Santa Cruz Bicycles Tallboy Carbon CC Mountain Bike Frame 2017

The 29er, formerly a docile XC creature, has recently begun to exhibit a peculiar strain of all mountain rabies. The new breed is untameably aggressive longer, slacker, and with more travel and no specimen embodies the breed's defining traits better than Santa Cruz Bicycles' all new Tallboy Carbon CC Mountain Bike Frame. It's the third iteration of what many of us thought was the terminal example of wagon wheel machines, and it's only gotten faster with each new realization. This time around, SC has equipped the Tallboy with a host of features imported from its enduro and more traditional trail bikes, including Boost rear spacing, re designed linkages, and the brand's latest signature, a so called flip chip that adjusts the frame's dimensions to keep the geometry the same whether you're running 29in wheels or 27. 5. Considering its revered status among 29er enthusiasts, a new Tallboy is a big deal, but before we get into the changes it's worth dwelling briefly on the flip chip. The flip chip sits in the upper link and can be rotated to allow the shock mount to migrate. Being able to reposition the shock attachment point effectively accounts for the 9mm difference in radii between 27. 5 and 29in tires, keeping the geometry as static as possible across wheel sizes. SC first introduced this feature on the Hightower, but the brand seems to have perfected it for the Tallboy 3 changing the Hightower results in a slight change in head tube angle, but the Tallboy's head tube angle remains the same for 27. 5 and 29in wheels. Compared to the previous Tallboy, the Tallboy 3 takes just a bit off the top of the head tube, dropping 2. 2 degrees to fall from the standard 70. 2 to a moderately slack 68 degrees. Courtesy of the Flip Chip's slight geometry alteration, that number stays the same whether you're running a 29in wheels with a 120mm fork or 27. 5 with 130mm. The frame's chainstays and reach also join the modern geometry movement the stays are shorter by 13. ...