A Wagon WHeeled Santa Cruz V-10 Is Coming!
;)
It's true. There's a 29er V10, and the Syndicate will be racing it this weekend at Lourdes. Although the move to 29-inch wheels has been riling comments sections and forums for months (#26isdefinitelydeadnow), the writing's on the wall. Tracks are faster, times are tighter, and eking another second out of a 4-minute track can be the difference between a World Cup win and missing the podium entirely. Keeping the Syndicate in the hunt every season takes a ton of time and energy, but downhill racing is not only the most exciting racing going, it's also where new products and technology are tested to their limit.
It comes as no surprise that Greg Minnaar was the driving force behind this project. "I raced the Hightower at the Enduro World Series in Finale Ligure, Italy, last October, and it just held so much speed," explains Greg. "That's when I knew we had to come back to the 29er V10 idea."
Jason Marsh, Greg's mechanic, points out that, "We'd looked at doing a 29er V10 a few years ago, but the fork options available at the time wouldn't stand up to World Cup racing. Greg's experience in Finale got the project off the shelf and back into development. FOX gave us a critical piece of the puzzle when they delivered a prototype 40 for us to test on a modified Hightower. Our first test session aboard that Hightower showed consistently faster times on the bigger wheels, we all decided we had to go for it. Then the real work began. We machined a few different sets of links, welded up three aluminum swingarms, and did more testing. As the riders got on terms with the new bikes, they got even faster. We played with linkages and shocks to achieve different angles, travel, and leverage ratios until Greg felt happy with setting everything in stone."
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