Santa Cruz Bikes

Syndicate Welcomes New Partners

Santa Cruz, CA

The crowning of Steve Peat as 2009 World Champion put an exclamation point on the Santa Cruz Syndicate's domination of the downhill arena for the past few years. Peat's 2009 season put him in the history books - 17 career World Cup downhill wins, 50 World Cup career downhill podiums and finally the elusive championship - and he alongside teammate Greg Minnaar pushed the Syndicate to the pinnacle of success. Minnaar won three World Cup downhills in his first season aboard the Santa Cruz V-10 and captured the UCI World Cup overall in 2008. He continued his charge in 2009, winning three more World Cup races, thus scoring 6 of his 11-career World Cup wins during his two-year stint with the Syndicate. Young gun Josh Bryceland's contributions to the squad with his Junior World Championship title in 2008 and 13th overall World Cup performance in '09 has made the Syndicate the UCI #1 Downhill Team for two years in a row.

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Jamie Goldman reports from Whitestyle

I've now been to Austria a handful of times and until now I've only visited in the summer months. This past week I got to travel there in the winter for a snow slopestyle. It was amazing. Huge 40+ foot jumps with lips as tall as a house. Riding into them for the first time was simply scary. Once you found yourself on the landing it was the best feeling you could have. Going up the lip you would feel your speed decelerating more and more and you had to wonder if you had too much speed or too little speed. The great thing was that the landings were all a mile long and if you over jumped it was just adding to your amplitude and for the most part was just as smooth as landing at the top. I took a pretty hard case in practice and decided that jumping farther was clearly the best option... and the most fun!! Some of the gaps could be made 10- 15 ft. bigger just by going faster and were still smooth.

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Team Syncros Endurance link up with Santa Cruz

Article by BikeRadar

British mountain bike team Extreme Endurance are to become Team Syncros Endurance after signing a new sponsorship deal.

"Santa Cruz UK were involved when I started the team and to have them back in the mix is awesome."

The squad, founded by ultra-endurance record breaker and multiple 12- and 24-hour solo race winner Rob Lee, will ride Santa Cruz Blur XC bikes kitted out with Syncros components.

The other team members are GB Coast-to-Coast record holder and masters 24-hour solo world champion Rich Rothwell, 2009 Relentless24 senior solo winner Josh Ibbett, Welsh Coast-to-Coast record holder Dave Buchanan, endurance racer Scott Cornish and downhill racer Clive Forth.

Lee said: “It feels good to have the backing of these two companies that really get what we do. Santa Cruz UK were involved when I started the team and to have them back in the mix is awesome. Syncros make some amazing high-end products that any racer would be envious of.

“That backing, mixed with our team, which has gone from strength-to-strength with each passing season and currently boasts some of the top soloists in the country, can only mean fireworks when the major races start.”

We'll bring you news and pictures of the new team kit when it is launched in February 2010.

Team Syncros Endurance

Winter Training, Syndicate Style

railroad jumps from Jamie Goldman on Vimeo.

Joe's Corner : Floaters

I was reminded recently by Gerald out at the Bike Doctor in Saskatoon that I had mentioned that I would talk about "floating shocks" in one of these articles, and I never got back to it. I hate disappointing the Canadians, especially when they need something to read on those long dark cold winter nights.

To float or not to float? That is the question.

First the definition: A "floating shock" is a frame configuration where the shock isn't attached to a part that doesn't move. In practical terms, this means the shock is not attached to the front triangle directly. In most permutations of this, one end of the shock is attached to the swing-arm, and the other end of it is attached to a link.

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More Shiny, More Tough

"We could probably do a real good job of representing how monumentally awesome this clear coat will be, get some mad studio shots, polish them in photoshop, and just go over the top in making these glossier than lipstick on a hooker. But it's the last couple hours before we break for xmas, and all we managed to get together was this kinda blurry shot taken by someone we suspect to be under the influence. Even still, you can see that the new clear coat (left) makes things brighter and more shiny. It's a good thing, really. You'll dig it. And we promise to spring some better photos on the blog once we get our noses back to the grindstone in January.."

Another thing we've been wrestling with for a while now has been getting around to applying clear coats on top of our powdercoat finish. Done right, this will make our final product tougher, longer lasting and more lustrous. All good things. But not as easy to do as you might think.
Frames have to be prepped, sprayed, baked, let cool, then sprayed again, then baked again. This ends up increasing the time and complexity involved in running frames through Victor's capable hands, and in this case it meant we had to buy a new bake oven and then figure out where the hell to put the thing. But it is done, almost all wired up, and you should expect to see a subtle shift in the finish of the bikes coming out of here, starting about now.

Josh 'ratboy' Bryceland goes for a haircut

Our Cool Wheel-Lacing Machine

This is how we lace our wheels, first the machine, then the man, perfect wheels everytime.

Untitled from santa cruz bikes on Vimeo.

Syndicate's Goldman Back In Action, 3rd At Rock D'Azur

Rock D'Azur, France

"Ding...ding...ding....ding...the song of the alarm clock goes off and I know it's gonna be a long trip to Europe. With a 7-hour layover at each stop of my trip Adrienne and I decided that we were going to make the best we could out of our flight. Upon arrival in San Francisco we went straight to the Bart train and headed into the city. I have always gone to baseball and motocross events there but I have never actually just walked around and been a tourist. We walked out to the edge of the piers and looked at Alcatraz, the old jail on an island in the middle of the bay, and walked for about 5 or 6 miles just looking at the city and all the beautiful buildings and boats. It's weird how you can live so close to somewhere your entire life and never actually explore it until you move away.

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Joe's Corner : Bearings

We work continuously to improve our bikes. There are small changes that occur to our models regularly that many people don't notice, and we don't focus on communicating the specifics. Our philosophy has always been to let the results speak for themselves - jargon isn't as much fun as riding. At the same time, we're proud of the work we do, and since you volunteered to receive more information about Santa Cruz Bikes, we've decided to dedicate a regular article in this newsletter to share with our dealers and customers more of the specific details. Keep in mind that we really spend a lot of time balancing compromises to get the best outcome. This article is intended to be an open and honest discussion of some of the technical aspects of Santa Cruz engineering and R&D efforts. Our hope is that you, our customers, can gain a better understanding of what we're working on, our thoughts on different trends in the industry, and, quite frankly, attempt to cut through some of the industry noise with open discourse all in the interest of making bikes that are fun to ride and easy to own.

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