looking for a short travel bike for riding in the Northern Colorado foothills.
Surprising to me, when I looked at a set of recommended bikes with AXS GX, the on-sale Epic8 Expert at $5800 looks like the value leader.
Epic 8 $5800 carbon wheels ~24.5#
Yeti SB120 $6500 alum wheels, ~ 29.5# 140mm shock - the cool turquoise color is not available in Small
Pivot Trailcat SL $7300 alum wheels, ~28#
Ibis Exie USA (they don’t seem to have the non-USA built one anymore) $7300 alum wheels The Exie for all is still pretty light at ~26# but isn’t sold anywhere I can find
Thoughts?
And it was interesting on the recent GW that the Giant Anthem was referred to positively - and when I looked, it has an integrated stem/bar combo and headset routed cables - and with mechanical shifting is $5700 - seems like a lots of negatives
Have you considered the Orbea Oil M10 AXS? Very similar spec to the Specialized and 2025 model on sale for $5100 or 2026 model for $5800. Great bike, does have thru-headset cable routing but it’s fully guided/routed so really isn’t a maintenance issue. Not sure what the actual weight of the M10 would be, but my M30 (stock spec with alloy wheels but upgraded with Sram XX Transmission) weighs in at 25.75# with pedals.
given the frame weight, the Chisel will always be 755g or 1.7# heavier - but I could quickly drop the spinning weight of wheels (by 560g ~$1500) and crank (by ~100g $300).
I think this was in one of the podcasts but I would suggest test riding them if possible.
I was all set on a Scott spark until I rode both around the block near their respective shops. For me the epic 8 felt like a glove, the spark a bit awkward; you can’t see the feel of the bike in the spec sheets. Saved a few ££ on the epic as well!
@matthew_sephton Good point. I was thinking a parking lot ride of a FS bike was not going to be helpful, but riding 2 bikes back-to-back should be very useful. And luckily, I found a shop that has both the Chisel and Epic8 Comp available.
yup - the Epic8 Comp looks like a great middle ground. I am hoping to test ride one tomorrow (and compare to the Chisel).
It is interesting that the diff between the Comp at $4k and the Expert at $5.8k get smaller when comparing the 2000+g alu wheelset on the Comp versus the 1450g carbon wheelset on the Expert. I guess it depends on whether light carbon wheels are worth (I think so ;-)) - and how much that upgrade will cost.
Some great deals at the moment on the Comp if looking for an XC bike with slightly longer travel. I quite liked the look of the Epic 8 Expert though a significant jump up in price. What does appeal across the range is the lack of integrated headset cable routing, a requirement for me on any XC bike.
I think with light carbon wheels there is a tipping point on strength and whether you should run an insert or not. I’ve a set of DT Swiss carbons that came with my Canyon. Heavy at over 1700g but they have been bulletproof proof taking multiple rim strikes, a great training wheel, my lighter race wheelset at under 1400g have to be run with an insert after already destroying one rim during racing.
I think first you need to decide what kind of bike you want. The Epic and (I guess) the Exie are modern XC bikes that are extremely capable. The SB120 & the Trailcat SL are short travel trail bikes. I can’t find any reliable weight specs, but I’d guess that the SB120 is at least a full pound heavier than the Epic. Depending on what size you need you might have a hard time building it under 30 lbs with reliable parts for northern CO.
Also, if you’re looking at value then you should consider the fact that the SB120 is going to require a bit more maintenance than any of the other bikes you mentioned.