and QC often makes road frames as expensive as MTB frames with suspension components, often even more.
It is. As youāve been told.
Supply and demand. MTBs have been on sale constantly for the past 5 years. Every big sale that happens, itās always full of MTBs. Just not as popular it seems. Iāll get a new road bike yearly, new gravel bike probably every 1-2 years. My MTB is almost 10 years old. I mean, I currently own 3 road bikes, 1 gravel bike, and 1 MTB. And Iām still considering the new Crux before Iād buy a new MTB. 
Why is it surprising that people donāt blindly trust images posted by randoms on the internet? Especially with the prevalence of ai generated content being sceptical of completely unverified stuff is probably a good thingā¦.
a true example of ābe nice to each otherā
as for the price discussion I have some guesses. Marketing gravel is easier and the potential market is bigger than MTB. It feels like MTBs have reached some kind of level where the next iteration is merely a marginal improvement - and thatās been true for some years now wheras gravel is still developing to reaching a mature product.
Then there are the margins. In march 2020 I bought a Tarmac SL6 S-Works disc from a shop owner - it was his personal bike. It had the DI2 bluetooth box as well as a oversized ceramic speed pulley installed. I paid 60% of retail price and Iām sure he still made money on that bike. The S-Works models arenāt worth nowhere near what Specialized is asking for. Building from the frame up is always cheaper than buying the top tier model - even if you overpay for the frame.
Iām in a local buy-sell-WhatsApp group and seeing how low people have to dump their one, two year old top end bikes is kind of eyeopening in regards to value and prices of these bikes.
Yeah, and at the same time the prices for these top-end bikes are exploding. It is mind boggling that for most top-end bikes, you cannot customize things like colors, crank length, stem length and handlebar width without extra cost. At $15k you are talking about new, nice (but not yet high-end) motorcycle money.
It also seems that many manufacturers are going towards a āfast gravel bike = aero road bike + tire clearanceā recipe, which isnāt bad, necessarily, but IMHO the next step is to incorporate suspensions.
I donāt either these days. But it wasnāt a single random image. It was about 6-7 renders of different models/builds. Plus multiple different people in the industry posting confirmations of said pictures and builds. Even a build list breakdown and price sheet. So yea, while I wouldnāt blindly trust a random image this was very much not that.
I didnāt bother to check the veracity, partly, because everything seemed reasonable, most notably
- astronomical price in the $15k region (same as top-end road bikes) and
- an aero road bike with added tire clearance design.
If I were very much interested in a Crux, I would try to double-check, but right now I am not in the market. (Plus, personally, I found the old Crux more compelling as a counterpoint to the aero gravel bike recipe.)
I suggest people that really donāt have an eye for (or the experience) spotting whats real and whats not when it comes to photo manipulation, digital art, graphics and imagery should try to not have very strong opinions on whats real and whats not.
Those images started with a picture of a non-S-Works bike with a SRAM Red build. I think thatās reason enough for skepticism and taking a āwait and seeā approach. I certainly donāt think people expressing skepticism of a non-standard build in a leak post is something that deserves attacking another forum member.
Itās funny, because I too was thinking that I could probably find a great deal on the current/old Crux to build up. Still one of my favorite bikes Iāve ever owned and slightly (read: deeply) regret selling it. I have a sneaking suspicion that the new Crux will not have the same magic ride that the current Crux has. Itās what makes it unique.