We’ve yet to determine why it is that bikes with 29in wheels seem to arouse such passions one way or another. They are, after all, just mountain bikes with slightly bigger wheels. Yet somehow they manage to polarise opinion, with some deciding that they’re the perfect solution to everything, all the time and others decrying them as a pointless gimmick.

One thing’s for sure, few manufacturers don’t have at least one clownbikebig-wheeler in their range. Santa Cruz was one of the last holdouts, but has allowed it to be known that it has a 29er approaching production and likely to be on sale in the autumn.

Say hello, then, to the Tallboy, which could be named after a wardrobe with a chest of drawers underneath it, or perhaps the 12,000lb bomb designed by Barnes Wallis during the Second World War. Or, just possibly, after the US term for an oversized can of beer. You choose.

The bike in the picture is the first “proper” sample of the Tallboy, being made of carbon fibre with paint on it rather than the unfinished aluminium “mules” used for initial development. Given the (im)practicalities and expense of making major changes to the moulds for carbon frames, by the time a frame gets to this stage it’s basically finished, so don’t expect it to look very different when it arrives on the market with the possible exception of the coloured bits stuck to the outside.

In essence the Tallboy is a big-wheeled Blur, with 100mm of travel from the VPP back end (which shares all the pivot, bearing and grease port tech with the conventionally-hooped bikes). The head tube takes a tapered 1.125/1.5in steerer and while the frame’s never going to be as light as a Blur XC we’d expect the Tallboy to weigh in very favourably by 29er FS standards.