05/12/2008

Before I got my hands on a Santa Cruz VP Free, I was riding up the Garbanzo lift up at Whistler, talking to one of my friends about how badly I wanted one. He asked me why, and I told him that by the sounds of it, the Free was sort of a do-everything bike that would descend like a downhill bike, stand up to the biggest hucker, and climb like a bike with half its travel.

His reply was this: "In the early '90s, the bike industry came out with what was known as the hybrid bike. It was supposed to combine the best of a mountain bike with the best of a road bike." He didn't have to say any more, but I got the point.

In spite of his comment, I had incredibly high expectations when I got this bike. Were they reasonable? Probably not. But I guess we will see.

The bike

This whole Virtual Pivot Point thing could be one of the most misunderstood bike designs ever, but it really isn't all that complicated. Well, actually, it is. But all you really have to pay attention to is that little link down by the bottom bracket. That link causes the chainstay to lengthen through the first few inches of travel, so as your suspension compresses and your chainstay lengthens, the tension in your chain wants to resist this motion. In other words, when you pedal you push down on your bike. The force from you mashing on your pedals

One clean machine.

wants your suspension to compress and the force from your chain wants your suspension to extend. They cancel out and you're left happy and bob-free. With careful design, Santa Cruz has tuned this to provide just enough force to cancel bob caused by the rider.

But there's more to VPP than that. By changing the linkage design, the system can be tuned almost any way the designer wants. That's how they can tune each member of the VPP family to act so differently.

The Blur is lithe, firm and tight (the college-bound daughter), the V10 eats everything in its path (the stoned teenager), and the VP Free is built to be playful, boost off jumps and soak up the massive landings it creates (the disillusioned twentysomething, not quite sure where he's going, but sure to leave a trail of destruction in his path). Try doing all that using another suspension template. It's almost like somebody slept with the neighbour, the mailman and the paperboy. [Where the hell is Dad in the midst of all this debauchery? - Ed.]

Construction
I think that it would be hard to argue that this isn't a good-looking bike. Many companies seem to be creating CNC'd monstrosities and I think the organic curves of this bike are a refreshing change.

Pretty soon after getting the VP Free frame, I started talking with Joe Graney, the guy who designed this bike. It was pretty funny to see how excited he got about things. I asked him to point out things on the frame that Santa Cruz was proud of. It was like when Ned Flanders got all excited about reading Homer the bible.

Dave, the disillusioned twentysomething...

"There are so many little things on the bike that I think are trick … like the shock mount - it weighs about 40 grams but is the strongest little muthah, and allows the use of a thin section tube under it by distributing the stress, making the down tube lighter but still super strong," says Graney. And that was only the start of things. "The piece that joins the chainstays to seatstays on the swingarm - called the upright - is pretty crazy."

"It took a few trips there, some bribery, a few hundred phone calls, a lot of flattery, and a whole pile of money to get those made. But now they are kicking ass on them. There is nobody else that would ever make that thing. I feel lucky it ever happened."

The head tube and down tube also get special treatment, and every part of the frame gets incredible attention to detail. Any question I asked was anticipated and responded to with reams of data. Why are you guys recommending a 128mm bottom bracket? Boom! "Here's a spreadsheet smuggled out of the Ukraine by Ewoks in the dark of night showing16 different crank, bottom bracket and chainring/derailleur/chainguide combinations. Anything else, non-believer??"

No. Actually, he was very nice about answering my questions but I kind of stopped asking because I realized I was in over my head. Just know that a lot of thought has been put into this bike.

Cost, parts, and the little details

Okay, so CDN$2,344 for a frame isn't cheap ($2,659 if you don't already have your own 150mm rear hub) but it's equivalent to the offerings of other companies in this category. If you feel so inclined, Santa Cruz offers this bike with two nicely spec'd out build kits. With a Marzocchi 888R, you're looking at about $5,750 with nice parts (SPX Disc Kit) and $4,699 if you go a step down (R Freeride Kit). Catalogue angles on the bike are 67° for the head tube and 69° on the seat tube for all sizes. This is actually a half a degree slacker than the V-10. These angles are designed around a 544mm axle-to-crown height (my VP Free with a Slider measures in at 515mm axle centre to the bottom of the crown - far shorter than the 572.5mm of my Shiver and the 595mm of a 888). This bike is a few degrees slacker than my Bullit was, and that's fine by me.

Dave's other office.

I'm about 6'2", and based on the Santa Cruz sizing chart I was straddling a Large and an X-Large frame size. I thought for days about top tube length, wheelbase, and which frame would be right for me. In the end, I decided a Medium would be perfect.

I've gotten used to riding smallish frames, and I tell myself that the 23.2" top tube of my Medium coupled with a 75mm stem actually works out to the same length as the 24.2" top tube of the Large mated with a 50mm stem. Now if I could just stop my knees from hitting my fork…

Standover and BB height are the same on all sizes, so the only thing you're getting with a larger or smaller frame is a different seat tube length, top tube length and wheelbase. I went from a Medium Bullit with a 75mm stem to a Medium VP Free with a 50mm stem, but the Free still feels bigger in the cockpit. I like my Medium but I am going to try to track myself down a Large frame.

One odd thing about this bike is the way it is logoed. There's a tiny little Santa Cruz sticker on the top tube by the seat mast and a massive one on the underside of the down tube. Mine was missing the little ones on the top tube and they seem to get rubbed off by the cables on many that I have seen. It gets pretty annoying answering, "Who makes that bike?" all the time. But it is kind of cool being all stealthy and anti-corporate.

Riding the VP Free
My first ride on the Free was down CBC/Corkscrew/Boogieman - I wanted to keep things reasonable. The bike felt pretty good during its first parking lot sessions, but I wasn't prepared for it to feel as natural as it did once I hit the trail.

Sit tests made me think that this bike was going to be harsh, but all at once this bike pedaled, soaked up the small stuff, and took the big hits better than my Bullit. I was shocked. Within 200 feet of the trailhead, I was popping off stuff and clearing things that I wasn't used to. It was pretty amazing.

The handling bike was spot on as well, and the angles felt perfect. As I mentioned above, this bike is pretty slack, although it feels less slack than my Bullit with a 2002 Boxxer. Outfitted with a Slider Plus, really steep stuff feels a little more difficult on this bike than on my Bullit but going fast feels sooo good, as the longer wheel base means more stability. The Free felt really stable and responded well to lots of input, which is perfect.

Looking slick with a natural North Shore paint job

At first, I was worried that the stock Santa Cruz settings were a little too pedaling biased. I planned to start things out with those settings with perhaps with a touch more rebound, but they worked so well that I left them there the whole time I ran the 5th Element shock (I moved to a Fox DHX 5.0 shortly after getting this frame).

I found that the stable platform was great for virtually every riding situation - up, down, or just cruising along flatter trails. Recommended sag is roughly 30 per cent of travel, and the bike settles down nicely into its sag. From there, your movements don't influence the suspension very much, yet the travel is right there to soak up anything big or small. In other words, the bike doesn't swallow up rider input.

My next few days riding were up at Whistler. Once again, this bike blew me away. The terrain in Whistler is so varied that any weak points in a bike quickly come out. I did a couple of runs down A-Line and pretty quickly figured out how this bike would come off a lip. It likes to jump. What really blew me away was the Shale slope near the bottom of A-Line. I'm used to coming down that sucker holding on for dear life. But on this thing I was blowing by people! It was crazy.

From there, I did some runs up top and then hit up Schleyer and Clown Shoes a few times. Nothing really stood out on the more technical stuff but the bike ate up the Clown Shoes drop with no problems. I was impressed that it could suck up a stutter bump-filled nightmare of a trail and then come right back and take a pretty big drop. The bike doesn't suffer from much in the way of brake-induced feedback, and I think this leads to its good small bump performance.

Climbing on this bike is also good. Really good. One day I was out climbing and my friend looked over and said, "Dude, your bike doesn't bob at all. It's just not moving." Now, let's not get stupid here. You're dragging an awful lot of weight around with this bike, so it's not the greatest thing to pedal to the top of a mountain.

Taking a rest between rides

And that brings up an issue. My bike has a slight bend in the seat tube that results in me having to run a telescoping seatpost in order to get enough extension to climb. Even with a rigid seatpost cut as short as possible to allow for full leg extension when climbing, I cannot insert it fully. Santa Cruz might have fixed the problem since I bought my frame in August. Also of note is that the rear tire may contact the seat (depending upon seat positioning) when the seatpost is slammed all the way down.

Long-term durability seems to be there as well. I've talked with people that have been running this bike for over a year and none of them have had any major issues. My bike saw some months underneath Randy Spangler and I'm certain he punished it more than I ever could. The only thing I ever have to do is tighten up the pivot bolts after a few rides. Many pivots is the trade-off for the great suspension performance.

Another negative is that the link at the BB collects dirt like a mother. Crud comes off the wheel and over the fancy metalwork between the seat and chainstays, and lands right on the link. This shouldn't affect performance, but it might lead to the bearings wearing out a little faster due to all that dirt being held right against them.

I'm now a few months into this bike and nothing has changed my first impression. The Free can pretty much do it all. It pedals well, it soaks up small stuff really nicely, it takes big drops, and it climbs better than you would expect of a bike with this much travel.

At the end of the day...
At the end of the day, I can think of three reasons not to ride the VP Free:
1) You race cross country;
2) You regularly huck yourself off Bender-sized cliffs; or
3) Somebody else pays you to ride their bikes

Everybody else should seriously look at this bike. You could pretty much set it up to do anything. With proper parts choice this thing could be a solid all-mountain bike, a freeride bike, or a lightweight downhiller for the weekend warrior. Whatever you want, in other words. If you buy this bike and you don't like it, you've set it up wrong. It's that simple.

Brought to you by guest writer Dave Tolnai