Santa Cruz Bicycles

Blur Carbon CC X01 Eagle Mountain Bike

It can be difficult to satiate a hankering for flowy descents, but we'd argue that towering climbs that set your quads on fire make undulating ribbons of singletrack taste that much sweeter. To take on the climbs with the speed and power you covet, you'll want a race-ready short-travel machine, and we'd argue that the Blur Carbon CC X01 Eagle Complete Mountain Bike makes a strong case for itself in the speed-demon department. Offering steeper angles, and aggressive race-ready geometry, the Blur shows us that it hasn't forgotten its speedy roots, and is hungry to take on rolling singletrack with a powerful force, and float up climbs like the featherweight ride it is.

Santa Cruz may have taken a bit of a divergence from the XC scene in past years, with the Tallboy being the closest to a cross-country offering in recent time, and geometry stretching to slacker angles year over year. Thankfully this trend had a bit of a wrench thrown into it when the Blur had a resurgence last year, and with geometry that takes a U-turn from the trends, and reverts to true race-ready steep angles. Even steeper than the previous generation, this iteration of the Blur features a 69-degree headtube angle, and 74-degree seat tube, perching you on top and in control of your steed while you barrel through miles of singletrack. The wheelbase is stretched slightly, with some help from a slightly stretched chainstay — another unusual stray from trends, but we'll get into that later. This longer wheelbase lends itself to confidence through rough terrain, enabling you to pick the gnarlier line, shaving seconds off of your time as you push towards the podium. The rear end is updated with Boost spacing, stretching things out and stiffening things up, and while we usually see this pairing with tucked-in wheels and extra-stubby chainstays, the chainstays on the Blur move out just under a quarter of an inch to 17-inches, so you can still comfortably get behind the saddle when you need to, without feeling like you're going to go over backwards.

We may have a tendency to hesitate when we hear the words "rugged" and "cross-country race rocket" used in the same sentence, but with a one-piece carbon VPP rear triangle we can't help but spot the similarities between the Blur and Santa Cruz's burly DH rigs. Its twin upright architecture gives cues to inspiration from the Nomad and V10, promising a ride that's uncompromising and stiff, but without the bulk to follow. Keeping a good thing going, Santa Cruz carefully constructs a one-piece carbon front triangle to pack in lateral stiffness that provides tracking confidence through blown out, washboard switchbacks and root-latticed climbs. The VPP suspension in the new Blur is much like the VPP you'll find in other modern Santa Cruz bikes, which undoubtedly an upgrade from the previous generation, with smoother ramping mid-stroke to prevent a bottomed out feel as you soak into the suspension, and with the smooth FOX Float Factory shock you'll find that the short 100-millimeters of travel feel so much deeper.

The Blur is built using Santa Cruz's top tier CC carbon fiber construction. By using some of the finest, and strongest, raw materials available, Santa Cruz is able to make its CC level frames extremely lightweight, while maintaining outstanding impact resistance, exceptional stiffness, and just the right amount of finely tuned flex to cancel out trail chatter. Of course, balancing these factors requires true mastery of carbon fiber, and the design team at Santa Cruz has proven time and time again that their command of carbon fiber construction is unsurpassed in the bike industry. The result is a frame that will hold up to years of hard riding, will provide a comfortable ride, and will do so at a very competitive weight.

This build comes with a medley of cherry-picked components to ensure you push ahead with the best ride quality possible. It begins with a worthy suspension package from Fox: a Float Performance DPS air shock and Step-Cast 32 Performance fork, each paired with remotes for quick adjustments on the fly, without obnoxious levers and bolts to twist. This setup offers a supple and buttery-smooth stroke, and easy tuning of their 100-millimeters of travel that gives just the right amount of cushion to the trails harsh blows. SRAM's reliable and snappy X01 Eagle groupset dials you in with a gear for every pitch you can pedal into, so you can crush to the top of quad-scorching climbs without bail outs, and turn around to hammer down descents at warp speed, and Level TLM brakes keep you under control with a slimmed down build as you cook it a little too quickly into corners.