Santa Cruz has just rolled out redesigned versions of the Bronson and 5010. The company spliced DNA from the enduro-ready Nomad into its mid- and short-travel trail bikes, lengthening top tubes, slackening head angles and redesigning their VPP linkages.
Shared updates
The 5010 and Bronson were by no means long in the tooth, but trail bike geometry is evolving at a feverish pace. To keep up with changing rider preferences, Santa Cruz lengthened the top tubes of both bikes, making them better suited to stubby stems and wide handlebars.
In keeping with the more aggressive theme, the head tube angles slacken by a full degree on each, moving from 68 to 67 on the 5010 and dropping from 67 to 66 degrees on the Bronson.
While head tube angles may be raking outward and front center numbers growing ever longer, the opposite is happening at the rear of these bikes.
The seat tube angles have been increased by nearly a degree to position the rider over the cranks with the goal of improving handling during steep ascents.
Chainstay length shrinks on both models thanks to the adoption of the 148x12mm rear axle spacing and the use of redesigned VPP linkages. The new arrangement does away with the dangling lower link of past designs. Santa Cruz repositioned the lower link above and behind the bottom bracket shell. (The 5010 and Bronson still rely on the ever-reliable 73mm threaded bottom bracket shells, the way.)
The upper links have been moved to the junction of the seat and top tube. In addition to tidying up the design, Santa Cruz claims this arrangement also bolsters frame stiffness.
Both the 5010 and Bronson now come with internal cable routing. First introduced with the Nomad, Santa Cruz sought to make internal routing as painless as possible by using carbon tubes molded into the frame to making installation swift and keep the cables silent while riding. The rear brake line is still routed externally for ease of maintenance.
Both models feature shorter seat tubes along with a switch to from 30.9 to 31.6mm seatposts. This was done in order to make the new bikes compatible with the 150mm RockShox Reverb, which comes stock on select models.
A better Bronson
Of the two models, the Bronson gets the more significant tweaks to geometry. In addition to the aforementioned shared updates, the bottom bracket drops by 5mm. Suspension travel remains unchanged at 150mm, however the shock rate has been adjusted to provide more midstroke support.
Array5010 version 2.0
There was a lot Santa Cruz (and many riders) liked about the 5010, but there was an opportunity to increase the rear travel ever so slightly. Rear travel has been bumped up from 125mm to 130mm to make it feel a bit more balanced with the 130mm forks that come stock on all the builds.
ArrayPricing and availability
The redesigned 5010 and Bronson will be available Monday in the premium CC carbon builds as well as the more affordable C carbon versions, which come with a slight (200g) weight penalty. Look for alloy versions of both models to become available next spring.
$2,999
$3,599
$4,699
$6,399
$6,599
$8,699
$8,099
Array$2,999
$3,599
$4,699
$6,399
$6,599
$8,699
$8,099
Array(Australian pricing has yet to be announced.)
Stay tuned for first ride reviews of the 5010 and Bronson, as well as the Juliana Furtado and Roubion.
