Santa Cruz Bicycles

Bronson Carbon S Complete Mountain Bike - 2015

When you leave the trailhead unsure of where you’re heading for the day, you want a bike that can handle any fork you decide to follow. That bike just might be the Santa Cruz Bronson, sold here with the S build kit. At 150mm of travel, the Bronson is decidedly long-legged, but also pedals remarkably well.

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 is spec’d smartly with a custom-tuned FOX Float CTD shock, a mix of Shimano’s SLX and XT groups, including SLX brakes and an XT rear derailleur. Those parts are complemented by a RockShox Reverb Stealth dropper post and a RockShox Pike 150 fork. Race Face takes care of the remainder of the cockpit, and you’ll be rolling on Maxxis’ excellent Highroller II tires.