Santa Cruz Bicycles

Blur Carbon CC Mountain Bike Frame

Situated between the Highball hardtail and the Tallboy short-travel trail bike, the Blur Carbon CC Mountain Bike Frame is Santa Cruz's ride fast, ride far, ride hard cross country race bike. Boasting an efficient VPP suspension platform, a super stiff carbon frame, and race-ready geometry, the Blur is equally at home charging hot laps on your favorite trails as it is grabbing a podium spot at a 24-hour endurance event. It's Santa Cruz's lightest full-suspension frame to date, yet it's built with the rugged durability that Santa Cruz carbon frames are known for far and wide. Build it up with a 100mm travel fork and you've got the ultimate XC race weapon, or throw on a 120mm travel fork and you've got a little more cushion for epic trail rides on rugged mountain terrain.

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 buttery-smooth Kashima coated FOX Float Factory shock you'll find that the short 100-millimeters of travel feel so much deeper.

Santa Cruz may have taken a bit of a divergence from the XC scene in the past few years, with the Tallboy being the closest thing to a cross-country offering in recent time, and geometry stretching to slacker angles year over year, so we're more than excited to not only see the Blur rejoin the lineup, but with geometry that takes a U-turn from the trends, and reverts to true race-ready steep angles. Even steeper than the previous generation, the new Blur features a 69-degree head tube angle, and 74-degree seat tube, perching you on top and in control of your steed for nimble handling and maximum pedaling efficiency while you barrel through miles of singletrack. The wheelbase is stretched over an inch, giving the bike more 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 Boost 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.

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.