Lightweight bikes are generally perceived to be a good thing. Everything,
of course, is a compromise. Hacking material out of design to save weight could be the difference between a bike that rides well, and one that handles like a wet noodle.
Thankfully this isn’t the case with the Santa Cruz Superlight. It IS a thinned down Heckler, but it ISN’T A flexy-flier. It’s just plain fast.
Santa Cruz take a simple approach to suspension design. A shock, a pivot, a swingarm, all bolted in to a simple diamond frameset with a slightly tweaked top tube to line up load-paths so that things don’t bend. It’s clean, it’s simple. It’s light.
Gussets are welded to the top and bottom of the top and down tube, not as we’d prefer to see, with open ends, but welded all the way round. We know Santa Cruz live across the road from workshop of former gusset maestro Keith Bontrager, but we don’t know why they choose to weld all the way round. They must find them strong enough like that. We’ll ask Rob Roskoff when we get the chance.
It’s probably something to do with fretting. But we’ll find out. That’s the beauty of the ‘net. We can always stick it up here afterwards. Anyhow.
HOW DOES THE THING RIDE?
What do you think? It’s superb. Mine came equipped with a lockout shock which frankly was a bit of joke. Not because it didn’t work, but because the bike needs a lockout like it needs, well, like it needs… it doesn’t need it. The suspension action is
so well sorted, the pivot point so perfectly located, and my riding style just so damn smooth that it didn’t seem to make much difference to my uphill progress, even on tarmac. The only flipside of the lockout was that when carrying the bike over styles to ride illegal naughty footpath sections I would flip the lever and get my puny ass pounded until I reached down and flipped the lever. If I was keeping the bike I’d probably take it off.
Suspension action is quite remarkably smooth. Sealed cartridge bearings do the job at the main pivot, and whilst Santa Cruz don’t claim them to be as fitted to any fighter jets or what-have-you, they do the job marvelously It’s worth noting that the bike I rode is far from new, having been raced for six months and ridden as a trailbike for a year. Nice to know they look after me. Nice to see the bike’s been looked after, but even so, it’s in INCREDIBLY good condition. I heard rumours about anodizing dropping off these bikes like they had psoriasis, but it wasn’t the case here. A tough finish that weighs nothing too!
The fork was the new Judy SL, which will only be available as an OE (Original Equipment – fitted to production bike) rather than off the shelf. It’s got a retail price (how much it’ll cost you to have one fitted to your bike) of £240. And as a £240 fork it worked better than any other £240 we have ridden. A better than a lot of other forks around.
BOTTOM LINE
Riding singletrack, riding climbs, descending trails, whatever I did, this is the most inspiring suspension bike I’ve ridden. Lively yet controlled, kicking forward under power and taunting you to click a gear up and go faster. I’ve ridden bikes that were lighter, but this one is durable, and strong, and stiff. Despite the weight saving exercise there was no bottom-bracket flapping, oh and the all-up weight? 25lb with an XT transmission, Avid brakes, proper tyres and tubes and a £240 fork. Not bad at all.
Price and stuff? They’re about £1000 for the frame with the shock. That’s a lot. But it’s REALLY NICE. For fast XC use, it’s the best full suspension bike I’ve ridden. And not just fast XC use. Slow XC use, average XC use, very fast XC use it’s great climbing and descending. I haven’t ridden it for racing XC use or long-distance XC use but I imagine it’d be pretty much the best there too.
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