Sofía Gómez Villafañe’s Specialized Epic World Cup features drop bars and a RockShox SID with prototype fairings.
Josh Weinberg
This late in the North American racing season, it becomes increasingly rare to see professional athletes racing on unreleased or prototype equipment. And that’s certainly the case at this year’s Leadville 100 trail race, where frankenbikes with interesting mixes of gravel and mountain bike tech have taken center stage.
Except for Sofía Gómez Villafañe and Keegan Swenson, who each have their RockShox SID Ultimate SL forks wrapped in never-before-seen fairings. I was able to track down Villafañe’s Epic for a closer look.
2025 Leadville 100 pro bike checks: Part 1
Drop-bar XC mountain bikes, road pedals, short dropper posts, 29 x 2.4″ tires, and more interesting combinations are taking center stage at this year’s Race Across the Sky.
Black Box is RockShox’s prototype racing division, and its components are often labeled with the logo when they are being tested on an athlete’s bikes. Sometimes, Black Box components will eventually be put into production, while others get stuck in an engineer’s office, never to be seen in public again. In the case of these fairings, however, with the ever-increasing search for marginal gains, I suspect it’s not the last we’ll see of them, or something similar.
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