All

Thank you. This was my thought, too. If you drive a car without a crumple zone into a brick wall at high speed, even though the same total force is being applied to the wall and to your body, your body and the wall will notice a difference compared to hitting the same wall at the same speed in a car with a crumple zone. In this analogy, the dual crown fork is the car w/o a crumple zone, transmitting all the force immediately to the headtube area, and the single crown fork is the car w/ a crumple zone...

There was quite briefly. The 2.5 profile was a little too square and the 2.3 had a better profile but not enough volume.

An updated Minion SS in a 2.40” was on my suggested projects list for many a company meeting…

I love the Slaughter, some people claim it is too draggy. 🤷‍♂️

sounds like 5 underutilized support resources to me

What's funny is that it feels like we all memory holed the Epic world Cup when talking about specialized xc race bikes.

New Epic 9 will be crazy light in S Works guise. No 32", no swat box. Very racy--Not sure about trims and rollout availability. Product cycle on the Epic 8 (spring 2024) does seem a little short. Perhaps they decided to release early based on 32" future XC bikes?

I can confirm that Specialized will reveal a new generation of the Specialized Epic this month. I can also confirm that the new model definitively rolls on 29" wheels. From what I'm hearing, the folks at Specialized who executively get to make the decision on these kinds of things are not convinced that 32" wheels are universally beneficial for all XC racers and see them as more of a niche solution for very specific scenarios.

32" coming maybe?

WHAT!! Then why are we posting here??

90%+ of SRAM's (and Shimano's) sales are to OEMs, not Aftermarket/enthusiasts. So 90%+ of their direction in products is focused on OEM sales. Not guys on the VitalMTB forum, sadly.

Spec. Epic 9 sometime in April