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I posted this to address a similar comment in the article comments, but will also share here.
'I only say this to address this comment, as my feedback might be deceiving. I'm likely riding a bike well beyond an acceptable tuning limit for mass consumption. I don't ride like that 24/7 because it's plain unsustainable for me at this stage in life, but when my appetite surpasses self preservation I can dip in there. So, take my comments about my experience with the rear suspension on the Tallboy with a grain of salt.
For reference, I'm finding that the Pike feels correct for me and my riding style at about 87psi with H/L comp in the middle, whereas on the fork setup decal it suggests 70ish psi for my weight.'
You can run a coil on any leverage rate and never have to worry about bottoming out if you're willing to run a stiff enough spring. Pop a cool 700 or 800 pounder on that Tallboy 6 and I bet bottom outs won't be a problem.
Need more time and to swap out some parts to give a good answer. Honestly right now it feels like I'm mostly demoing the DD tires so far, because those are the most noticeable difference in the ride feel between the new Nomad and my personal bike. Need to get some control tires on there for comparison. So far 85% of what I feel on the trail feels like it's just the current suspension setup or the tires. The other 15% is contact points (saddle shape and position, bar sweep, grips, Q-factor, etc).
I’m sure people get popped from time to time, but maybe there are some in mtb with big enough names to have the Lance effect. That dude could juice while pissing in a cup and pass, he had the power, influence, and money to make it happen.
I don’t think pro mtb guys are making anywhere close to the money most European roadie team guys make though… those roadie teams currently pay damn near pro-baseball team level contracts. And that’s before the sponsorship money from anything they wear or ride comes in. They can afford to dope much easier, and can afford a doctor who knows how to properly cycle to pass those tests.
In my experience, if I can keep my speed up then full 29er every day. 32T chainring is usually fine for mullet, 29er it’s a matter of how strong I am that year and if I need the 30T or not.
I’m in central CT and most of my riding is slower speed stuff. I love the awkward tech riding where it takes a few tries to get my lines down. Tons of rocks and roots.
All my bikes are 27.5 rear wheels because I am rough on equipment, partially me but also rocky trails with lots of wheel smashers. I’ll take the hit in climbing speed to get an extra several months out of a rear rim. I’m also 51, so the added dh rolling speed of full 29 isn’t as addictive as it used to be LOL
They were, I think at a factory called Pacific that started getting huge folding bike orders in China, so their attention to detail wrt Evil's orders plummeted. They had major alignment issues and were DGAF about fixing it. The carbon frame still had issues with breakage, but it sure looked good. Somewhere out there, there's footage of Brook snapping one off a big drop during training for a WC.
Sure I remember hearing things were that bad they were buying back customers bikes to give to the WC team as they were going through so many... Not sure how true it is and that is a LONG time ago!
Yeah there was some kind of flaw with the tubing and the bikes would basically bend and you could see them crease in the top tube....pretty sure they were all guaranteed to eventually fail the same way!
Mullet trail bikes will often climb so well before the effective gear is smaller. Depending on where you are it can be a wee benefit.
So far as push saying no to building shocks they don’t think would work well for the application? I don’t get how that’s unhelpful, it’s probably the opposite. Building something you don’t think will meet your own standards or performance goals seems like a recipe for poor experience and service.
Maybe Im missing something but how in the right mind is a company like Santa Cruz releasing a bike with very little travel, high price point, and the rear shock comes stock with all of its tokens in use? If you needed more resistance youre just up shit creek until Cascade makes something? Im genuinely so confused how they go from a well done VPP to a simple 4 bar and screwed that up when every other company can do it. Like who signed off on this?
I mean I feel like they are trying to keep that xc feel on the pedals and more of a trail bike feel off the pedals. Seems like they are using the shock/kinematics In conjunction to pull that off.
While I think in general it’s better to design a bike around a pretty neutral shock tune and a linear spring rate. It makes it far easier for people to tune to their preferences. But I’d really have to try the bike before saying Santa Cruz didn’t pull off something awesome even if it require you to use a specifically tuned shock with a very progressive spring rate for it to work best.
At the end of the day you purchase a shock with the frame. If it works, it works.
In Push’s defense, the Specialized bikes with the Clevis design were not kind to Coil shocks so I wasn’t surprised they didn’t want to make a one-off for me. I really only had the idea to ask them after I saw they made a baby 11.6 for the Revel Ranger.
Apologies in advanced if I'm just late to the party, but has someone already stated what that cable coming out of, what I would normally assume is a Reverb controller, is for? Caught my eye with each viewing. Seems a wee bit odd, or all those undiagnosed concussions as a kid are catching up to me.
The accountants
Super weird that it took him that long to admit it was a mistake, and only in the comments, and still doesn't seem to have an actual number for the RMU.
Someone who remembers better than I do probably knows more, but his practice of patenting something and then throwing out lawsuits at seemingly every non DW bike has been called into question.
FYI for those that want to nerd on the Evil bike there is a closer up pic of the linkage in the NW Cup writeup:
https://www.vitalmtb.com/community/NW%20Cup/blog/05/19/2026/entry/148326
I think it’s a good platform to test a Cane Creek Tigon.
so it's either the new Insurgent or it's got an Insurgent shock
Jeff Kendalweed said the Santa Cruz rep brought volume reducers for him but he was happy with whatever’s in there stock, so I wouldn’t assume Santa Cruz fucked up until we get some more reviews/users actually saying they have issues. The price does make the bike a hard sell when there are so many cheaper 4 bar bikes that ride really well.
You have to remember the true target market of this bike....if you really need that much extra resistance then a Tallboy is the wrong bike for you, full stop. The forum guys wanting to run a coil shock are a niche of a niche type of mountain biker so they aren't going to design the bike with that in mind. I also don't think its that far off, and they maybe chose to ship it with that shock spec so people can easily remove the spacers if that need to.
And plenty of people have run coil shocks in bikes with less travel and progression and they ride great - sure theres a trade off but as mentioned before if you can't give up some bottoming resistance then you shouldn't have bought a tallboy to begin with?
I will also chime in here as a bigger rider that does enjoy this style of bike... a more linear feel like that is ideal because of the pressures I need to run. Otherwise bikes get WAY too progressive for larger riders. Easier to add tokens than be left with none to take out and then still be way too progressive.
one of my favorite bikes was the strive... specifically because after the Vital review from Robot etc. they said it was way too linear and had to add spacers. I got on it and rode absolutely perfect for me.
Amen to this.
Seems like they made a great bike for it's intended use, I'm sure they will sell a bunch of them and the owners will enjoy riding them. If it ain't the bike for you, there will be another bike out there that suits you better.
So like the Epic has, according to the marketing, a fairly unique, “large”, bottom out bumper. It actually feels fine, does feel progressive, and it’s needed in that setup. Are there similar bumper options for the common air shocks from Fox and rockshox that users can install or is that just a coil thing? If not why is that?
I know some old Fox float shocks seemed to just be using an o-ring as a “bumper”, wouldn’t real bumpers for air shocks be a cool tuning option instead of volume reducers? It would seem like a pretty cool option for the new tallboy for people who wanted to ride it a bit harder than intended.
Fluid Focus make air shock bumpers that double as volume reducers.
😁
Indeed some proper bump stops would be a very good tuning option! Fox air shocks started coming with "real" bumpers a few years ago but they are very soft and not that effective IMO. Fluid Focus make aftermarket bumper which work very well, and I don't know the real reason air shocks only used an o-ring but I guess it was to make it possible to use every last mm of travel.....a nicely progressive bump stop gives a "bottomless" feel but your o-ring probably won't reach the last 2-3mm which consumers will always complain about sadly.
Air springs would benefit just as much from a real bumper, they are a little tricky to install since you need a wide surface to support it at both ends - if its allowed to squish out too far it will get rammed in to the eyelet or over the seal head.
I've actually been working on making custom bump stops for the last year.....the coil versions are dialled and already well proven on the trail, so will be producing those shortly but just starting on an air spring version. Hopefully not too far away!
It would not surprise me at all if the new Tallboy coming with "all the tokens" was way more than what a normal person would ride. I know 2 guys who've bought Valas recently and discovered the 38 on them comes with 4(!) tokens in them, and the Float X has so many volume tokens in it that they cannot bottom it out even on 5'+ drops. And these are guys around 200 lbs.
Wonder why SC didn’t just put a progression adjust chip on the Tallboy like the Vala (and I think the Bullit?) have. @CascadeComponents will fix it. My 5010 with their link is the perfect daily driver trail bike since it’s still poppy like a little bike but can take big hits too. (+5mm chainstay is great too) Best of both worlds between the “trail” and “all mountain” genres.
Of all the reviews I have seen online, nobody is complaining about the progression or bottoming out all the time. And if JKW didn't immediately fill it with volume spacers, then I think there is some overreaction here.
If we didn't overreact on the internet, does the product even exist?
It's our version of "if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" 🤣
And Lars did mention that he feels he rides heavier on his feet than most.. Personal preference and riding styles will always be a couple of variables that they can't always design for..
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