Santa Cruz Chameleon Review - BikeRadar

Santa Cruz’s Chameleon family is over a decade old. The latest version proves its bomber tough, flight light, geared or ungeared genes are more evolved than ever. A versatile hardcore bike as long as you’re not after the soft option.

The chameleon’s headline attribute is its beautifully balanced handling, which pairs nicely with unique fine-tuning potential. It’s light enough to race, tough enough to huck, and can be set up geared or singlespeed.

On the other hand it has a brutally stiff frame that rapidly becomes uncomfortable on rougher trails, and performance like this costs.

Ride & handling: tough & solid

‘Stiff’ is probably the best one word answer to any questions about ride quality. Those big stays and massive wishbone extensions create an absolutely rock solid back end. That means it’ll survive monster drops or long days down the dirt ramps without worry but it’s certainly not forgiving on your spine, shoulders or any loose fillings.

We were certainly glad that the big volume tyres let us drop the pressures right down without puncturing. But you’ll still get a real wallop from drops and rocks if they catch you in the saddle.

The upside of this stiffness is that traction feedback is crystal clear, letting you use its direct power delivery to maximum effect on technical climbs. The steep seat angle also keeps the nose down, so it holds a line really well on climbs or slick corners.

With the steepest geometry it doesn’t manual or ‘pop’ quite as easily as some similar hardtails though, and you’ll have to stick longer forks in to give it the same ‘mindless’ descending character.

Tweaking chainstay length or bottom bracket height through the eccentric also lets you fine tune trail manners to personal preference. We never bothered dropping the fork below its 140mm maximum travel though as with a short stem, the steering geometry was spot on for boosting confidence. 

The extra stiffness of the Maxle fork was very obvious compared to the a quick-release Revelation, really sharpening the working edge of the front end in rocky, rooty or off camber sections.

Even without tweaking, the mid-length wheelbase and very well balanced responses make it feel very ‘normal’ and less situation specific than many hardcore hardtails.

The decent breathing space, plus the undiluted power transfer and overall stiffness of the bike also mean extra speed.

The additional speed-boosting weight loss from the higher quality components does come at a cost. But when the bike is faster by a couple of gears when cruising through the trails between test sections, that cost seems worth paying.

It’d certainly make a great trail bike for big lads who are likely to bust anything more flexible and forgiving.

Frame: no flex or fragility

This is certainly not a fragile frame. The top tube and curved down tube of the new hydroformed frame are braced with a big box gusset and another plate under the throat. This means it’ll handle up to a 160mm fork without any worry of ripping its head off. The top tube also extends into a flared, downward curved seatstay top like a flatland BMX.

The eccentric bottom bracket block can be rotated to take up chain slack in singlespeed set-ups. It can also adjust ground clearance, chainstay/front centre length and the effective seat angle in geared set-ups. Unlike most eccentrics we’ve used there’s no trace of flex, squeak or other evils even in year-old examples.

Big rectangular stays curve round into the flared wishbone up top and CNC-machined horseshoe for generous mud clearance while the replaceable gear hanger includes a bottle opener.

Equipment: great value plus tough tweaks

While the powdercoat frame is £489, Santa Cruz are now doing some very tempting complete builds. Ours was based on the cheapest, mostly SLX ‘R’ kit which offers great performance for the price. 

Knowing what sort of riding the Chameleon loves, we went for the ‘all-mountain’ upgrades of broad rimmed wheels and bigger 2.35in Kenda tyres to add strength and stability. It certainly proved a wise move.

’09 spec options also include an upgrade to the new Maxle Lite 20mm screw-though axle Revelation fork, a superb match to such a stiff and accurate frameset.

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