Santa Cruz brings back the Blur
Santa Cruz has relaunched an old stalwart, with a few modern twists. First introduced in 2002, the Blur was one of the US bike maker's first virtual pivot point (VPP) offerings, after almost a decade of sticking with single-pivot designs. It would eventually morph into one of the brand's first carbon fibre frames, before culminating in 2012 in a slightly ungainly long-travel 26-inch verson. It was dropped as the brand's Hightower 29er took away its reason for being.
Six years later, the Blur is back as a thoroughbred XC racer, with 100mm of rear travel and 29-inch wheels. Both front and rear triangles are made of one-piece carbon fibre structures, with a claimed frame weight of 2060g for its CC version, it's capable of being built into a SRAM X01 equipped race rig that weighs less than 10kg. For a 100mm dually? That's kinda nuts.
No front derailleur to be seen. There's a bumper on the downtube, and that's two sets of bottle mounts.
It's an interesting rig, this one; it mixes new school ideas like a deleted front derailleur and a long-ish reach/short stem front end, while retaining a threaded bottom bracket and two sets of bottle mounts. Santa Cruz says it'll take tyres up to 2.4 inches wide, as well as a 120mm travel fork.
In a world stuffed full of 140-160mm travel machines, a light, lithe and quck duallie still has a place, especially if you like to cover kilometres at speed. We've put a begging message in with our mates at Santa Cruz Australia for a ride, and we'll bring you a review as soon as we can.
The rear end will take a 29x2.4 tyre, according to Santa Cruz.
