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Santa Cruz Chameleon 7 - An excellent hardtail, an ugly finish.

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Santa Cruz Chameleon 7 - An excellent hardtail, an ugly finish.

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flag nannoo
Posted: Jul 28, 2017 at 0:40 Quote
Hey guys,

For those that cut to the chase, everything below summarizes as
"The Santa Cruz Chameleon 7 is probably the best hard tail frame ever made, but why the hell is it only available in we-vomited-on-your-bike colour schemes?"

So I'm currently riding a Dartmoor Hornet 4x as my only MTB - that means XC, Enduro, Trail, DH etc.

Yes it's a hardtail but it's an absolute weapon, light stiff and geometry is absolutely nailed.

Despite that, there's a few shortcomings. most annoying is the "lazy" parts of design from Dartmoor themselves. The chainstay looks like it's off a 27.5/650b frame - the rear tyre does not line up with the gap for the tyre and looks like the wheel is at least an inch too small. You could fit a 27.5/650b but the seat stay doesn't allow enough tyre clearance, to make that worse the seat stays are so fat that it's the first bike I've ridden (and I've literally ridden hundreds) where I catch my ankles on the seat stays because they're so damn wide. Finally, there's no internal routing for a dropper. Yest it's a little 4x/jump bike but it's also a trail demon, all you need is a decent dropper - but there's no external routing and no internal routing, so zip ties it is.

Despite all that, I still rate this as one of the best frames I've owned.

So if I made a list of all the things I'd change going forward, what would I end up with? well, bizarrely not either of the 27.5 hornets available from Dartmoor.

No, looks like the "perfect" hardtail is in fact the new Santa Cruz Chameleon 7. I know people say it's overpriced for a hardtail frame and you're paying for the name, I agree a little, but it's also the most well thought-out hardtail I've ever seen. It looks like everything is just nailed and I'd imaging it would destroy everything you'd throw at it.

So off I go to buy one.

Except no. Go to the UK stockist website and the colour available is foul... don't order it yet. Check the Santa Cruz site, what do we have? oh yeah, THAT is the only colour.

Am I alone here? My real question is what you guys think of the colour.... took a while to get there, but if anyone else wants to recommend a hardtail with similar geometry (Chainstays 420mm or less, internal cable routing for dropper, compatible with front mechs and chain devices) I'd love to hear it.

Thanks
flag Dropnbomb
Posted: Jul 31, 2017 at 18:56 Quote
I think I could live with the baby shit green colored frame, but that purple has no business on that backdrop. Looks a solid rig, I bet those balloon tires on the 27.5+ would be sweet.

*EDIT- Actually the more I look through photos of this bike, I'm visualizing a few purple accents and I think it would look just fine.
flag VTwintips
Posted: Jul 31, 2017 at 19:03 Quote
nannoo wrote:
Hey guys,

For those that cut to the chase, everything below summarizes as
"The Santa Cruz Chameleon 7 is probably the best hard tail frame ever made, but why the hell is it only available in we-vomited-on-your-bike colour schemes?"

So I'm currently riding a Dartmoor Hornet 4x as my only MTB - that means XC, Enduro, Trail, DH etc.

Yes it's a hardtail but it's an absolute weapon, light stiff and geometry is absolutely nailed.

Despite that, there's a few shortcomings. most annoying is the "lazy" parts of design from Dartmoor themselves. The chainstay looks like it's off a 27.5/650b frame - the rear tyre does not line up with the gap for the tyre and looks like the wheel is at least an inch too small. You could fit a 27.5/650b but the seat stay doesn't allow enough tyre clearance, to make that worse the seat stays are so fat that it's the first bike I've ridden (and I've literally ridden hundreds) where I catch my ankles on the seat stays because they're so damn wide. Finally, there's no internal routing for a dropper. Yest it's a little 4x/jump bike but it's also a trail demon, all you need is a decent dropper - but there's no external routing and no internal routing, so zip ties it is.

Despite all that, I still rate this as one of the best frames I've owned.

So if I made a list of all the things I'd change going forward, what would I end up with? well, bizarrely not either of the 27.5 hornets available from Dartmoor.

No, looks like the "perfect" hardtail is in fact the new Santa Cruz Chameleon 7. I know people say it's overpriced for a hardtail frame and you're paying for the name, I agree a little, but it's also the most well thought-out hardtail I've ever seen. It looks like everything is just nailed and I'd imaging it would destroy everything you'd throw at it.

So off I go to buy one.

Except no. Go to the UK stockist website and the colour available is foul... don't order it yet. Check the Santa Cruz site, what do we have? oh yeah, THAT is the only colour.

Am I alone here? My real question is what you guys think of the colour.... took a while to get there, but if anyone else wants to recommend a hardtail with similar geometry (Chainstays 420mm or less, internal cable routing for dropper, compatible with front mechs and chain devices) I'd love to hear it.

Thanks

I think there are far worse colors. I was looking at the salsa timberjack (which is actually fairly similar in geo to the chameleon) and the glossy finish just looks awful in both the dark blue and dark red colors. I think you'll warm up to the chameleon colors. I thought it looked pretty great personally.
flag Layman
O+
Posted: Aug 6, 2017 at 9:52 Quote
Do we know when the next year's batch will come out? Hopefully with less ass-ugly colors?
flag titaniumtit
Posted: Aug 8, 2017 at 4:22 Quote
Someone please post a pic just to make op vomm
flag Ploutre
Posted: Aug 8, 2017 at 6:17 Quote
Let's be honest, SC bikes are not really helping with the colours ... I mean look at the new Nomad
http://www.santacruzbikes.co.uk/model/nomad-cc

That's on par with the Chameleon in the horrible colours department
flag titaniumtit
Posted: Aug 8, 2017 at 6:24 Quote
They seem to be painting all their c models too.

What happened to lovely uni dir gloss carbon ffs
flag lee-vps-savage
Posted: Aug 9, 2017 at 0:21 Quote
I'm a big SC fan and I like the fact they've turned it down slightly for this on, I expect next year we'll have a bold bright version.
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