Maxime Marotte competes with an unveiled new Santa Cruz model

World Cup events are the perfect ground for brands to test and develop all the material that we will see presented in the coming months or years, and this time we have seen up close the entire Santa Cruz FSA team competing with an XC model that seems to be the brand's big news in the coming months. This new mountain bike could be a turning point for Santa Cruz in this modality.

New Santa Cruz XC 2022

In the Santa Cruz catalogue, MTBs for XC arrived a few years ago with the Santa Cruz Blur, but the commitment to high-level competition in this modality by the Santa Cruz FSA team, led by Maxime Martotte, seems to have pushed them to develop a new model more in line with current XCO trends.

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We have been surprised that in Albstadt this "prototype" (it looks like a final version) has not been tried to hide in any way, on the contrary, the whole team is already riding it and no paints or adhesives have been used to try to hide its features.

With no official specifications yet available for what could be the new Santa Cruz Blur 2022, we went to the Santa Cruz FSA paddock and there we discovered a few things about this new model: it has completely changed its rear suspension system, and there's no longer a trace of the famous VPP so closely linked to Santa Cruz. This full suspension mountain bike opts for a monopivot system that takes advantage of the flex of the chainstays, and has the shock horizontally under the top tube. It has space for two bottle cages and we guess that the travel will be 100mm front and rear. It also has a threaded bottom bracket and the new SRAM universal derailleur hanger.

It also has a new internal wiring system and although in general it keeps the characteristic Santa Cruz aesthetics alive, the change of the brake hose from the front triangle to the rear or the connection of the cable to the shock absorber may not be to everyone's liking.

As we said, the design of this new Santa Cruz is that of a catalogue mountain bike, so it doesn't look like it will undergo major modifications in the final version.