Aug 7, You must login to Pinkbike. Don't have an account? Sign up. The latest version of the Santa Cruz V10 looks a lot like the one it supersedes. When you dive into the details and listen to feed from the team riders, though, you quickly realize this is a seriously new and evolved frame.
High pivots and idlers were experimented with, but veteran test riders dismissed any of those benefits in favor of acceleration and maneuverability. Riding this new V10 was like coming home - everything is where it should be and nothing is out of the ordinary.
During the first outing, two corners into the track, I knew we were on. Frame and Suspension Details On the surface, there are two significant visual changes to the frame, but tucked away are many more features that make this V10 a whole new bike. First, the twin tube seat mast adds strength to the relocated upper pivot, part of the equation when tweaking the kinematics. Then comes the dedicated wheel sizes.
There is a centered zero set of top and bottom cups and the 8mm offset pair which can be reversed. That offers a much smaller jump between frame sizes. The chainstays are size-specific but can also be adjusted fore and aft by 5mm from the neutral position. On the non-driveside, there are just two dropout chips, a centered one and another offset that can be flipped to give the shorter or longer positions. A discrete grub screw accessed from the inside of the dropout keeps the chip in place.
The brake mount features three different positions to align the rotor, depending on the chainstay length chosen. Located at the top of the lower link, the shock mount sits in two pairs of centered or offset chips. Those raise or lower the bottom bracket and adjust the head angle in three arrangements. Although those numbers barely change on paper, the dynamic geometry or handling characteristics on the trail are noticeably different. Building on an already clean and solid chassis, Santa Cruz has integrated the fork bumpers and tidied up the cable routing with plastic external guides near the lower link.
