It's a niche topic and I figure it's a long shot, but I'm curious if anyone else is running a longer stroke shock on their Santa Cruz Hightower.
For context, the Hightower is spec'd with a 200x51 shock, however folks were quick to discover a 200x57mm shock (same eye to eye, obv.) will do the job just as well while allowing for 16mm of extra wheel travel. Decent.
This might all be a moot point shortly, as it's rather expected that a revised 29er enduro machine is set for release in the nearish (maybe?) future. From the aftermarket world, it seems custom linkages may soon be on the market to allow for a more kosher source of extra rear travel.
Nevertheless, there still seems to be enough interest that it warranted a response from Santa Cruz engineer, Nick Anderson, "We know there are people out there running the Hightower in some non-spec configurations and we highly advise against doing so. [...] running the bike with anything other than 135mm of rear travel is potentially dangerous. [...] there’s the risk of the tire hitting the seat tube, and/or the shock over-centering the linkage. If the shock has a reservoir it could hit the top tube. Any one of these scenarios could cause a crash."
Moving forward, I've had some time to ride the bike with the configuration of a 200x57mm shock and I thought I'd share my experiences and see anyone else can chime in.
I've had success (and I believe other anecdotal stories online confirm this) with the long-stroke option only in the high (29er) geometry setting. Therein, using my 27.5x3.0 tires in the aforementioned configuration resulted in a silly-low bottom bracket and very slack ride.
I'm running a DBcoil [IL] and initially was afraid I'd be blowing through travel since it's not the most progressive suspension design out there, but I've been pleasantly surprised with the performance. I suspect the leverage ratio continues to increase progressively throughout the travel extension. I've bottomed out the bike once using 29x2.4 DHRIIs (I deserved it, after an awful double-case). Luckily the rubber bumper on my shock lessened the impact which I was expecting. Still, no tire-frame contact was experienced.
So far so good, I'm feeling pretty comfortable about the configuration. Anyone else?