Santa Cruz and Enve Carbon - Interbike 2011
Since its debut, the production Santa Cruz V10 carbon frame has been on the podium at every single World Cup race. For the past two seasons of racing, Santa Cruz V10's have all sported alloy swingarms - enter the new composite rear triangle. In a collaboration with Utah based carbon wizards Enve Composites, Santa Cruz is now domestically producing full composite carbon rear triangles for their iconic V10.
Fully built, the new 100% carbon V10 weighs in at a svelte 34lb, the carbon rear triangle accounting for about 300g of weight savings on the overall build.
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 There has been a carbon V10 on every World Cup podium since the Syndicate started racing it. |
With this latest Racelight V10 framset, Santa Cruz has made it their mandate to reduce weight, increase stiffness, improve suspension performance (via reduced unsprung weight), and improve toughness and durability.
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| SC claims the V-10 carbon Racelight as the world's lightest DH frame - an XL frame weighs 8lb with coil shock. Minnaar edition shown here. |
The bike brand from Surf City are now in their 5th year of carbon fibre development, starting with the Blur XC and culminating 2 years ago with the V10. The goal each year has been to make each new bike design lighter, stronger, stiffer and better handling than its predecessor. All bikes are designed and tested completely in house.
Santa Cruz has diligently developed their proprietary layup process working closely and exclusively with a single composites manufacturer. That composites vendor makes mountain bike frames for Santa Cruz and no one else.
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| All composite processes are proprietary and are only found on Santa Cruz bikes. |
The carbon swingarms represent the next phase in an ongoing collaboration between Santa Cruz Bicycles and Enve Composites. Enve produced the first carbon fibre DH wheel set on the market, and has continued to develop their wheel technology with Santa Cruz on the World Cup circuit.
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| Carbon swingarm moulds - US alloy machined in Santa Cruz, California. |
The alloy moulds were made by Santa Cruz and then shipped to Utah where Enve applied their composite prowess to the layup. Moulded swingarm parts were shipped from Enve back to Santa Cruz, where they were machined, bonded and tested before being sent to Europe for ride testing with the Syndicate team.
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| CAD renderings of the new swingarm mould. |
In house testing at Santa Cruz's facility is a rigorous (read arduous) process to say the least. They haven't had a single carbon V10 frame fail in real world race conditions.
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| Santa Cruz applies internal testing standards that are orders of magnitude beyond the current industry baselines. |
It should be noted that the Racelight V10 frame set is a 'prototype' at this point with no date set to go into production. As such, no final weights, performance stats or pricing are available at this time.
Santa Cruz has done a lot of in house testing, enough to give it to the Syndicate to race on. They will develop the V10 carbon frame set through next season with it likely going into production at the beginning of 2013. This is the same methodology behind the development of the first carbon V-10; get some solid race hours on the proto, then go into production.
Stay tuned for more updates as they become available.
SANTA CRUZ FACTS
• 13 World Cup Wins from 2004-2011
• 80 World Cup Podiums, averaging over 10 per year
• 2 World Cup Overall Championships
• 1 World Championship Men’s Elite
• 1 World Championship Jr. Men’s
• 2 Team Overall Championships with male only team
• The V-10 carbon was the first carbon bike to win a downhill World Cup
• The Syndicate was the first team to race on Enve carbon rims and win their first time
out at Maribor in 2010
For more on Santa Cruz Bicycles, go here. To have a look at some carbon wheel goodness, see Enve Composite's site here.
All images courtesy Gary Perkin
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dv56 0.094866
Give us the bike NOW Santa ! It rocks already !
Then they all rode it at Champery...
Just a thought.
Although it surely was a complex and involved design process to get a carbon Session 9.9 to the racetrack, it’s a very simple story to tell: Take two pounds off the frame, leave everything else the same, hand the bike to Aaron Gwin and watch him go.
After just one day of practice with the new bike Gwin rode it to victory at Monte Sainte Anne, winning by less than half a second. He followed up with another victory last weekend at Windham Mountain in upstate New York—this time by a margin of more than two full seconds....
They said there was no benefit to develop the carbon one when the Alu version was just fine.
They were obviously planning this a while ago.
Now if I brought a V10 Carbon with an Alu swing arm last year for silly money and then they bring out a full carbon one the year after,
I would be proper pisssed off.
Bikes go out of date just as fast as electronic technology (TVs, PC's ) that sort of stuff.
But give me a V10 any day. I wont care if its out of date in 2 years.
A company brings out a product and it will be replaced by the next in that products evolution almost Instantly.
I am currently in work, typing this on our £100,000 HP all singing and dancing digital printing press.
Now 5 years later its out of date and HP have the next "BIG THING" or "MUST HAVE" in their range.
Look at the ipod and iphone. One comes out, the next is around the corner.
There is always something next to persuade you to part with your money.
Its what makes the world go around.
Bikes will last and be ride able for many years, maybe a bike that is 2 years old (alu v10) might be 300grams lighter then the new released full carbon but is that alone gonna win you a race or stop you from competing in a race. No. So the bike is not out of date. it just isnt the latest greatest.
Technology is a very fast growing industry. Graphics cards and processors seem to be released every 6 months where as the bike industry is quick but nothing in comparison. most companies with their frames will just change the colour scheme around and then release it all as a new product (SC jackal for example, 2010 was offered in yellow, but in 2011 they dropped yellow and added raw and brown and sell it off as an all new 2011 frame, even though nothing has changed).
Is carbon better?
Where is the evidence?
or is the 6 year old Ironhorse Sunday with the 10 year old Minions on just as capable?
What do the figures show?
Doing some quick (so no doubt crap) number watching on rootsandrain (which is ace for results/comparing etc)
I have heard that the current Mont-Saint-Anne is is quicker than it was due to the changes.
Funny that a certain Mr Hills IH times are quicker than his Specialized times, both by 4s!
When you run a compare on Sam, Greg, Steve and Gee. Sam's Sunday years were killer at Fort Bill
Then looking at the V10 (not looking at who was carrying an injury etc)
Val di sole....................
2008 Greg=3:17, Steve=3:14
2010 Greg=3:19, Steve=3:22
2011 Greg=3:17, Steve=3:31 (and the only one using the carbon swing arm)
I know tracks change (but these are relative times on the same day/same track) and without looking at the data for all the riders to see how the track/conditions had changed, mistakes not counting as they are part of the bike+rider (consistency). This makes interesting reading.
Fort William, Maribor, = Same for old V10 to new V10 for Steve
Take it 1 step further and Steve seemed closer (although he was younger) to Greg on the old Boxxers also.
Give it a few years by that time most people will probably of had a riding friend that has owned one for a few years and can base their opinion on that , it's just hard to trust some thing when it's as unknown as carbon with high price tags too.
But well the only bike I can swap for from Nomad is NomadC... when my Nomad gives it's life, I hope I can get CF one for crash replacement program price. Or maybe in 2 years I can find a used one somewhere.
And T1mb0 - Nomad 1 if only equipped with Rp23 and adjustable travel fork, is a very good XC bike on rough trails - unfortunately many think XC means riding stuff you could do with ease on a CX bike, like 2012 Olympics XC course
While the Nomad is great at xc, because of its supspension platform and potential for low weight, I think you'd miss the point of it If you only ever rode just xc or even trail centres.
It screams to be smashed through things with complete disregard for normal riding sense.
Yeh the customer Ed may be 34lb, but Syndicate also have various SRAM carbon factory items, they could hit sub 30lb easy.
If you also look round internet you will find that it is mostly the wealthy amateurs or industry insiders doing stuff on their own hand, that take weights down to more or less ridiculous levels, no matter whether it is a sub 15lbs XC racer or 6lbs (WTF!) road bike. There's a guy in Norway who has his V10.4c at like 28lbs with 2 ply tyres and generally still a very sane setup. I think V10 full carbon can go easily under 25lbs with 1ply UST, Easton Haven C, lopes guide, and stuff like that, which could still be fine for weekend bikepark riding.
People who can take advantage and make use of these bikes (like racing for living) don't pay for them, they get them from sponsors. People who buy them to themselves would be way better off with a bike for a 1/4th of the price in pure performance means. I bet most people if they thought of themselves way back then on shitty bikes, would admit they were way happier then. End of story
And I think he's got a very good point! This whole weight weenie DH stuff is really stupid. Why spend a bunch of money to have a super light DH bike? None would make a bike advantage out of it. Unless you can ride, no bike can make you go fast, even it has 30 lbs. And even if you CAN ride, how much would you get if your bike is super light? I think not much.
Look at the WC podiums. When Gee Atherton won the WC, he had one of the heaviest bikes among the others. So, bottom line, it's not the bikes weight that is so important, of course, you can show off to your buddies but you won't go faster just because of that.
But for free and in reality breaking less , pedaling harder , taking that nasty straight line that you know is faster but scares the shit out of you will out weigh 5lbs saved in weight and save you 2000-3000 $ .
Edit: Never mind just read the end and found my answer...lol
haha
When you're Steve Peat or Greg Minnaar, the bike doesn't hold the line - you do!
Having said that, I assume that less skilled riders will actualy be slower and less confident on a super light bike (no matter if XC or DH) than on average momentum fed rig. But speed is not all that there is to the world, you have to have fun on your bike and I believe it is way better to spend money on something improving fun rather than something improving speed only. I'm always into ride quality& fun rather than speed
I can only imagine that the performance of the spec has been compromised to save weight... e.g. Small brake rotors, light rather than powerful brakes, XC bars, smaller tyres etc, etc... Personally I always put performance ahead of a little extra weight.
25lbs ?
www.bikerumor.com/2010/09/29/6lb-road-bike-worlds-new-lightest-bicycle-from-fairwheel-bikes
holy shite, waki! are we gonna have to surf weightweenies.com for mtb info soon?!
13.45kg / 29.59lb.
Compromised, but legit.