Santa Cruz is a company that doesn’t like to hurry its product updates, and releases new bikes only when it’s good and ready. The all-new Blur LT was revealed earlier this year, and now it’s the turn of the next model up the range, the Nomad.

The Santa Cruz Nomad fills the gap between the Blur LT and the Bullit, and its versatility has seen it become a popular choice in the UK. It’s hard to imagine that the Nomad’s appearance caused such a stir when it first arrived, but a few years later, it’s mostly loved.

The front triangle is all-new, with the welded clamshell top tube now gone and in its place a hydroformed 6000 series aluminium top tube which follows a less dramatic curve towards the seat tube. And instead of the previous Nomad’s top tube curving around and meeting the down tube, the downtube does a kink and merges with the top tube before butting up against the new 1.5” head tube. The changes have lopped a couple of hundred grams of the weight, with Santa Cruz claiming 6.9lbs when fitted with a RockShox Monarch 3.3 shock.

Out back the chainstays are now a smidgen shorter, at 17.3” (as opposed to 17.5” previously). In between the two triangles reside the most interesting of the changes Santa Cruz has introduced on the new Nomad. There’s a swish new carbon fibre upper link, new 15mm alloy axles bolting directly into the frame and locked in place with ultra-trick collet heads, and the lower link has sprouted grease ports – a grease gun is supplied with each frame.

Santa Cruz have also tinkered with the VPP setup to produce a flatter shock rate which is claimed “produces a less-dramatic falling rate at the beginning of travel, and less of a rising rate near bottom-out. The instant centre of the rear suspension now sits lower than before, and the new design has less chain growth than the old one.” Or put another way, the new Nomad should climb and pedal more efficiently than the outgoing model.

Available late October, in the following colours: black, white, red, yellow, lime green, liquid blue, anodised green or slate. Price TBC.

www.santacruzbikes.co.uk