The Santa Cruz Bronson is now five generations deep with the latest offering seeing a refinement of the Mullet VPP platform.
As with recent Santa Cruz bike launches, the Bronson sees subtle tweaks rather than overhauls, with the Bronson 5 benefitting from the knowledge learned from their first raft of Mullet bikes.
Pete gives his first impressions after swinging his leg over the new Santa Cruz piece.
Photos by Pete Scullion.
Key features:
- Fox 36 Factory 160mm fork
- Fox Float X Factory shock
- SRAM XO AXS Eagle T-type 12-speed drive
- SRAM Maven Silver brakes
- i9 1/1 hubs on Reserve HD30 rims
- OneUp V3 dropper
- £8,799.00 RRP
- SantaCruzBicycles.com
The Bronson 5 remains the 150mm rear VPP travel, MX wheeled bike that we’ve come to be familiar with. The changes between it and its predecessor are more subtle and would need a ride to really appreciate. A new VPP layout is the main talking point of the new Bronson, which is specific to Santa Cruz’s MX bikes and their experience with them since they dropped their 27.5″ lineup.
With a front shock mount that sits lower and further forward, the VPP system moves with it, with the end result being an overall drop in anti-squat. The value drops from somewhere just below 150% to 120%. The aim here being reducing pedal kick, especially on square edges, whilst also improving the bikes ability to stay active across and up technical terrain. Chainstays also grow.
Everything else that have become Santa Cruz signatures remain. Carbon CC and Carbon C frames, proportional geometry, size specific carbon layups and rear centres, lifetime warranties on frames and bearings plus a Glovebox for your… gloves.
Seen here is the range topping, and easy to remember, Bronson CC AXS XO RSV at £8,799.00. Four other models are available, three Carbon C models and one other Carbon CC model. The Carbon C R starts the range at £4,899.00.
Geometry
The Bronson is available in SM, MD, LG, XL and XXL.
Reach on the MD is 460mm with a seat tube of 405mm. Head angle in ‘Lo’ is 63.9 degrees with an effective seat tube angle of 77.6 degrees. Rear Centre is size specific and on the MD is 440mm in ‘Lo’ with a wheelbase of 1240mm.
Opening moves
You know the drill here… Get the bike out into the car park, set sag and then damping, lever throw and saddle height before we winch up the hill to give the Bronson its first taste of dirt. Not unsurprisingly, the Bronson feels like it could float away on a stiff breeze and that colour is popping.
This Bronson CC XO AXS RSV comes with all the bells and whistles for a cool £8,799.00. Fox 36 Factory and a Float X Factory shock handle the lumps and bumps, SRAM XO AXS Eagle T-type deals with the drive, SRAM’s Maven Silvers do the slowing down and the hoops are i9 1/1 hubs on Reserve HD 30 rims shod with EXO+ casing Maxxis rubber. OneUp’s excellent V3 post does the dropper duties.
In a slight change of pace, the only forecast worth talking about once the Bronson had landed at my door, was the in the northwest Highlands. The hills between Strathcarron and Glen Torridon to be precise, a spot that the 5010’s launch edit was filmed all those years ago.
A ride that has pretty much everything to offer, and enough time in the saddle would surely see me find the measure of the Bronson. The claim that the bike would traverse and climb rough, technical terrain better than its predecessor would be put to the test here.
As expected, the Bronson, shod with the top tier kit, breezed up the climbs with a calm, collected nature that was a sign of things to come. Despite the looseness of the more technical climbs, the bike stayed true, offering a fair amount of grip in all but the slickest of situations. The vast majority of my power went into going forwards and I was starting the in lap before I knew it.
So far, the Bronson had made light work of the chatter; across, along and down, the lower anti-squat allowed the bike to make that most delightful of sounds. That of deadened tyres hitting edges before moving out the way. This to me is the pinnacle of bike setup. On top of this, it allowed any momentum to carry forward, and stalls were minimal.
As soon as the ground turned downward in Coire Lair, the Bronson came alive. That plus start to mid-stroke of the travel was just a delight, smoothing out the endless rock and brushing off the square edges like they weren’t there. Trust me, square edges of Torridonian sandstone are built different.
A slightly spongy front brake aside, I forgot I what bike I was on and simply set about getting to the bottom of the trail as quickly as my now tired body would allow. The front Maven reminiscent of an older XT brake that needed pumping up to work, causing some minor bum wobbles as the speed rose.
Beyond that, I simply could not fault a day out in the hills on the new Bronson. The changes aren’t all that apparent to the eye, you’d have to know the VPP has been moved, but the real world changes are massive and they make this bike a joy to ride.
