Blur LT
Five Inches Of Travel And Right On The Money
Mountain Bike Action : Review By R. Cunningham
Santa Cruz planned the original Blur to be an all-purpose trailbike, but they soon discovered that half of the original Blur customers used the Virtual-Pivot Point suspension design for cross country racing, and the other fifty percent chose it because of its mistake-proof handling in technical situations. Most bike brands would be afraid to mess with success, but Santa Cruz halted production, and then redesigned the Blur into two distinct models: the XC, a lightweight cross-country racing version with reduced travel and narrower tubing, and the LT, with a beefed-up chassis, over five inches of travel and more aggressive geometry. This month, we test the Blur LT.
Meet the Blur LT
LT stands for long travel - 5.3 inches of smooth action in the rear and, depending upon your choice of builds, up to a six-inch-stroke fork. Our test bike used a Fox Racing Shox Float RLC slider with five inches of wheel travel and a cross-country component group based upon trail-proven Shimano Deore XT drivetrain and transmission components.
The Blur LT's silver, powder-coated, 6069, heat-treated aluminum chassis is expertly crafted using moderately over-sized tubes that are reinforced up front with three gussets. The new Blur follows lines similar to the original, with bent top tube to generate extra standover clearance and a swingarm braced by a single vertical strut on the non-drive side.
The VPP linkage rocks on sealed bearings. The lower link is forged aluminum, while the upper rocker is formed from a pair of titanium plates. Together, they give the triangulated aluminum swingarm its patented wheel path. The heart of the LT's suspension is a Fox Float RP3 air shock. The damper is equipped with an external air reservoir, used to create a more linear spring rate and to balance the action of the VPP linkage with the shock's damping curves.
New-Wave Numbers
Santa Cruz took a giant step away from conservative cross-country numbers when it penned the frame geometry for its big-travel Blur. For starters, the head angle is a relatively slack 69.5 degrees. Add an optional six-inch stroke fork and it relaxes the head angle even more. Its seat angle is 72.5 degrees and, in spite of its added suspension travel, the Blur LT's bottom bracket height is on the low side at 13.2 inches. The trend for cross-country trailbikes has been towards long top tubes, but the medium sized LT breaks this mold with an on-the-short-side, 22.5-inch measurement. A 100-millimeter stem makes up for the shorty cockpit, however, so there is plenty of breathing room for extended climbing. On paper, the end result of the Blur LT's numbers should produce a decidedly downhill-feeling bike, with sluggish steering and a tendency to wobble its way up steep climbs. But we would soon discover that this is not the case.
Putting the Blur LT Though it's Paces
Careful blending of the Blur LT's frame numbers kept the wheelbase from growing much past 42.5 inches. This is short enough to make the Santa Cruz feel very nimble at singletrack speeds, in spite of its stable steering geometry. The result is a chassis that can be cornered aggressively and with a high degree of certainty, from the slowest mountain switchback to the fastest you'd ever want to go around a fire road sweeper.
Turning on soft or irregular surfaces is a revelation aboard the Blur LT. The "neutral steering" that it exhibits keeps its wheels on line and following each other where most bikes would be hunting and sliding around. Once you learn to trust it, you can dive into any corner and simply figure it out from there. Of course, a lot of the Blur LT's cornering potential might not have been realized if our test bike were not equipped with wide Kenda Nevegal tires.
Climbing aboard the LT was not the stuff of dreams, but the Santa Cruz gets the job done in a pleasant manner. With the Fox shock's ProPedal in the center position, we could hammer away at the pedals without suffering adverse rear suspension movement. Gone is the earlier Blur's dull feeling while climbing at a smooth tempo. A subtle change in the VPP geometry firms up the suspension under power without transmitting the sensation to the pedals.
The Fox Float RLC fork will remain calm as long as you are pedaling in the saddle. Stand up and hammer, however, and the fork will dance to the rhythm of the pedals unless it is locked out. We avoid lockouts whenever possible, so we converted the Fox lockout into a stable platform damper by hacking the blue blow-off threshold knob below the right leg almost all the way out. Our secret trick gives the fork an on-the-fly pedaling platform option and allows it to suck up most of the bumps too. This option will save your bacon when you forget to switch the fork back on at the top of a descent.
Technical riding clearly illustrates that Santa Cruz somehow improved upon the nearly flawless rough-terrain performance of the original Blur. Tight, off-camber sections, impossible switchbacks and tightrope descents that have given us fits on virtually every other test bike often passed beneath the Blur LT's wheels unnoticed. Its second-generation trailbike geometry places the rider in the center of the chassis where it takes little or no body English to negotiate almost everything you'll find on a forest singletrack. The laid-back steering geometry, minimized top tube and slightly longer chainstay length work together in a manner that communicates the terrain to the rider's center of gravity, instead of forcing the rider to anticipate and move his weight for and aft to maintain equilibrium. Acceleration, climbing, descending and braking do not upset the balance of the chassis.
Mechanically we had little to complain about. Shimano's XT drivetrain with a conventional rear derailleur and trigger shifters are a far better choice for a rough and tumble trailbike than XTR because it weighs the same, its silver finish is unaffected by scratches, and its performance is equal to its more-expensive cousin. Avid Juicy's disc brakes ran trouble free, and test riders with non-standard-sized hands appreciated the engagement adjustment (red dials) on the levers. Santa Cruz boasts that the LT has ample tire clearance which it does in width, but not in height. The constraints of the VPP's triangulated swingarm cramp the space available over the top of the tire. If you ride where mud is an issue, you should seek smaller diameter tires than the 2.35 Nevegal knobbies our test Blur had. The clearance was tight enough to catch stones that were picked up by the tread. A little mud of the right consistency could stop the bike in its tracks.
MBA'S Bottom Line on the Blur LT
Many of us want an aggressive trailbike but see little or no merit in the latest crop of boat-heavy, big-hit bikes as a means to enjoy the precious few minutes of technical descending that most singletracks offer. The Blur is the perfect compromise because its technical handling is phenomenally good, but it still has a strong dose of that magic cross-country feel under acceleration and while climbing. The Blur LT is built tough enough to be an everyday ride, and its design is simple and pleasing to the eye. If you are looking for a modern replacement for a basic pro-level, do-it-all mountain bike, search no further. They don't get any better than the Blur LT.