As claimed on their website, the Santa Cruz Nomad has a reputation built on consistently pushing the envelope on how lawless a single-crown bike can get. Obviously as riders have grown more discerning and used to finding bikes that offer impressive performance both uphill and down, bikes have had to progress. The days of pushing bikes up hills just for the descent seem to be fading, except for those true die-hard downhillers…We remember those days and miss them dearly but let us get back to the point. Hiking a 45lb DH bike up a hill is about as fun as pedaling a 38lb sloth up a hill. Thankfully, bikes have evolved quite a deal and the new Santa Cruz Nomad V5 is a distant vision from what it once was, yet the vision remains. Sporting 170mm of front and rear wheel travel, Santa Cruz’s lower link shock configuration and 27.5 wheels front and rear, the goal was to create a play bike that descends like a V10 but can still be pedaled on all-day missions. A bold claim for sure! Let us see how it’s stacking up after some preliminary testing over the last month.
WHAT’S NEW
Santa Cruz bike fans will instantly notice the new Nomad V5 is sporting some refined lines and the lower-link VPP design. The new lower-link design has greatly improved the compliance and square-edge hit performance that plagued earlier VPP bikes and has some of our more vocal anti-VPP testers eating crow after years of criticism. The new Santa Cruz Nomad frame was redesigned around this 170mm lower-link system, comes in C or CC level carbon and has a lifetime warranty. It is available in sizes small through XL and has size specific chainstay lengths, an increasingly popular trend that we are not mad at.
Be sure to check out our complete write up, see the whole line and our interview with Santa Cruz employee, Seb Kemp at theloamwolf.com
Timecodes
0:00 - Intro
6:27 - Clips
6:48 - Round Table
17:14 - Final Thoughts
17:45 - Bonus!
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