No matter how much we love our Epic FSR, it's undeniable that hardtails still play an extremely important role in XC racing. So what to do? We put our XC offerings on a diet, went back to the drawing board, and created the lightest damn mountain bike we've ever made—the S-Works Epic Hardtail. To do so, we built the entire frame from our highest-end carbon fiber, FACT 12m, and then we took some cues from our road bikes. We borrowed the Rider-First Engineered™ concept that originated with the Tarmac. Now, the frame design applies specificity to every tube size and carbon layup for every frame size. This creates the optimal balance of rigidity, weight, and responsiveness, so every frame, regardless of size, performs just as we intended. We've also tweaked the geometry for more speed and stability by slacking-out the head tube angle, lengthening the top tube, and correcting the seat tube angle. This way, it feels more planted then ever, and frankly, it's stupid fast. We also widened the rear spacing to 12x148mm and included internal split-housing cable routing.