As you have all undoubtedly heard, Santa Cruz Bicycles has continued the trend of modifying their current lineup with sexier, lighter carbon frames. The V10 looks amazing...enough said.
---
By Mike Ferrentino
There have been rumors floating around for a while now about a carbon v-10 downhill bike, and the level of speculation has run the gamut from badly photo shopped alloy v-10s with carbon weave laid on the image to some very astute guesswork. None of the rumor-mongering or speculation was created by us, since we have been really busy spitting out other bikes and haven't had the time nor the organizational chops to pull together a subversive, anti-marketing, marketing campaign. Instead, we kept things tightly sealed for as long as we could, then let Dirt Magazine's's favorite Welshman have the scoop.
Anyway, there is a new carbon v-10 in the works. The Syndicate is in Lousa, Portugal right now testing the bike, and will be throwing it into the crucible of race competition at the Lisboa downtown event, followed by what is shaping up to be a ripper of a world cup season. Aside from Greg Minnaar squeezing in a few rides in California before heading to Portugal, this testing is the first time any of the syndicate riders have swung a leg over the new bike. It's also the first time the engineers have had anything other than some test lab samples to play with.
We've attached the specs and geo for the new bike, along with a basic crib sheet of the differences. it is a very different bike than the v-10 preceding it. In addition to the carbon front triangle, the bike now uses a driver 8 swingarm, can be adjusted between 8.5 and 10 inches of travel, and has an adjustable head angle independent of the travel adjustment. Most of the details contained in the crib sheet are pretty solid, but please understand that this is a work in progress, and that there is always the possibility that some of this info will be different by the time the bike is available to the public.
Regarding public availability? Yes, one day. Don't expect to see any of the new bikes before Interbike though. Similarly, pricing and color options are still being worked on. As they say in the car commercials - "specifications subject to change without notice."
That's it for now folks, but we'll let you know as soon as we get further word.
