New Santa Cruz Tallboy 2026: Horst Link Rumors & Model History

For most brands, a flagship bike doesn’t change all that much from one generation to the next. We typically see small tweaks and refinements that make it better and more modern. Recently, some spy shots surfaced of what we speculate is a new, very different-looking Santa Cruz Tallboy. This prompted me to dig into the Tallboy’s past and present to see how far the bikes have come and speculate on what’s next for the Santa Cruz Tallboy.

From 2009 to now, the Tallboy has seen many changes, and if the leaked image is the latest Tallboy, this might be the most drastic change yet for the short-travel trail bike. The last update was in 2022, but many are guessing that the next iteration might move away from the VPP suspension design toward a more traditional 4-bar Horst-link design without flex-stays.

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The Santa Cruz Tallboy could be seen as the bike that convinced the “wagon wheel” skeptics to put down the pitchforks and embrace the larger rim. The Tall Fella has been through five iterations, evolving from a tentative XC racer into a “long travel” version, to a short-travel trail bike that some might call XC. I think most of us just call this a mountain bike. Semantics aside, let’s take a trip down memory lane – one lined with threaded bottom brackets, VPP links, and the gradual death of the 71-degree head angle.

Tallboy 1 (2009 – 2013)

Before the Tallboy, 29ers were seen as a strange new fad. This “wagon wheel” was laughed at, and many died on the hill defending the opinion that 29” would never catch on, and it’s honestly embarrassing to look back on how many people felt this way. Then, in 2009, Santa Cruz dropped the Tallboy 1.

It sported 100mm of travel and a – hold your breath – 71-degree head angle. You don’t even see head tube angles that tight on the Stigmata these days, but hey, it worked back then. It used the upper-link-driven VPP layout, which gave it a snappy, efficient feel and made it a “Bible of Bike Tests” darling. It was the first 29er that didn’t feel like a compromise; it felt like an advantage. It wasn’t just fast; it was actually fun.

• HTA: 71°
• STA: 73°
• Rearcenter: 444.5mm
• Travel: 100mm rear / 100mm to 120mm front

Tallboy LT 1 (2012-2015)

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This was a weird one, but honestly ahead of its time. Despite the age, it was rocking a dropper post, 135mm of rear wheel travel, 130mm to 150mm forks, a 69.4° head tube angle, and 450.1mm chainstays on all sizes. I don’t think the world was quite ready for what Santa Cruz was cooking with the Tallboy LT 1, but there’s no denying that this was a sign of what was to come for the humble short-travel trail bike.

• HTA: 69.4°
• STA: 72.6°
• Rearcenter: 450.1mm
• Travel: 135mm rear / 130mm to 150mm front

Tallboy 2 (2013-2016)

If the V1 was the breakout hit, the Tallboy 2 was the refined “Sophomore” album. Santa Cruz didn’t want to mess with the formula that was already printing money. The travel stayed at 100mm, but the frame got stiffer, lighter (shaving about 1/4 pound), and more efficient. It got marginally slacker and was certainly more capable than the first swing. 

This was the start of the “XC/Trail” blur. You’d see this bike on the starting line of a marathon race one day and being sent down tech singletrack the next. It was the “Bacon of 29ers” – it made everything better. But the industry was changing, and the “Enduro” storm was building.

• HTA: 70.2°
• STA: 72.3°
• Rearcenter: 445.2mm
• Travel: 100mm rear / 100mm to 120mm front

Tallboy 3 (2016 – 2019)

The Tallboy 3 is where things got weird. This was the era of “Boost” spacing and the “Plus” tire craze. Santa Cruz bumped the rear travel to 110mm and slackened the head angle even further to 68 degrees.

The V3 was a pivot point. It introduced a flip-chip, allowing riders to swap between 29-inch wheels and those chunky 27.5+ tires that we all collectively obsessed over for about eighteen months before realizing they were just heavy and unpredictable. But more importantly, it moved the Tallboy away from the XC tape and toward the trail category. It was longer and lower, and finally felt like it could handle a dropper post and a 130mm fork without feeling like it was on stilts, while still offering the option of a front derailleur.

• HTA: 68°
• STA: 73°
• Rearcenter: 432mm
• Travel: 110mm rear / 120mm to 130mm front

Tallboy 4 (2019-2022)

Then came the V4. This wasn’t an evolution; it was a total rebuild. Santa Cruz took the lower-link VPP design from their big-hitting Nomad and Megatower and shrunk it down. They pushed the travel to 120mm, slackened the head angle to 65.7 degrees, and introduced size-specific seat-tube angles.

In 2019, people called this “downcountry.” I called it “the bike everyone actually needs.” By moving the shock to the lower link, the leverage curve became more progressive, giving the bike a “bottomless” feel that 120mm bikes simply shouldn’t have. It became a bike that climbed well, but descended with the confidence of VPP efficiency. This is where things started getting really good.

• HTA: 65.7°
• STA: 76.X°
• Rearcenter: 430mm
• Travel: 120mm rear / 130mm to 140mm front

Tallboy 5 (2022-Current)

This is where we sit today. It’s not “downcountry” or Cross-Country; it’s something special, and a category of mountain bike that I have really begun to appreciate over the last few years. It’s a short travel trail bike that feels like the right tool for most jobs. Santa Cruz has settled with the V10-inspired suspension layout, but kept the geometry tight and tidy for long climbs.

Santa Cruz put flip-chips (hi/lo) and downtube storage on the latest Tallboy, and also moved to size-specific chainstay lengths that also shift with the flip-chips. They didn’t mess with travel and kept the same VPP linkage because it works. This is what a modern trail bike is these days.

• HTA: 65.7°/65.5° (hi/lo)
• STA: 76.3°/76° (hi/lo)
• Rearcenter: 430 – 444mm (depending on size and hi/lo setting)
• Travel: 120mm rear / 130mm to 140mm front

What’s Next?

Looking back across the lineage, the Tallboy’s journey is a microcosm of mountain bike history. We went from 71 degrees to 65.5. We went from “climbing is everything” to “if it doesn’t ride everything, I don’t want it.”

It’s hard to find many faults with the current generation Tallboy. It’s got everything to check the boxes of a bike designed to ride whatever, and the soul is there. It’s a bike that rewards an active rider – someone who wants to pop off roots rather than plow through them, or go up and down, then do it all over again.

The Tallboy V1 proved that 29ers could work. The V4 proved that 120mm is often “just enough.” But could this next version show a deviation away from the VPP that Santa Cruz has been sticking with up until the most recent crop of eMTBs? The spy shots strongly suggest that this might be the case, as the spotted bike sure seems close to production.

Whether you’re looking at an OG carbon V1 in a garage or a modern V5 on the trail, the Tallboy remains a reminder that a well-designed bike doesn’t fear the passage of time or a few extra wheel inches.