Santa Cruz have settled into a groove with the frame design of their longer travel bikes. The new shock configuration puts the weight of the damper and linkages nice and low in the frame, along with providing room for a water bottle. Plus, it's probably nice not needing to reinvent the wheel for each model.It does make for a familiar sounding list of features, but that's not a bad thing – Santa Cruz's frames are some of the nicest in the business, and they come with a lifetime warranty, which also includes the bearings. There's internal cable routing, a threaded bottom bracket, down tube protectors to prevent frame damage from rocks and tailgates, and a ribbed chain-slap guard on the chainstay.A flip chip on the lower link allows the geometry to be fine-tuned – there's a .3 degree head angle, and 4mm bottom bracket height difference between the two settings, and the lower position also alters the shock curve to provide a little more bottom out resistance.

Test Bike Setup Getting the Hightower dialed in was refreshingly easy, especially after struggling a bit to get the Megatower to feel the way I wanted. I ended up running a touch over 30% sag, with two volume spacers in the Super Deluxe shock, and four clicks of low-speed compression (counted from full open). Up front, I inflated the Lyrik Ultimate to 77psi, and dialed in one click of HSC and seven clicks of LSC, again, from the open position. The component spec on the X01 model leaves little to be desired, and the stem length, bar width, and even the grips all matched my preferences. The only small tweak I made was to swap the 180mm front rotor out for a 200 in order to boost the stopping power. Testing took place around Bellingham, Washington, over the course of the last month of prime summer conditions - sunshine, good dirt, and plenty of daylight for racking up the miles.

The shock's light compression tune felt like a very good match for the Hightower's kinematics – it makes the compression dial a usable feature, as opposed to needing to run it all the way open without any room for adjustment. I added four clicks of low-speed compression (from fully open) to the Super Deluxe shock, which added a touch more support for climbing, while still retaining plenty of small bump sensitivity for rougher sections of trail. There's also a climb mode that can be used to firm things up even further, but I only touched that when I was spinning my way to the trailhead on a paved road. Otherwise, I was completely content leaving that blue lever alone.Even though it's longer and slacker than the prior model, the Hightower is still quite maneuverable when things get tight and technical. It's not wildly light, but it's not a pig either, and the well-balanced geometry makes it easy to power through the miles required to reach the top of a big climb. The geometry is really close to that of the Megatower, but with a little less suspension squish, it handled a bit better on the climbs – the 150mm fork (vs. a 160) shifted my weight over the front a little more, and the reduced sag from the shock kept the seat angle a little steeper.