Specialized Epic Comp Carbon 2018 - Pink Panther

The MY18 Spesh Epic is an excellent platform. Hands down my second ever favorite bike so far and I had plenty over the years. The first one is my MY12 alu Tallboy which I regret selling.

Here is the build and what I have to say about it.
The Rockshox manufactured Brain 2.0 works great if you can get used to the distinct knocking feel it makes when opening up. Eventually everybody does get along with it and likes it it’s a good feature that you can see the benefit of, especially when in a harry up the hill.
However, my brain shock refused to lock after only a few months, and it was sorted by specialized under warrenty. They replaced a seal or something small and It never failed again since.

The stock 100mm Reba RL which is a non brain equipped fork on my comp model, was a bit harsh from the beginning and developed the infamous crown steerer creaks. I had it replaced with the excellent 2020 SID SL select which is both lighter and stiffer. It also feels better on the trail as it uses the better charger dumper over the motion control one shipped with the reba.
I could have opted for the beefier 120 travel SID, but I felt that it would lift the already bit too high BB of this frame. Apparently, I was right as Spesh lowered the BB on the MY21 epics.

The OEM Sram Level TL also failed at hot weather, it had the sticky lever thing. SRAM dealer sorted it under warrenty, yet I decided to swap them for the 4 pot G2 RSC which are a way better option, even for XCriding style.
Found sweet deal on a second hand ROVAL carbon wheels which is a highly recommended upgrade for every XC bike that comes stock with Alu wheels. unfortiuantly I snapped the front one on harsh landing so the front is not back with the original Alu wheel. In fact, I found that Alu wheel up from makes the ride a bit smoother.
Speaking of crashes, I crashed and busted the stock alu bar so it was swapped for the pretty light and compliant 31.8m carbon SIXC bar. I have 35m bar on my other bike and honestly I can’t see what wrong did the 31.8 bar and stem did to the manufactures that they dumped them for the oversize ones.

Crankset was swapped for no good reason from the stock Raceface Aefect to as good as new secondhand Carbon SRAM XX1. Carbon crank do feel a bit stiffer and more efficient, but that’s may well be the placebo effect that’s coming with the purchase of expensive bling bike parts.

Overall, it’s a light and super-fast platform that you can bring to any trail riding with your buddies and smoke them on the ascents. If you know what you are doing you won’t get dropped too far on the descents but for that to happen, a dropper and the better brakes would be a must.
You should also keep in your mind to ride within limits on this on as it won’t tolerate any user errors like the more traili bikes would.