Back in May Santa Cruz dropped the new Tallboy. I rode the bike then, and wrote my review. The bike was really good. I said so, and the Tallboy disappeared back to Santa Cruz. That’s how bike reviews work. But this time was different. This time I was sad, because I got along quite well with the Tallboy, and I had a summer full of riding ahead of me that I wanted to spend straddling that Santa Cruz.

So I cajoled the fine folks at the brand, and got my hands back on another Tallboy later in the summer. This time, instead of just riding it stock, I’ve been swapping bits around to better align the Tallboy to my personal riding style and the terrain in Bellingham, so we’ll dive into that a little. I’ll give some long-term updates on review components, and we’ll take a digression to talk about friendship and trail bikes.

Component Swaps and Review Updates

Out of the box the Tallboy has an absolutely appropriate build, and I rode it dead stock for that first review with no complaints. But for this second lap, I wanted to get everything perfectly dialled. So I started with the cockpit where I threw on a set of 50 millimeter rise OneUp bars. These are still my jam, I still want to run them on pretty much every bike. I also swapped on some thin Ergon GDH grips and an atrocious combination of bar ends and handguards that we’ll get into later.

I swapped the brakes to SRAM Mavens front and rear. Motives are the “right” brake for the Tallboy, but for the type of riding I plan to do on it, the Maven is a better choice. The guy who had this Tallboy before me had pulled the stock dropper to run his own, so I slipped a 225 millimeter Reverb in instead of re-routing the cable to the (excellent) stock OneUp dropper.

Finally, the biggest change happened with the wheels. Gulo’s GMT 30 wheels are light, feel really good, and are a great match for the Tallboy. The stock Reserve options are fine, but saving wheel weight is always great, and I really dig the stiff but not chattery ride feel of the GMT 30. 

I also swapped the rear tire for a Rekon. Again, dual Forkasters are the “right” call for this bike, but for the dead of summer, the Rekon rolls faster. I’ll probably throw a Dissector on the front, and the Forkaster on the back when things get danker here in the fall.

All of those changes combined to make the bike’s sprung weight a little heavier, and its unsprung weight a little lighter, with the net impression being of a slightly snappier ride that’s also more upright, with more capable brakes. I’m a big fan of this configuration.

A Glimpse of the Future

The elephant in the room that this piece isn't going to fully address is that I think the Tallboy might be the most capable and confidence inspiring trail bike I've ever ridden. This bike is exceptional. With Mavens and burlier tires I'd happily ride just about any trail in the greater Bellingham area on this bike. I can imagine a world in which I only rode a Tallboy and a DH bike. I wouldn't be quite as fast as I am on an enduro bike, but this bike it remarkably capable.

But, for this piece, I kept my riding to by-the-book Tallboy-appropriate trails, with Tallboy appropriate tires, and then later this fall I'll do a followup once I've spent more time in basher mode.

Big Stupid Rides and the Tallboy

What’s the point though? What’s the point of all these bikes and components and reviewing? I was at a press camp recently where the conversation had strayed so far into leverage curve nerdery and performance-focused pedantry that I felt embarrassed to be a mountain biker. “Isn’t this the dirtbag dream?” a fellow editor asked, while reclining on the grass, after a guided ride that cost god knows how much, eating a lunch paid for by the brand. Nah. It’s not. This stuff is fun, but it’s not the point. So here’s a bit that doesn’t belong in a bike review.

Back in January one of my best riding buddies broke his back, riding. He took it like a champ, kept his chin up, did his rehab, drove shuttle, and put up with our bike-focused chatter. And then he got back on the bike, gently and carefully at first. As part of that ramp up, I helped set him up with his first “XC-ish” bike in ages. Watching him realize how good modern little bikes are, how fast they go uphill, and how capably they descend was one of the highlights of my summer.

As he came back into the rotation of “folks you text when you’ve got an afternoon or a weekend free for a ride” I realized how much I’d missed riding with him. There’s a lot to be said for people who just message you “bikes tonight?” and then set up a time and a place with zero faff. There’s even more to be said for folks you can ride with for a few days every week, chatting the whole time and never feeling at a loss for words. And when one of those people gets benched for a bit, the rest of the roster can keep things together, but there’s a definite hole. I was stoked to be back riding with my friend, but also, it made me acutely aware of how much riding with him I missed this summer.

So I texted my buddy as I walked into The Odyssey: “Want to do the Land of the Lost 100 in three weeks?” Land of the Lost is a big sort-of-race put on by WES (Washington Endurance Series). It’s 100 kilometers and 12ish thousand feet of climbing on mostly-singletrack in the Chuckanuts here in Bellingham. It’s techy and janky and hard and so, so fun. While I was at the movie, not checking my phone, he talked himself into it, even though neither of us were anywhere near being in shape, and even though he was getting married in the (quite short) time before the race.

We didn’t really train at all. I went for a ride without kneepads, to get used to it, and crashed onto my knees in the first five miles and then went home. He got married and we danced the night away instead of hydrating and training. We talked about maybe just putting really fast tires on to make up for our lack of fitness, and then didn’t. Instead, we made a couple of small adjustments to the official route so that we could climb a little extra, and then descend a more technical trail that we’d helped build. And we put on brush guards, because the course is generally brushy, and that trail we’d helped build hasn’t been getting much maintenance.

When the race started we were determined not to get caught up in the mad rush. We didn’t have any extra matches to burn, so we settled into a mellow pace with a couple of other friends. We cruised through the first third, making stupid jokes, delighted at how fun these techy trails were on little bikes. I joked that Santa Cruz paid for some folks to race the Whistler Back 40 to hype the Tallboy launch, but they hadn’t paid my (free) entry fee for this race. Regardless, the Tallboy was the right bike for the job. If I was a racer, I’d have wanted to be on the new Blur, but I’m not, and I didn’t.

The miles and the dust stacked up, and internally, I kept wondering when I was going to blow up, when it was all going to fall apart. Instead, the conversation kept us moving, and while we were far from fast, there was never uncertainty. There was never any indication that quitting was on the table, or that we couldn’t handle the rest of the ride, or that maybe this was a bad idea.

As we were cresting the last climb, my partner texted me, worried. She’d done the race as well, much faster, and Find My Friends indicated that we were still deep in the woods. We laughed at her. My phone was glitching, and we were almost done. The light was golden, and the dust from every schralp lingered glittering between the ferns. We sat to rest before the last descent, and I felt so empty of sweat and energy, and so full of love for my friends, for bikes, for these trails. I wasn’t coherent, but I gushed about how much I’d missed riding with my buddy, how the day had helped make up for all those lost conversations and hours on the bike, how I’d almost written off having this sort of experience with him.

And then we dropped in, and he rode like he always has, making the bike dance, slapping into corners unnecessarily, in that way that makes riding bikes look so fun, and makes me want to make poor decisions. We parted ways downtown, waving goodby as we turned to pedal towards our respective homes. The college kids were crowded in line to the bars, and we were filthy, exhausted, and overjoyed.

I went to bed early, and woke back up around midnight, starving. I ordered McDonalds, and ate it crouched naked in the living room like Gollum devouring a raw fish. And then the next day I got on a plane and spent ten hours in the middle seat of an international flight, trying not to cramp up.

And none of that has any point to include in a bike review. It doesn’t reveal some subtlety in how the Tallboy relates to its competitors, or how its engineers designed it to ride. It doesn’t help with your purchasing decisions, or with my social standing. But it does get at the point of the Tallboy. For me, it’s the bike that disappears the best. It’s the bike that lets me focus on the important things about mountain biking, the trails and the people, instead of dorking out about the gear. That’s such a gift, and I’m thankful for it.

Next time I write about the Tallboy I’ll swap some more parts around, and have more tech talk to spew. But for now, it’s the best rig for mountain biking I’ve been on, and you should get off the computer and go ride your bike.

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