Giant Anthem X1 versus Specialized Epic Expert Carbon

Due to rubbing brake hose causing a crack to appear in the frame, it was time to replace my 2005 Giant NRS bike. Most of my riding is on the byways and bridleways of Berkshire, Hampshire and Oxfordshire so I was after a short travel full suspension bike that climbs well. Budget was ~£2k. I arranged for test rides on a 2009 Giant Anthem X1 and a 2009 Specialized Epic Expert Carbon through Banjo Cycles in Newbury. www.banjocycles.com

I took both bikes out one after the other on the same day and did a side by side comparison. As a control, I also took out my Giant NRS.

Bikes

Both bikes were stock 2009 spec bikes and were fitted with Crank Bros pedals. The measured weights of the bikes, ready to roll was:


	Specialized Epic Expert Carbon	10.6 kg
	Giant Anthem X1	12.2 kg
	Giant NRS	15.2 kg

Specialized Epic Expert Carbon	Giant anthem X1

Route

Route was a 24.5 km predominantly cross country route south of Newbury on the Berkshire-Hampshire border. The nature of the route was very mixed with most kinds of terrain represented.

The ground was fairly dry, air temperature was ~6ºC and there was a strong N wind blowing.

Telemetry

A Garmin Forerunner GPS unit was used to both time the routes and to provide track data for analysis later. The heart rate function was used to keep my effort constant.

Results

	Epic	Anthem	NRS
Time (hr:min)	1:18	1:19	1:23
Average heart rate (% max)	83	84	82
Average speed (kmh)	18.7	18.5	17.5

So, on a 1 hour 20 minute route, the Epic was a minute faster than the Anthem and 5 minutes faster than the NRS.

Straight away the Epic felt fast, the suspension felt stiff but it opened up on hits. The brakes were awesome. It climbed well with no bob at all.

Despite the Anthem having identical forks to the Epic I had real difficulty in getting a setting that would work. The bars were noticeably narrower than on the Epic which made it feel very twitchy on the descents. Even without using the ProPedal lever on the rear shock (lockout in English) there was no rear end bob at all. The brakes were good but not as good as on the Epic (nor the Hope mono-minis on the NRS).

The figure shows the speed profiles of the three bikes over the entire route together with the elevation profile.

The following images show how the bikes performed on differing terrains.

Mixed off-road riding		The two dips in the speed profiles are due to stops on the Epic and the Anthem (puncture and pedal coming off)
Fast grassy descent		The descent was frighteningly steep on fairly smooth grass but with a big hump just before a left right chicane followed by the steepest part of the descent. There was a very hard stop at the end. On this terrain the Epic and NRS were evenly matched but the Anthem was slowest.
Green lanes		This was double track lanes, some on dirt/grass, some on gravel. The Epic and anthem were evenly matched with the Epic being slightly faster. The NRS was slowest, however, on the final fast descent the NRS was slowed up by a 4x4 in the lane.
Uphill on road		This was a long flog up a slight incline on tarmac and into the wind. All three bikes were fairly evenly matched with the Anthem having a small advantage. The Epic got off to a slow start due to me having to adjust the saddle and then build up speed again.
Uphill off road		This was an evil flog uphill on a chalky track. On the steeper sections all three bikes were fairly even, however, on the middle section where the gradient eased slightly, the Epic was noticeably faster.

Conclusions

Although the times showed the Epic to be only 1 minute in 80 minutes quicker than the Anthem, I much preferred the ride on the Epic as it handled better on the faster descents.

I was less than impressed by the Rockshox SID Team forks fitted to both bikes. There was no problem with them on the Epic but I failed to get a decent setup on the Anthem. On the Epic they were just as good as, but no better than the Rockshox Rebas on my NRS, yet they cost £100 more.

The bottom line... I bought the Epic. Got it from Banjo Cycles in Newbury. Mark did me an excellent deal, several hundred pounds cheaper than any price on the web, and that included swapping the shifters for XT, the rear mech for an XTR rapidrise, and fitting a Stans' tubeless kit to the tyres.

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