V10
Dirt Magazine : 2
Jan / Feb 2002 : Part 1
When any bike manufacturer brings out a new model, there is always a bit of a stir. When that company is regarded as one of the leaders in its field, the interest increases. And when the bike in question has been under constant development for around 2 years and utilises old technology with a modern twist, people can get very excited.
Well, here it is. The Santa Cruz V-10. First one in the UK. As an added bonus, our test bike came with the all new Progressive Suspension ‘5th Element’ shock (so called because it has 5 different adjustments).
You may also notice that the Boxxers on the front of this rig have very pimpy gold nitride coated stanchions. These will also be available next season – but only on Santa Cruz bikes. B*stards!
Right, so much for all the info. I’m going to ride the thing. No technical crap, no geeky graphs (that shit comes later) – just go and ride it.
You know how it feels when you jump onto a bike for the first time and everything feels just right, that’s how I felt when I first rode the V10. Straight out of the van the V10 was already looking like a pro World Cup bike. The first thing I noticed was how light it was. I had seen that it had ten inches of travel and how strong it looked and was expecting it to be quite heavy. I found the Super8 was light but amazingly enough the V10 is lighter, mainly due to the shock and its titanium spring. I had already had the opportunity to ride the Mark 1 V10s in Mont St. Anne, so I had been looking forward to giving the lighter and plusher production bike with the Fifth Element shock a try.
First of all I have got to say how good it looked, every aspect of the bike looked stunning, the paint job on the frame matching up with the forks, the titanium nitride fork legs, the black Titec bar and stem - it just looked the bollox.
The medium(17”) sized frame felt comfortable and safe, because of the shock and the positioning of the pivot it has a very low centre of gravity. I’m not sure what the optimum height is for the bottom bracket, but the V10’s felt like it was high enough to keep your pedals away from the ground but low enough to give you plenty of confidence on high speed turns , the same with the head angle, not too steep and not too slack, just right.
When you get on and pedal this thing you become amazed with it all over again. I don’t know what it is but it just wants to go forward, the back end seems to so planted no matter what gear you are in and each pedal stroke feels so positive, unlike any other bike with more than four inches of travel – let alone ten. No matter how many times I look at the V10 or told about how it works, I don’t think I will ever be able to understand it, but it does exactly what it says on the tin, ha ha.
It feels comfortable to ride fast or slow, but you know when you ride the V10 its just begging you to pedal it through a gnarly rocky section so it can eat it all up, which it does. Even on the rockiest sections of the test track, and it was damn rocky, the back wheel just stuck to the ground, it didn’t buck or get knocked off line, it just sat there waiting for the next pedal stroke. A lot of this is due to the floating calliper system for the rear brake. Floating callipers have rarely been seen on mountain bikes up until now, with the exception of Foes. This basically means the suspension remains completely unaffected by rear braking – no matter how much of the lever you grab. We noticed a second mounting position for the floating arm which turned out to be a semi-floating setting that can be used in extreme situations to compress the rear end under braking, giving increased traction. Especially useful on tracks like Fort William where keeping the rear wheel glued is vital.
The Fifth element shock is another thing that is totally beyond my thoughts, but I do know it has transformed a great bike, that I rode earlier on in the season which was running a fox shock, into the best bike I have ever ridden. And probably will be for a long time. If you can find a bike that has ten inches of travel, is light and pedals like an XC bike then buy it. It’ll be a V10.The V10 will be available Feb 2002.