Santa Cruz Bicycles

Tallboy Carbon CC Mountain Bike Frame - 2019

Few frames match Santa Cruz's Tallboy Carbon CC Mountain Bike Frame when it comes to building up a versatile dream bike. You can run it as a fast rolling 29er or as a traction-savvy 27.5+, or build it up with a 130mm fork and have a wheelset in each size and swap them out at will as conditions dictate. You'll soon be tackling your biggest rides and finding out just how capable this bike can be across a wide variety of trails.

The Tallboy has always been revered as a go anywhere 29er that sported lively handling and eliminated a lot of preconceived notions about how wagon wheel bikes were supposed to handle. This v3 iteration of the Tallboy retains that agile handling but with a touch more trail bike aggression and it allows the bike to thrive on technical landscapes.

What continues to blow us away with the Tallboy's ride is its ability to feel like a cross-country rocket while pedaling and transform into a near-enduro capable machine when needed on the downhills. Its ability to accommodate 27.5+ wheels as well as 29-inch wheels lets you choose your own adventure and is enabled by the reversible “flip chip” at the shock's upper link. Setting the flip chip to the “low” mode relaxes the head angle by roughly half a degree and lowers the bottom bracket, which makes for an ideal setup when paired with the slightly larger diameter of 29-inch wheels. The slightly smaller 27.5+ wheels pair with the “high” setting, allowing for similar clearance between the bottom bracket and the ground. The upshot is headache-free swaps between wheel sizes, which gives you more options than ever when you hit the trail. Recommended fork length is 120mm in 29 mode and 130mm for plus but as we stated above, some of our personal rigs sport a 130mm fork full-time with no ill effects in 29er mode and seamless swapping between the sizes.

The Tallboy has 4.3in of travel through the latest version of Santa Cruz’s VPP platform and its FOX Float DPS Factory shock. As with all VPP bikes, the Tallboy’s counter-rotating links are carefully arranged to resist activation by pedaling forces, all but eliminating unwanted bobbing under power. This being the latest iteration of VPP, it’s tuned to provide more midstroke support than previous generations of the VPP platform, giving the rider a better feel for the terrain and a livelier ride feel.

While the excellent suspension plays a large role in its well-mannered trail handling chops, a key part of the Tallboy’s secret sauce is its carefully tuned geometry. At 68 degrees, the head angle is sufficiently nimble for slaloming through tight trails while remaining relaxed enough to boost confidence at high speeds. The 17-inch chainstays further enhance agility while remaining long enough to provide ample traction on loose climbs. The reach numbers are comfortably neutral, roomy enough to not feel cramped and placing you between the wheels for an in, rather than on, the bike feel.

This Tallboy 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, provides a comfortable ride, and will do so at a very competitive weight.