The Santa Cruz V10 that Steve Peat rode to a World Championship win was proudly on display outside the Santa Cruz stand at Interbike’s Outdoor Demo, allowing all and sundry to take a good close look. Steve’s well known for his enthusiasm for trimming excess weight from his race bikes, and there’re plenty of mass-reducing measures to find.

The most obvious are the wheels and brakes. While the rims carry the decals of DT Swiss’s EX1750 wheel package, they’re not actually those wheels. While they have the same rims and bladed spokes, the hubs on Steve’s bike are from Chris King. The front one in particular is considerably slimmer than the DT item it replaces. The stock EX1750 wheels are described as “lightweight enduro” wheels, with a 100×20 front, 150×12 rear setup coming in at 1,885g. That’s lighter than many of the wheels people are using on bikes for bimbling around trail centres.

As for brakes, well, they’re clearly just there for making slight speed adjustments. It’s a race, after all. Avid Elixir CR brakes, 160 front and 140mm rear rotors and, fantastically, three of the rotor bolts left out at each end. Every little helps.

While this kind of thing may seem a tad risky, remember that Steve has mechanics to look after his bikes and that it all only had to hold together for two and a half minutes…