Hardtail

Take the lightest and most capable carbon hardtail frame available and deck it out in drool-worthy bits. Said bits include the SRAM's wireless XX1 Eagle AXS drivetrain, an integrated power meter, ultralight carbon wheels, and a custom RockShox SID Brain Ultimate fork. - At 775 grams, the new S-Works Epic Hardtail chassis is the lightest production hardtail frame on earth. What’s more, we’ve designed it to be incredibly capable and comfortable, with progressive geometry and an advanced composite layup that boosts vertical compliance. - Custom RockShox SID Brain Ultimate cuts every possible gram, thanks to its carbon steerer and fork crown. What’s more, it boosts your sprint speed, thanks to its top-adjust Brain Fade damper, which makes for a brilliant fork that goes plush when you want it to and stays firm when it’s time to get out of the saddle and launch your next attack. - Blazing fast shifts with nary a derailleur cable in sight—that’s the promise of the AXS edition of the S-Works Epic Hardtail. And the bling doesn’t end with SRAM’s premier, wide-range drivetrain. The bike also sports top-of-the-line SRAM Level Ultimate disc brakes, a QUARQ XX1 Eagle Power Meter, and ultralight Roval Control SL carbon wheelset. - Get more out of every training ride by precisely gauging your power output with the QUARQ XX1 Eagle Power Meter

What do you call a hardtail race bike so light it can put most road bikes to shame? Well, we suppose you could call it a hardly-there-tail, but it actually goes by the name of the S-Works Epic Hardtail. Even while barely registering on the scale, we've loaded it with enough capability to do quite a number on the trail. Welcome to having your cake and eating it too, S-Works style. Working towards the lightest bike possible has long been the race within the race, but at what cost? The battle of the grams certainly hasn't been without its casualties, with hardtail XC race bikes coming to stand for a harsh, twitchy ride at the expense of capability and versatility. But who said fatigue from fighting against your own bike makes you any faster? Instead, recognizing that the fastest bike is more than simply the lightest bike, we said out with the "jarred-to-death tail", the "measure-your-posterior's-sorrows-by-the-yard tail" and in with the "avant-garde tail". The ridiculously capable, mystifyingly comfortable, head-shakingly light and all-around fast, Epic Hardtail. Sure, we optimized every inch of the Epic Hardtail frame to achieve the lightest production hardtail frame in the world anyway, but we also prioritized our commitment to creating an Epic Hardtail that's as capable as it is comfortable with aggressive singletrack-inspired geometry, increased tire clearance and a frame obsessively engineered for increased vertical compliance, all while creating a bike that lives and breathes the fundamentals of fast. Such an unbeleivably lightweight yet impressively capable frame deserves a build to match and the S-Works Epic Hardtail certainly doesn't disappoint. SRAM's Eagle XX1 AXS electronic groupset and the featherweight Roval Control SL wheelset lead the charge in dropping some serious grams while seriously ratcheting up performance. - Pairing 100 millimeters of the most efficent travel on earth with RockShox's svelte-yet-stiff SID SL Ultimate chassis, the RockShox SID SL Ultimate BRAIN fork serves as the pinnacle of XC-race supsension perfection. - Ridiculously capable and refreshingly compliant with a weight that'll make most road frames jealous, the FACT 12m carbon S-Works Epic Hardtail frame isn't just light, it's the lightest production hardtail frame ever produced. - The pinnacle of drivetrain performance, SRAM's XX1 Eagle AXS combines next-gen wireless technology, incredibly accurate shift performance and game-changing versatility to drastically redefine the riding experience. - Weighing a remarkable 1240 grams, the Roval Control SL wheelset not only increases strength and reduces weight, but also features a new 29-millimeter-wide internal width rim profile that improves pinch-flat resistance by 22-percent.

Think of the Ultralight edition of the Epic Hardtail as a science experiment—a lesson in just how crazy light and capable you could make a race bike. We pulled out all the stops on this one and the end result is your personal rocket ship to the top step of the winner’s podium. - At 775 grams, the new S-Works Epic Hardtail chassis is the lightest production hardtail frame on earth. What’s more, we’ve designed it to be incredibly capable and comfortable, with progressive geometry and an advanced composite layup that boosts vertical compliance. - A Fox Factory Step-Cast 32 shaves the grams while providing 100 millimeters of silky, Kashima-coated suspension. And since weight is the enemy here, we equipped the Ultralight with some equally ultralight Roval Control SL carbon wheels. SRAM’s XX1 Eagle drivetrain gives you massive gear range and quick, precise shifts. Finally, the Ultralight can go from crazy-quick to a tidy stop, thanks to the trademark modulation and power of Magura’s MT8 SL disc brakes.

Call it a healthy disrespect for the status quo, but we were getting bored with hardtail designs. So instead of playing along with a glued-on smile, we opted to turn the cross country world on its head with a bike that's not only the lightest mountain frame we've ever made. It's our lightest frame—period. Introducing the S-Works Epic Hardtail. Over the last decade, cross country racing has evolved into a completely different animal—the courses are rowdier, more technical, and overall, they're inherently different. Because of this, we realized that the best bike for the job needs to not only be lightweight and stiff but also be able to descend and climb with equal prowess. Determining the best geometry was the easier of the two, as we took our current XC race geo and added some trail DNA to the mix. This equates to a longer top tube, a shortened head tube, and a slacked-out front end, the result of which is a tremendous increase in downhill stability, plus a wider fit range. And just as importantly, this doesn't require any sacrifice of climbing proficiency. The weight aspect was more complicated, though. We were posed with the question, "How do you take weight out of something that's already so light?" But the answer was relatively obvious: you get the best mountain bike engineers together in one room and let the magic come out. Up until now, there were two ways to lighten up a frame—use less of the same grade of carbon or use less of a higher-grade carbon. Option one is never a viable solution as it sacrifices stiffness and strength, two attributes that shouldn't be tampered with. And while we did end up using option two, we weren't content with the amount of weight we could cut out by just using a different grade of carbon. So how else do you cut weight? Well, we began looking at our layup schedules to see if they could be improved, which shed light on a new discovery—layup inefficiencies. Beginning with our Rider-First Engineered frame technology, each size Epic Hardtail is specifically tailored to size—every carbon layup and tube are exclusively selected based upon hundreds of hours of collected ride data. What does this mean for you? It not only creates the optimal balance of rigidity, weight, and responsiveness across every frame size, but it led us to the discovery of how to save weight through the studying of the layup. Through extensive layup studies, we made the discovery that, by further controlling the construction and layup schedules, we could drastically decrease weight, all while maintaining the ride characteristics that you'd expect from a top-level XC race bike. With this discovery, each frame now features complex cut carbon plys that allow difficult junctions to be covered with less overlap. And while this does complicate the carbon frame puzzle by adding more pieces to the mix, it allows us to design and place them more intelligently. The result of this is a lighter frame, stronger junctions, and a drastic increase in stiffness. We then took the weight savings one step further by using Japanese military ballistic-grade carbon, which we now call 12m, to create the lightest mountain bike we've ever made. How much lighter of a frame, you ask? Less than 900 grams for a size Large frame—the same weight as a full 24oz Purist water bottle. For the build, the S-Works spares no expense, opting for a custom RockShox SID World Cup fork with Brain, SRAM XX1 Eagle 12-speed shifting, SRAM Level Ultimate hydraulic disc brakes, and hand-built Roval Control SL carbon wheels. - To provide the optimal blend of stiffness, crazy light weight, and strength, we constructed the frame from our S-Works FACT 12m carbon fiber. And when combined with our XC 29 Geometry, this Epic is guaranteed to deliver uncompromising, blistering speed and agile handling come race day—no matter the course. - The RockShox SID World Cup 29 fork with Brain provides 90/100mm of efficient travel. It features Brain technology that distinguishes between terrain and rider input in order to maximize your power, while a Brain Fade adjusts the oil flow when not hitting bumps. - The 1x drivetrain is controlled by SRAM's venerable XX1 Eagle components to form the ultimate in efficiency and intuitive feel, while also having the added benefit of significant weight savings and minimal required maintenance.

Thinking hard about a hardtail race whip that'll put others to shame? Not to worry, so have the engineering dream team behind the Epic Hardtail Pro. And while they may not believe in magic, that's the first guess our Specialized Factory Racing riders had as to how we managed to blow the doors off the entire hardtail race category. Working towards the lightest bike possible has long been the race within the race, but at what cost? The battle of the grams certainly hasn't been without its casualties, with hardtail XC race bikes coming to stand for a harsh, twitchy ride at the expense of capability and versatility. But who said fatigue from fighting against your own bike makes you any faster? Instead, recognizing that the fastest bike is more than simply the lightest bike, we said out with the "jarred-to-death tail", the "measure-your-posterior's-sorrows-by-the-yard tail" and in with the "avant-garde tail". The ridiculously capable, mystifyingly comfortable, head-shakingly light and all-around fast, Epic Hardtail. Sure, we optimized every inch of the Epic Hardtail frame to achieve the lightest production hardtail frame in the world anyway, but we also prioritized our commitment to creating an Epic Hardtail that's as capable as it is comfortable with aggressive singletrack-inspired geometry, increased tire clearance and a frame obsessively engineered for increased vertical compliance, all while creating a bike that lives and breathes the fundamentals of fast. Race-ready and podium prepped, the Epic Hardtail Pro is decked out with SRAM's electonic Eagle X01 AXS group, Roval Control Carbon wheelset and RockShox SID SL BRAIN fork. - Ridiculously capable, incredibly light, and refreshingly comfortable, the Epic Hardtail's dropper-post friendly FACT 11m carbon frame rewrites the hardtail playbook with game-changing success. - SRAM's XO1 Eagle AXS electronic drivetrain fires off some of the crispest shifts around while still providing a maximum 500-percent gear range. - The RockShox SID SL BRAIN fork serves up 100-millimeters of brilliantly controlled BRAIN travel while bringing damper adjustments top-side for quick, on-the-fly tweaks.

With all of the growth in full-suspension XC bikes, we found that hardtails were starting to become a little same old, same old. So we thought to ourselves, 'What better time than now to shake things up with a modern, revolutionary design?' Say hello to the Epic Hardtail Expert. - At a mere 915 grams, the new Epic Fact 11m frame is stunningly light. What’s more, we’ve designed the Epic chassis to be incredibly capable and comfortable, with progressive geometry and an advanced composite layup that boosts vertical compliance. - The RockShox SID Brain 29 features our Brain damper, which knows the difference between rider and terrain inputs—staying firm in hard accelerations on smooth ground, and effectively soaking up imperfections when the trail decides to fight back. You get the highest efficiency possible when hammering up climbs, and smooth compression on the descents—all without ever having to flick a switch. - SRAM's 12-speed GX Eagle groupset, with its 10-50t cassette, provides a wide gear range that lets you spin up the climbs, yet have plenty of top end for the descents. One-by setups also decrease weight and make it next to impossible to drop a chain.