First Look: New Santa Cruz Megatower
Today Santa Cruz dropped an updated version of their big trail Enduro race whip, the Megatower. Here’s an overview of the features:
Santa Cruz has added a little brawn to the chassis of the Megatower Two. There’s downtube frame storage and refinements to the kinematics, geometry and travel. It is still a big travel 29er specific race machine – but no, you can’t mullet. Fans of the mixed wheel setup and Santa Cruz should note that ‘word on the mountain’ is there’s a long travel mullet steed coming from the brand in the not too distant future – but you didn’t hear that from us!
In keeping with custom, Santa Cruz is offering two layups with the new Megatower. The C and CC options are of equal strengths say Santa Cruz, the latter is, however, a couple hundred grams lighter.
The water bottle cage mounts to a glove box door, inside which there’s ample space for tools, tubes, snacks and the like. It’s a concept first seen with Specialized and has proven popular with trail riders and we are seeing it incorporated into many new bikes.
The biggest changes that impact fit and sizing are the reach and seat tube length updates. Megatower Two is available in five frame sizes with reach numbers running from 430mm up to 520mm. Seat tube lengths are a little shorter too, starting at 380mm and topping out at 500mm. From a ride feel point of view, the head angle is now a tad slacker than the V10 at 63.5° in the low setting and the rear centers (aka chainstay length) are now size-specific – not adjustable, just size-specific. To aid climbing the seat tube angle is now steeper, in and around 77°. See all the geometry numbers here.
Refined kinematics means you’ll be able to run a coil or air shock on the new Megatower, with clearance for a water bottle on all frame sizes. Rear travel has been bumped up to 165mm now and it is possible to run it on 170mm, but you’d need a longer stroke shock.
By all accounts, it appears Santa Cruz has made important yet subtle refinements to the Megatower as opposed to a radical shift in a new direction. Megatower One owners need not rush to the classifieds, your Megatower is still a killer ride, Megatower Two is perhaps just a little better. As with most launches, we currently have no details on local availability or pricing, but we see there’s a 14k USD price tag on the top of the line option. Time to cash in that crypto bru? For more details on the range see santacruzbicycles.com