Santa Cruz Bicycles

Tallboy R Complete Mountain Bike - 2015

The name of the Tallboy R Complete Mountain Bike's game is capability that doesn't cost. In order to spread the 29er love across the land, the benign entities at Santa Cruz have issued their popular 29-inch platform in a range of materials and build kits, the most affordable being this here Tallboy R. This means you get the aggressive obstacle clearance, more confident grip in corners and on climbs, and overall speed boast associated with 29ers at a price that the plastic bike crowd spend on wheels alone.

The Tallboy R's apparently paradoxical blend of low cost and high capability starts with the alloy frame, which eschews the pricier — and daintier — carbon found in most marketing campaigns for the time-tested, durable, and lightweight material found under most cyclists. By hydroforming the tubes, Santa Cruz is able to beef the Tallboy up where stiffness is paramount and slim it down where weight savings and compliance are more appropriate considerations. The geometry is just aggressive enough to encourage the speedy wagon wheels, but not so much that you can't spend hours comfortably upright in the saddle.

When you're less interested in personal comfort and more interested in causing discomfort for you competition, the Virtual Pivot Point (VPP) suspension helps maintain speed by limiting pedal bob and suspension squat. VPP's peculiar travel path keeps the chain stays short and responsive during successive, chattery small bumps. As it travels past the sag point, VPP stretches out to provide stability and round-off the square edges of big hits.

The suspension platform's 100mm travel is guided by a FOX Float CTD Evolution, which lets you further refine the compression characteristics with FOX's Climb, Trail, Descend settings. The front end features RockShox's Recon Gold TK Solo Air fork, which brings 120mm of bump-absorbing travel to the Tallboy R, and — with a blend of Shimano's Deore and XT components — you'll be tempted to use every inch of it without slowing down. In the event that stopping becomes a pressing priority, the Deore label also graces the bombproof, no frills hydraulic disc brakes.