Specialized Epic - a step in the right direction?

Pretty much all of my bikes have been built from the ground up. I've only ever bought one stock bike which lasted the best part of 4 hours before it was dismantled and rebuilt with some choice parts. The Kinesis, although it's been an awesome bike, has become uncomfortable to use on long journeys due to the short top tube which was my preference at the time for the local singletrack sections. To top it off my old faithful Forx F80RLs and Hope E4s [Yes E4s!!] were experiencing more maintenance time than trail time. So with the price of parts these days it made more sense to bite the bullet and buy new - I just had to decide which bike was the one... an anthem or an epic!
<!--more-->

Cycle Surgery had a sale on 2011 models and with £700 off it was rude not to indulge....

In all her [standard] glory!

Hopefully over the coming weeks I will get more used to it. So far it's a major step up and I'm already feeling faster and more confident. There's a few set up issues that I still need to tweak but hopefully it will be dialled in time for the first race of the season - the Dyfi Enduro

FRAME    Specialized Epic Elite M5 alloy frame, 100mm travel REAR SHOCK    Fox/Specialized remote Mini-Brain   FORK    RockShox Sid RL, 100mm travel STEM     Specialized XC HANDLEBARS     Specialized XC low-rise bar GRIPS      Specialized lock-on BRAKES     Avid Elixir R SL, G3 Clean Sweep rotor, 185/160mm SHIFT LEVERS      Shimano SLX, 10-speed, trigger REAR MECH     Shimano XTR Shadow, 10-speed, mid cage CASSETTE     Shimano HG81, 10-speed, 11-36t CHAIN     KMC X10, 10-speed FRONT MECH     SRAM X.7, 10-speed  CRANKSET      SRAM Carbon S-2200, 10-speed XC double, 175mm Wheels    DT Swiss X420SL on Specialized Hi Lo hubs, 28/32h FRONT TYRE     S-Works "The Captain", 2Bliss ready aramid bead, dual compound, 26x2.0" REAR TYRE     S-Works Fast Trak LK, 2Bliss ready aramid bead, dual compound, 26x2.0" SADDLE     Specialized BG Phenom, 143mm width

New blog

Seem to spend quite a bit of time reading blogs by other people at the moment and finding them quite interesting so thought I would give it a shot.