The new Santa Cruz Tallboy now has 140mm of fork travel and 130mm in the rear, but the most prominent change with the V6 Tallboy is its departure from the VPP suspension platform that has been synonymous with the brand for as long as I can remember.
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Along with the 4-bar suspension layout, the frame has also undergone some weight-saving measures to make it more efficient across all types of terrain. The sixth-generation Tallboy retains the downtube storage, the hi/lo flip chip, and the same do-it-all spirit that was so beloved on the last generation.
Coming in just CC options for the frame, and each size gets proportional geometry, so that no matter what size you ride, the bike feels the same while sitting on the new 4-bar layout. But why did Santa Cruz choose to switch things up for their new take on a classic trail bike?
Well, as Santa Cruz puts it: Four-bar systems can easily achieve a low anti-squat, which means minimal pedal kickback on square-edge hits and remain active while pedaling up and across rough, technical terrain. They exhibit fantastic performance while braking on steep, rough terrain, isolating the rider from the harshness of and maintaining traction at all times. Which means the bike (and subsequently, the rider) can be consistently composed while riding the hardest trails. This is all common knowledge to anyone who has been riding 4-bar bikes and loving them. It’s simple, effective, and just works. Not perfect, but depending on what you want a bike to do, it’s pretty damn versatile.
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“We used a four-bar layout on our ebikes initially to make the bikes ride the way we wanted while fitting a full-power drive unit,” reads the literature on the Santa Cruz website. “For the Tallboy, we were really looking for a very different feel than the previous versions, and we were able to fine-tune the kinematics to get what we wanted: a moderately progressive suspension that eats bumps while being spritely and sporty. The low anti-rise and lower anti-squat result in a bike that’s very controlled under braking, and allows you to pedal through roots and rocks without causing any hiccups or losing traction. On top of that, it allowed us to reduce weight and improve seatpost insertion. Big wins all around.”
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The V6 Tallboy comes in four build kits, and is available as a frameset with a shock for $3,899.. For $5,899, you can get the Tallboy CC frame with Eagle 90 and more budget-oriented components. Stepping up a tier to $6,999 gets you SRAM GX Transmission and alloy Reserve rims laced to DT Swiss hubs. The second-highest build kit runs $7,499 and features Shimano XT Di2, SRAM Maven brakes, and the same Reserve alloy wheels, but laced to DT Swiss DEG DF hubs. The top spec is a $9,299 and comes equipped with SRAM XO AXS Transmission and carbon Reserve rims laced to DT Swiss DEG DF hubs.
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