The Drop Bar Epic World Cup actually won a race! 2024 Ozark Gravel Doom - Despair Race Recap 

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My Gravelbike is 110/120mm travel full-sus Specialized Epic Evo XC bike with 700x47 Specialized Pathfinder Pro Gravel tires and a flat handlebar cut very narrow. Using a narrow flat bar is more aero than a wide flat bar. I can totally feel the difference going from a 30in to a 24in wide flat bar. This bike is just has fast as a Gravelbike on pavement and gravel. Unlike a Gravelbike, it performs very well on singletrack. The Pathfinder tires hookup better than would be expected. 47mm is 1.85in. XC bikes, from 15 years ago, came with 1.9in/48mm tires. 1.9in semi-slick tires and 25in wide handlebars came stock on my full-sus 100/100mm travel 2009 Epic. 15 years ago XC races were a lot like modern Gravel races.

Just rode our lead product testers World Cup with Drop Bars yesterday. Felt so good! 💥

John Tomac would be proud 👏 😅

I just rode a black diamond trail in north Georgia mountains (seriously steep rocky trail) on Thunder Burts Super Race and they did amazingly well. Incredible tire! (The ride was 80% gravel hence why I had them on-same as you)

Great race recap!

I ran a Pivot LES drop bar rig with Thunderburt 2.1s and a 100mm fork for Despair-good enough for 8th. It was fantastic-drop bar mountain bikes are here to stay!

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Sweet set up, congrats man!

I have been enjoying your videos! Could you do a quick video on how you set up the fork for gravel? Congratulations on the race win!

Great job man 🤘🏽. Drop bar MTB FTW! Reminds me I need to hurry up and finish my lefty drop bar build!

Was riding with Carter up until the second single track section where the mountain bike was such a huge advantage. Unfortunately mechanicals took me out of the race, but we were definitely gunning to try to catch up with you! Awesome accomplishment and it was cool racing with you (briefly there at the beginning haha). Hoping to get back down there and put an ITT effort in sooner rather than later!

That natural water probably helped you a lot. The minerals in that are super important.

I’m liking this setup for something like Tour Divide.

Lael Wilcox set records on the Tour Divide and Dirty Kanza with a drop bar epic hardtail and there's a recent video on u-tube about a factor drop bar mountain bike . Someone has the idea that that we don't need gravel bikes , or that gravel bike geometry will evolve into 148 spacing . It seems gravel bikes are faster on smooth gravel in a straight line but these races aren't smooth gravel in a straight line .

Wow.

Wow! Good job and congrats! Good thing you've changed the setup to a "gravel setup" a total departure and imho a smart choice from the usual "mtb setup" you proclaimed as the best gravel bike on a previous video. The point of contention was that original mtb setup was... well, for mtb. Tires, rigidity and aero (dropbar and aero bars) made this bike into a good gravel bike. Dylan Johnson achieve his best race result on a similar setup. Again, congrats! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Congrats on the win! Really interested in running a similar setup. Would you recommend sizing down when getting a frame or the same as your normal mtb size with respect to reach?

Great job on the race. Curious why you would go with aluminum bars instead of carbon?

Congratulations! Love the look of that bike, especially the crazy pink one. Been toying with trying drop bars on my procaliber. What's the most challenging part about fitting them?

i am about to ride a gravel ride soon whit xc hardtail with 700 mm wide straight bars whit slammed stem and slammed cockpit.

really interesting to see good results from the wc gravel build! congrats on the win! do the etap shifters push enough fluid for the 4 piston calipers you have set up? also, did you run any bottles at all? i wonder if you could squeeze in those fidlock 450ml bottles in that limited space. ive ran a custom frame bag on my previous-gen epic evo with a 50oz camelback that barely squeezes in (plus a 22oz bottle on the seat tube) and i could totally see squeezing more on-bike hydration with the roomier frame of the wc. im curious on your thoughts on running that smaller top tube bag if you arent using the rest of that real estate for hydration or storage. great video otherwise, would love to see more race recaps like this on the channel!

I may have missed it but what size tires are you running?

can you please tell me the inside measurement of your wheelset and the size tires you used?

What kind of pack is that? I have an epic wc and my current frame bags don’t fit at all.

Was it harder than the Marji 100? Think I saw they have a 200 option this year

Maybe I missed it, but why change to aluminum bars?

Needs butterfly bars

What drop bars did you run?

If you used a flat handlebar, would you still have won?

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Congrats on your win. At least 3 videos about WC so far from you and none of them is XC review...Just saying

You should’ve just charged ur light off ur phone battery no? I’ve done that with my vape before

I'm trying hard to give you the benefit of doubt that you have a reason for having your drop-bars and brifters pointing down. Riding on hoods and drops set like that looks miserable, especially for such a long ride!

My guy - outbound lighting. Please.

Wireless mic needed!!!!!!

Nothing to do with the bars

The cuts make these videos unwatchable for me. I love the content but the cuts actually make me woozy for some reason 😢

Jezus man.... buy a wireless mic.

mtb > gravel cross bikes

I ran a Pivot LES drop bar rig with Thunderburt 2.1s and a 100mm fork for Despair-good enough for 8th. It was fantastic-drop bar mountain bikes are here to stay!