Santa Cruz Blur
There have been rumors, whispered around the watercoolers of the workplace, spoken in hushed tones behind the bike shop on Friday nights. Tales of mediocre bike handlers suddenly progressing their skills and floating wheelies through rock gardens on their new bikes. Stories of average folk getting a Blur and cleaning gnarly technical climbs as if they’d had the genes of a Colombian spliced into their DNA. Rumors, maybe. But they have to start somewhere.
6069 aluminum tubing with 4.5 inches of rear wheel travel filtered through our superlative VPP linkage and a Progressive 5th Element air shock. Sealed cartridge bearing pivots. Frame weight at a scant 5.6 pounds, including shock. Butterfly light, but boasting more lateral and torsional rigidty than any of the pretenders out there. Climbs like a monkey, sprints like a fiend, downhills like an anvil. What is it? Extreme XC? The Ultimate Mountain Goat? Freeride-Lite? The Best Trailbike Ever? All of the above? Blur. Where the boundaries between disciplines get a little fuzzy.