The Specialized Epic World Cup is 100% about putting every watt to the ground, and it does that very well! Honestly better than any bike I have ever ridden. It is great on most any surface, road, gravel, single track, whatever. It truly is fast on single track and handles chunky stuff pretty well. I bought it for the efficiency knowing I was moving to an area with hundreds and hundreds of miles of gravel roads right out of my door, and some world class mountain biking not that far from here. What I did not know was the Walton family was in the process of putting in a lot of stellar trails right down the road from the house, and my wife ended up working there. Plus I found a race that is over 160 miles of single track that I want to target this year. While the World Cup is a very good bike for that stuff I found myself pushing it a little beyond its limits on the real rough trails (I would have to be more cautious than I would like on certain features) and on the super long days on single track my hands were hurting pretty bad (carpal tunnel or something from a lifetime of abuse).
I was not really planning on buying a new bike, but I happened on a deal that was too good to pass up on the Yeti. It had a killer build (which I am not using, because of my weight weeny issues) and the reviews on the bike were very intriguing. I am happy I pulled the trigger.
The World Cup is a 110mm / 75mm bike that does not ride with any sag, where the Yeti is a 120mm / 115mm that is designed to run like 30% sag. I settled on about 15% maybe 20% sag today and found it very responsive and poppy. I need more time to tune it but so far so good.
Basically I can beat the Yeti harder than the World Cup and my body will not suffer as much. At least that is the theory, time will tell…