To start with introduced in 2019, the Santa Cruz Megatower entered the lineup as a prolonged vacation enduro race bike, function-crafted close to 29in wheels. Mick rode the Megatower at the Wairoa Gorge mountain bicycle park in New Zealand as section of the official push start, the place he bought to grips with the bike’s insatiable hunger for steep and high-velocity descents, together with its business and extremely a great deal race-focussed suspension. Making off the achievement of the first design, Santa Cruz is now all set to launch the next era Megatower that capabilities more travel, up-to-date geometry and for the initial time at any time for Santa Cruz, in-frame storage.
The 2022 Santa Cruz Megatower
Sitting down in among the Hightower and the V-10, the Santa Cruz Megatower retains its placement in the lineup as the Californian brand’s flagship enduro race bicycle. The new bike does see a slight elevate in vacation nevertheless, with a 170mm fork and 165mm at the rear via the VPP suspension system.
The shock continue to sits small down the frame wherever it’s pushed by the decrease linkage and a sealed bearing eyelet. It uses a for a longer period 62.5mm stroke on the other hand, which delivers the elevated travel and a reduce leverage charge for a supposedly more damped feel general. Provided we identified the original Megatower to be very a business ride, we’re curious to see how the alterations perform out on the trail.
Glovebox downtube storage
The Santa Cruz Megatower also sees the introduction of in-body storage, which is a initially for Santa Cruz. Positioned higher than the shock mount, the Glovebox is hid by a plastic hatch beneath the bottle cage. Included with the bike is a device roll and tube wrap to keep your spares helpful within the downtube, reducing the want to trip with a backpack.
Aside from the addition of a UDH, there’s or else number of radical variations to the Megatower’s body. Santa Cruz has trapped with 148mm Strengthen hub spacing, and you’ll still discover a typical IS headset, a threaded bottom bracket and ISCG05 chainguide tabs. Luckily there’s no funky cable routing via the headset, with the Megatower as a substitute relying on guided internal cable routing to make brake hose and cable replacement as simple as probable.
As is the case with all Santa Cruz types, there is a life span guarantee on the Megatower’s body and life span bearing replacement.
Geometry
Of training course the Santa Cruz Megatower receives slacker, for a longer period and steeper in all the destinations you’d expect — no surprises there. A additional fascinating development though is the incorporation of scaled rear centre sizing, with every frame measurement obtaining a specific rear centre length.
The swingarm alone is identical, even though by manipulating the area of the pivot points on the mainframe, Santa Cruz’ engineers are able to shorten or lengthen the distance concerning the BB and the rear axle. We initial observed this style included on the hottest 5010 and then the Bronson, but it is the very first time we have noticed it adopted on the Megatower.
Because of this, Santa Cruz has ditched the dropout flip chip, so there is no for a longer time any alternative to modify the chainstay duration. The frame maintains a flip chip in the reduce shock mount though, providing Substantial and Low geometry positions, albeit with a pretty little alter in angles and BB top involving the two configurations.
Santa Cruz Megatower selling price & specs
The new Santa Cruz Megatower will be obtainable in both C and CC carbon body solutions. There is at present no alloy model.
Entire bikes will feature SRAM groupsets, a Maxxis Assegai/Minion DHR II tyre combo, and a 170mm journey RockShox Zeb or Fox 38. There will also be air and coil shock selections, and Santa Cruz will be featuring the best-spec XX1 design with the RockShox Flight Attendant suspension method. We’re awaiting regional pricing and availability data from Santa Cruz’ Australian importer Lusty Industries, and we’ll update this posting as shortly as we have it. Do not hope that Flight Attendant product to be low-cost though…
