I’m looking to get an FS 29er and I’ll be taking out demo’s of the Epic Carbon Comp and the Camber Carbon Comp but I’m looking for some advice from owners.

Is the Epic a full on XC bike like I’m led to believe or is it a good all-round trail bike as well?
Is the Camber too heavy and slack to climb well or is it just the reviewers talking rubbish?
Anyone had problems with either of them?

I’ve read very positive reviews about the Camber to be honest. So much so that I’m half thinking of trying one, but I think I’m going to stick with 26ers.

The camber comp carbon is by far and away our best selling full suspension bike. It just seems to strike the balance between low weight and efficiency for pinching around the Hertfordshire country side, but when taken to places where gravity is a bigger factor it won’t find itself put of its depth. We have a lot of people with the same dilemma (the epic seems perfect to a lot of people on paper) but we sell a greater number of cambers, proof is definitely in the pudding though

WP – I demoed a lot of bikes last year including one day when rode epic, camber, stumpy (among others) on exactly the same trails (Pitch Hill at Peaslake if you know Surrey hills). Contrary to my pre-ride expectations, I found the best bikes for the trails to be in the same order. This seems odd I know, but not only was the epic a brilliant climber but I was catching better riders on the downhill trails as well. They were leaving me behind when I rode the stumpty.

FWIW, not everyone agreed and there was a clear split among the dozen or so riders between the XC and the trails bike. But there was one complete consensus, every rider enjoyed the camber!!

So from that experience (and riding anthem 29ers on the same terrain) I would still choose the epic from all three of the spesh range for my trail riding.

The downside was that the epic was 4k!!!!

It seems to be the same in the few reviews I’ve found for the Camber as well, they all seem to say it’s a fantastic trail bike and good for general XC stuff and some racing.
The Epic sounds like a great bike as well, from what I’ve read the new Mini-Brain is a belter 🙂

@teamhurtmore, I’ll be demo’ing the bikes in the same place as you did, namely around Pitch Hill and Holmbury. I’m going to try and do the two bikes back to back to see how they ride so it should be an interesting comparison.

I’m quite surprised that Specialized have made two bikes which seem to overlap each other so much, especially when the cheaper of the two seems to do the better job, at least on paper!

I also test rode the carbon Epic & carbon Camber back to back on the same route in the Surrey Hills last year (may have been the same day as teamhurtmore!) – the Epic was an insanely good climber and also good on the downs on the test route (nothing too extreme). The Camber climbed extremely well I thought (not as good as the Epic of course but they’re different bikes) and I preferred having slightly more travel on the descents. I also considered that the extra travel of the Camber would be nice for some of the other bigger trail features I would be riding on it (that weren’t on the demo route) but I had no need for the travel of a Stumpy.

The only bike that I test rode that I would have bought over the Camber was the Tallboy Carbon or Tallboy LTc. If money was not in the equation, I would have got a Santa Cruz but, as it is, I spotted the Specialized Concept Store selling the Camber for £2k (£1k off RRP) a week or so ago (they may still have some) and that was too good a deal to turn down, so I took the plunge!

On a slightly down note, first ride of it at the weekend and something has gone wrong with the rear brake (lever just goes to the bar without applying the brake). Seems fairly common with Elixirs unfortuantely.

WP – enjoy it. Climbing out of WB car park on the epic felt like I was on a motorbike, seriously. Of all of the bikes I have demoed it is the only one where the difference was really, very obvious. It was an awesome bike and but for the price I would have bought it there and then.

When the weather improves I will be doing the same thing with the giant range – anthem 29 (which I really enjoy), trance 29ee and the XTC HT 29. We might bump into each other!! FWIW, the anthem came close to the epic at half the price, but money aside, the epic would be my first choice for nearly all my SH riding.

Are you doing it as part of a demo day?

Was that the excellent freeborn day? If so did you have a go on the tandem? I was the guy who had three crashes (!!) but not the one who knocked himself out completely!!!

My Camber weighs 25.7lbs. Blitzes the Slurrey Hills!

Sounds like there’s going to be some tough choices to make on the day!

On a slightly down note, first ride of it at the weekend and something has gone wrong with the rear brake (lever just goes to the bar without applying the brake). Seems fairly common with Elixirs unfortuantely.

The brakes on either bike won’t be getting used as I’ve got a set of Hope’s to go on along with a set of Hope Hoops with Flows from my current bike. I’m not overly happy with a £2.5k Camber having Elixir 3’s on it or the £3.2k Epic having Magura’s hence bringing the Hope’s over.

Are you doing it as part of a demo day?

No, I’m just using the demo bikes from my LBS 😀

Yes, Freeborn demo day! I avoided the tandem as it looked like it was completely out of control!

I haven’t checked the spec of the 2013 Camber but, when I bought mine, the shop guys said they thought the 2013 was lower spec, the fork in particular (as I say, I’ve not checked the 2013 spec). Certainly the brakes sound it – mine has Elixir 7s (bit of a mute point as they’re not working anyway!).

Will be interesting to hear what you choose…

My Camber weighs 25.7lbs. Blitzes the Slurrey Hills!

what are the weights of the Epic and Stumpy?

the shop guys said they thought the 2013 was lower spec, the fork in particular

That’s what I was thinking as well after comparing the specs. The 2012 has Fox Float Evolution forks, X7/X9 drivetrain and Elixir 7 brakes. The 2013 has RS Reba’s, XT/SLX/X7 drivetrain and Elixir 3’s! The list price of the 2013 is only £200 less than the 2012. Strange!

what are the weights of the Epic and Stumpy?

I’m not sure about the Stumpy but the Epic is 11.9kg and the Camber 12.6kg

The rrp of the 2012 bike was £3k iirc (ill check tomorrow) the shock on the 2013 is a bit of an upgrade too. One thing that’s worth pointing out, we had a number of issues with rear hubs on 2012 far bikes. The 2013 wheel set has better hubs and is TL ready as standard

Hi, having ridden both the 2012 carbon Camber and the 2012 carbon Epic. And buying a 2012 Carbon Epic i would say the Epic is much more fun.

It climbs much better than the camber and it decends very well for its amount of travel.

For me it is the perfect trail bike, it climbs well and eats miles like you wouldn’t believe. It won’t decent as well as a longer travel bike which goes without saying. But a shorter travel bike makes the descents much more fun and you a better rider by having to think about line choice rather than just ploughing through stuff.

I have changed mine a little bit to make it more trail friendly as the off the peg spec is quite racy.

Mine now has 720mm bars, 90mm stem, more aggressive tyres and ive removed the double set up in favor of a 1×10 and a short cage clutch mech.

Here’s mine;

Hi, having ridden both the 2012 carbon Camber and the 2012 carbon Epic. And buying a 2012 Carbon Epic i would say the Epic is much more fun.

Thanks for that.
Have you had any problems with it at all?
Are the standard wheels any good?

No problems really, the standard wheels were ok but the rear hub had some issues in 2012 so i swapped that for a Hope Pro2 Evo when i bought the bike. I have now swapped the rims for some Stans Crest’s due to me being a little obsessed with buying parts. The standard wheels stayed nice and true and required very minimal spoke fettling. Which is more than can be said for the Crest rims im running now.

Im still running the original DT spokes and front hub which are both faultless, but i did change the alloy spoke nipples to brass ones for added piece of mind.

Just a quick update you on this if you’re interested.

I went out for the demo’s today, lovely day for it, bloody cold but the trails were mostly frozen so running quite fast. I took the Epic out first and it was fantastic. With a minimal amount of setting up, namely putting air in everything first, it was a rocket out of the box!
It climbed better than my hardtail and descended much better as well. The Brain rear shock worked well giving very little movement while climbing but allowing plenty of travel for me when things got bumpy. The fork was pretty good, nothing special but no problems at all.
Basically it was a fantastic bike.

I’d love to say what I thought of the Camber but after trying the Epic, I didn’t even bother taking it out as I knew which bike I’d be getting 😀

I know you can put a 120mm fork on a 26er epic, if you could do the same with the 29er version you’d have best of both?