You've been spending some time riding offroad and found that XC racing is your jam. Races are now on your calendar and you're training in earnest looking to take it a little more seriously this season and you'll need an agile and quick singletrack slayer to tame the long climbs, rough rock gardens, and rooty drops. You also want a bike that’s a bit of fun when you aren't lined up to go anaerobic for an hour and a half and that's where the Blur Carbon CC X01 Eagle Reserve Complete Mountain Bike shines. Missing from action for a bit from Santa Cruz's lineup, the Tallboy is all grown up and it allowed Santa Cruz the chance for a reboot to create an XC race ready rig with no compromises. Slightly steeper angles than your typical trail bike, but totally capable for cross-country, and an impressive build spec allow the new Blur to dominate the modern XC landscape with its 4-inches of VPP suspension that efficiently scoots up the climbs and pedally bits while allowing you to blast down descents and stay fresher throughout the race.
Lightweight race whippet and burley might seem mutually exclusive, but that's exactly what you get with the Blur. It's one-piece carbon VPP rear triangle mirrors that of Santa Cruz's burly V10 and Nomad. The twin-spar upright architecture received inspiration from the bigger bikes, providing a ride that's both laterally and torsionally stiff, without excessive bulk to haul up the climbs. Santa Cruz's trademark one-piece carbon front triangle further bolsters stiffness and tracks with authority adding confidence through blown out, braking bump switchbacks and chunky trail features. The VPP suspension on the new Blur is much like the latest VPP you'll find in newer Santa Cruz bikes, which is undoubtedly an upgrade from the previous generations. Smoother ramping during the mid-stroke assists to provide efficient pedaling and climbing before ramping up near the end for that coveted bottomless feel as you near the end of the stroke. The ultra-smooth FOX Float DPS shock and VPP platform make that short 100-millimeters of travel feel like so much more.
Santa Cruz took a brief hiatus from the XC scene over the past few years, with the Tallboy being the closest to a cross-country offering in recent time, but it's geometry morphed into slacker angles and a bike that's a lot more trail like, so we're more than excited to see the Blur rejoin the lineup carrying the flag as the cross-country champion. Its 69-degree head tube angle is slightly steeper making it more appropriate for race-ready use, however, this bike still has the chops to hang with the trail bikes on the descents. The modern 74-degree seat tube angle has you right over the pedals while you barrel through miles of singletrack on that ultra-endurance epic. The wheelbase is stretched slightly, with some help from slightly rangier chainstays — typically unusual by today standards, but we'll get into that later. This longer wheelbase provides the confidence needed to rally through rough terrain, so you never second guess taking the gnarlier line, which often can save you time and energy. The rear end, like all new Santa Cruz frames, gets updated with Boost spacing, widening the dropouts and hubs to stiffen things up, and while we usually see this allowing tucked-in wheels and extra-stubby stays, the chainstays on the Blur move out just under a quarter of an inch to 17-inches, so you can still track over the high-speed rough bits without losing the ability to negotiate tight switchbacks and choked down singletrack.
This particular Blur is built using Santa Cruz's Carbon CC construction, which provides incredible lateral stiffness and unbelievable strength at about half-a-pound weigh savings over its Carbon C sibling. FOX suspension, with lockouts, offers near hardtail efficiency off the line while soaking up everything in your path so you can continue to lay the power down. SRAM's excellent XO1 group handles shifting and power transmission and the 10-50t cassette provides plenty of range. Finally, the bike rolls on the firm's carbon Reserve rims that like the frame, feature a lifetime warranty, for a bike that tips the scales at an incredibly lightweight 22.37 pounds giving you every advantage on race day.