Santa Cruz Bicycles

Bronson Carbon CC Mountain Bike Frame - 2015

As fabled "quiver of one" bikes get ever longer-legged, the limits of some suspension designs start to show through. Not so with the Santa Cruz Bicycles Bronson Carbon CC, though. The Bronson’s 150mm of travel is controlled by a highly-refined Virtual Pivot Point (VPP) suspension design. These counter-rotating links serve to balance pedaling forces and trail input in a manner that provides a progressive trip through the travel and a firm pedaling platform.

Focusing on VPP takes care of a lot of what we like about the Bronson, but that’s selling the carbon wizards at Santa Cruz a bit short. Santa Cruz constructs each bike’s front and rear triangles as single pieces, rather than a series of bonded parts, and wraps carbon around all of the junctures to ensure continuous fibers to dissipate the load placed on the frame. On top of that, Santa Cruz frames are just as smooth inside as they are outside, due to an extremely high level of compaction in the molds. This ensures there are no air bubbles in the layers, and no surprises on the trails.

The Bronson CC is spec’d smartly with a custom-tuned FOX Float CTD shock with the ultra-smooth, ultra-durable Kashima coating. You’ll find a 142x12mm thru-axle out back, a "mixed tapered" (ZS44/EC49) headset, and user-serviceable grease ports in all the pivots. Oh, and a normal, threaded, 73mm bottom bracket.