Review: Santa Cruz Hightower

[Riaan H]

A mate of mine has one, and it's a beautiful bike. Just can't see myself spending R100k on a bike that will make me even slower everywhere except the toughest and roughest downhill sections. A Tallboy ticks all the boxes for me, but a Camber is still better value

[fusion01]

100mm head tube length is ****. Unless you do as this review does and slam your bars. And then I'd cut that hideous steerer tube (sticking up now like an antenna) off --- but then hope it doesn't bite you in the ass if / when you want to sell that fork separately!

 

If you want reasonable height from your bars (without running some high-rise stem, circa 2000!) then you end up with endless (30mm plus) steerer tube below your stem which just ruins a nice looking bike. And weakens the front end actually with more flex, nothing is as strong as the frame itself.

 

My point is a large 29" should have a 120mm head tube, especially on a trail bike such as this. A marathon machine I'd consider 110mm / 115mm reasonable.

 

But then I don't work for SC.

[stefmeister]

100mm head tube length is ****. Unless you do as this review does and slam your bars. And then I'd cut that hideous steerer tube (sticking up now like an antenna) off --- but then hope it doesn't bite you in the ass if / when you want to sell that fork separately!

 

If you want reasonable height from your bars (without running some high-rise stem, circa 2000!) then you end up with endless (30mm plus) steerer tube below your stem which just ruins a nice looking bike. And weakens the front end actually with more flex, nothing is as strong as the frame itself.

 

My point is a large 29" should have a 120mm head tube, especially on a trail bike such as this. A marathon machine I'd consider 110mm / 115mm reasonable.

 

But then I don't work for SC.

Not exactly following your argument in digging out this old thread.

But a shorter headtube is more favourable on long travel 29ers. The stack height is sometimes just too much for shorter riders. One can even argue on larger frames as well if one would wish to upsize to a bike with longer reach.

There are also riser bars for those that need more height upfront, plus it looks tits especially compared to flat xc bars.

 

 

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Edited December 27, 2017 by stefmeister

[Mitch2]

New versions of both Hightower LT and Hightower on their way 

There are insistant talks that both could be presented in May at the Sea Otter in California.