S-Works Epic Evo 2021

[tonytourist]

The Epic Evo frame is lighter than the regular Epic, the brain suspension sucks, more travel.

[AnkitS]

Yea I pretty much just buy whatever tonytourist bullies me into buying for this bike.

[AnkitS]

Ok so some small updates.
I haven’t ridden my bikes in 6 weeks because of a frankly ridiculous course schedule. I was trying to get ahead in school while I’m still at home but you all don’t care about that so let’s get onto the kewl stuff. I finally had time this weekend to get all my bikes in working order and am planning on actually riding tomorrow.

I added a spur cycle bell. It goes ding. It’s very nice. Also installed the sid ultimate. I left enough steerer to run a 40mm standard stem in the future. It looks a lot better than the Kashima but it feels a little more “notchy”. I don’t know, I’m completely lost when it comes to suspension so this will be more than enough for me. I also put on the required 180mm rotor to accompany the fork, I'll probably need that extra cooling at this weight so I'm not even going to complain about it.

Also I finally got my cassette and chainring from garbaruk. The cassette is a 10-48 and weighs in at a mere 319g. That’s lighter than the much more expensive Ingrid cassette; albeit with a less pretty finish. I probably should have gone for a 10-52 cassette and 28t chainring with my current fitness and weight. I would be lying if I didn’t cringe when setting up my suspension for tomorrow’s ride. I can’t get the shifting from the 10 tooth the the 11 tooth perfect and the entire cassette wobbles from side to side so even though the cassette it pretty light, I am hesitant to recommend it at the moment. I’ll send them an email about the wobbliness and follow up. The shifting isn’t as good as the 1295 but I wasn’t expecting it to be. The wobbliness is super frustrating though.

I have some other stuff ordered that will be going in the wrong direction weight wise. I’ll be getting an AXS dropper and a 165mm quarq if SRAM ever decides to ship my order. I’ll put the garbaruk ring on when that shows up instead of taking this crank apart right now.The reasoning for adding weight there is pretty straight forward so I'll spare you the obvious.

I think that’s about it.

[robbosmans]

I hope my Garbaruk cassette is fine, waiting for the ridiculous mud to dry.

But damn I didn’t like the color at first but its growing on me.

[AnkitS]

Yea me too. The transition from the black front with the fork looks way better, especially how the silver paint transitions onto the cassette. I'd still prefer the yellow s-works frame but whatever, I'll live.

Dudemanppl tells me that the notchyness on the fork is stiction from just being new. Cool. To be honest on the trails, it feels identical to the 34SC.

[1llum4]

Is the whole cassette or some specific cogs that are wobling ? maybe a small spacer at the back could fix it ? For the sid, might be worth to check if there is bushing play that could explain the notchiness.

[AnkitS]

I don't think there is bushing play but I also don't really know how to test my fork for that. I read through the MTBR thread a while back and it doesn't sound like it's the same issue that I experienced. Again, I didn't even notice on the trails; just while messing around in my driveway.

Re: garbaruk cassette
I haven't heard back from garbaruk but their customer service has historically been pretty trash for me. The entire cassette cluster is off center of the body, not just a specific cog or two. I was really hoping this was an installation issue isn't as you can see in the following layout:

The splines splines are dead center with the center of the axle so the cassette has been installed straight and there is no wierd gap at the end of the of the cassette either.


And in this video, you can see that the cassette is straight to end of the freehub.

Finally, you can kinda see the wobbliness I am talking about in these two videos. It's hard for me to show well but you should be able to see what I am talking about.

It seems that this is a one off issue because I've been talking with robbosmans and his cassette doesn't have the same issue. That being said, until I hear from garbaruk, I can't reccomend buything this cassette directly though them. I'd reccomend buying through starbike or r2 who have customer service teams that will actually take care of you.

First video was before I even started indexing the rear derailleur so it's a little noisey.



Annoyingly I sold my X01 cassette already so I'm stuck using this POS until I hear back.

Hopefully they live up to their warranty "We guarantee that the products we ship to you are without any defects (that does not include special offers, when the customer is informed about the existing product defects) and can be used with equipment mentioned in the products' description."

At this point, I'd rather have my money back and get one of the super cool ingrid cassettes that godzuki has. Apparently those also come in under claimed weight so my garbaruk cassette is not the lightest 12 speed option available.

I think I'll get the silver one instead of the black one godzuki got though.



Edit - They are replacing the cassette; with a 3 week wait (again) and are trying to charge me for shipping

[Kristinka]

Yea I pretty much just buy whatever tonytourist bullies me into buying for this bike.

Hi, this is my initial setup built with components that were available. I am still waiting for my new Transfer SL 75mm dropper post. Planing to switch to AXS RD with Zirbel or blip buttons. The front fork is the new Fox F34 SC and I replaced the original rear shock for the remote Fox Float. The setup in the picture weighs 9.3kg.
Have you had any issues routing the cable for the dropper post? The seat tube - down tube junction seems to have pretty sharp angle.

[robbosmans]

Don’t expect an answer he sadly left the forum