Santa Cruz Bicycles Tallboy Carbon CC Mountain Bike Frame

The line between cross-country and trail riding is easy to blur together, and with XC bikes hitting the dirt with slacker geometry, its no wonder. These capable steeds are able to take on bigger terrain than we had dreamed of a cross-country machine tackling in years past, making it trickier to pigeonhole bikes like the Santa Cruz Tallboy Carbon CC Mountain Bike Frame. Trail-country may be a good way to describe this ride. Build it up with 29-inch wagon wheels and you'll find yourself rolling on a steam-rolling speed demon, but pair it with a set of lofty 27. 5+ hoops for extra traction that keeps you glued to the trail in hairy situations -- whichever setup you deem best will reward you with plenty of trail adventures. The Tallboy has always been revered as a go-anywhere steed with lively handling that maintained a lively feel despite many preconceived notions about 29ers, and the third generation retains that agile handling, but with a bit more trail aggression from longer geometry that thrives when the trail gets more technical. 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 pers...