Even with my saddle height which would be at armpit level for most folks, I don’t feel the seat tube is too slack. The newest Hightower is brought up to modern standards for steep seat tubes.

The Hightower 2 was about as slack as I can go. I’m tall and lanky, so I struggle a bit with slacker seat tubes. It feels very quiet over small trail chatter, although our test trails were pretty smooth to begin with. I only had a few instances where the back wheel spun on a root or wet rock. The rear suspension did an excellent job of keeping the rear wheel from spinning out. The climbs on our test trails were steep, narrow, and slick. It’s certainly a more efficient and adept climber than the gen. It put it up against the likes of the Orbea Occam, Giant Trance X, and Ibis Ripmo. You hit the gas and the bike starts moving. It has an energetic quality to it on the climbs. The new Hightower is the same but shifted down the burly scale a few notches. It had some pep in its step that I hadn’t expected. When I first jumped on the Megatower earlier this year, I couldn’t help but be surprised by how well it climbed especially compared to previous generation Lower-Link VPP bikes. I’d imagine this comes down to multiple factors, including suspension updates, geometry, and body position on the bike. The same traction I’m used to with older Sant Cruz bikes is still present, but the bike has a little more giddy-up. It feels vastly better up and down the mountain than older iterations. The biggest change I notice with the Hightower 3 is the suspension platform. That said, I couldn’t help but be impressed by the Hightower’s efficiency and ability to keep the rear wheel stuck on the ground. The 2” of mucky pine needle stew didn’t make for fast-rolling climbs. For a Utah desert guy like me, the conditions were a bit challenging, to say the least. The PNW has seen unseasonably wet conditions this spring. I did all of my test riding over a crash course (literally) in Oakridge, Oregon. Oh, it also gets the Glovebox like the new Megatower-praise be! Now let’s get into how this thing rides. The new Hightower features a cutout on the non-drive side of the shock tunnel, so you can more easily set up your suspension. It’s hard even to see where the sag indicator is, let alone gets your hand in there to move it. In the past, setting sag on Santa Cruz frames has been a little tricky. Some might see it as being too conservative, but not every bike has to push the envelope to be a good bike for a lot of people, myself included.Ī new feature that many folks will love is the sag window cut into the shock tunnel. I appreciate that Santa Cruz doesn’t always go overboard when it comes to the slacker, longer and lower treatment. All frame sizes see an increased stack height, keeping the front end taller and more confident on the descents. Each frame gets a specific chainstay length that varies from 431 on a size small to 443 on the XXL. The wheelbase on my XL test bike is 1276mm with 440mm chainstays. The wheelbase is what grows the most due to the slacker head tube angle and new size-specific chainstays.

The reach stays about the same at 492/495mm in a size XL. The Head tube angle is now 64.5/64.8° paired to a 76.6/76.9° seat tube angle. You’ll not be surprised to hear that the Hightower 3 gets slacker and longer. The updated leverage curve will keep the suspension more consistent with better bottom-out support-more on that in the ride impressions. What does that mean on the trail? The reduced anti-squat will help with suspension sensitivity. It also sees more progressivity in the end stroke. *NERD ALERT* It sees reduced anti-squat in the first 40% of the travel and a little more linear leverage ratio. Since then, Santa Cruz has been on a heater with suspension. Things started to get really good with the Heckler 9 launch last year. Each new bike Santa Cruz designs tends to get a little better and more refined. It makes sense, as Lower-Link VPP started with the V10. The first few Lower-Link VPP bikes tended to be a little heavy on the traction emphasis and a little light on the fun factor for me.

Santa cruz hightower v3