To give the world’s fastest riders the ultimate tool for XC speed, the Specialized Ride Dynamics team found a way to milk maximum performance out of just 75mm of rear suspension travel. They fit this uncompromising design into an exceptionally light carbon fiber chassis with progressive geometry. And once the carbon fiber dust had settled, they built the Epic World Cup with SRAM’s latest Transmission and Roval wheels that stretch the boundaries of XC performance.

Cross-country racecourses are unforgivingly rough these days. To eke downhill performance out of the Epic World Cup’s 75mm of rear travel, Specialized worked with RockShox to develop the SIDLuxe WCID shock. With independent positive and negative air springs, this rear shock is remarkably tunable. Though 75mm seems like a far cry from the industry standard for XC suspension travel, this system is designed to run 0-5mm of sag, meaning you have far more travel at your disposal. This new rear suspension might not have the Brain technology that’s long been part of Specialized XC rigs, but you’ll still find that unique inertia valve technology in the SID SL fork, which offers 110mm of front travel.

Building the Epic World Cup around a dedicated rear shock and hidden linkage allowed the engineers to blow some minds with an exceptionally light and stiff chassis. Using know-how from its Aethos project, Specialized got the S-Works Epic World Cup’s chassis weight down to 1,765 grams, a number that rivals many gravel bikes. Given the power of riders like Blevins, weight couldn’t come at the expense of stiffness. Specialized ran its biggest Finite Element Analysis simulation ever, testing 100,000 frame variations to find the optimal design for the 12m carbon fiber tubes. And as a structural member of the frame with the widest bushing stance on the market, the SIDLuxe WCID plays a role in the delicate balance between weight and stiffness.

This suspension technology and frame fabrication is all applied to geometry that would make the XC racers of the ‘90s blush. The Epic World Cup sports a 66.5-degree head tube angle and a 74.5-degree seat angle for a confident position that puts the rider over the bottom bracket for steep climbs and steers confidently on those behind-the-saddle descents.