I do lots of xc racing and lots of backcountry riding. I do no ski-lift type riding whatsoever. My bias is towards light bikes that can be pedaled efficiently seated or standing, that corner agilely, and that don't break. If you have a different riding style (like if you're some dh-poser, skilift-riding dork), or if you have different biases (like if you prefer overweight, fragile pieces of crap), then take what I say with the requisite grain of salt.
We sold the first one we ordered to Amazing Steve. Steve is amazing for several reasons, chief among them his ability to disconnect from this plane of reality and spew forth incredible amounts of babble, his ability to get lost, and his ability to break stuff in a catastrophic and hilarious manner. I've personally seen him crash his Heckler hard enough to disrupt the earth's orbit on more than one occasion, but the bike keeps working. Since he's about my size, I got to try his bike on numerous occasions, and compare it to my flashy Proflex free bike of the year. I was always impressed by the solid feel of the Heckler (lower pivot means less or no granny-gear pogo), and the very dialed shock damping (SantaCruz works closely with Fox to customize the valving for their bikes). Steve's Heckler never exhibited that annoying Proflex tendency to hit small rolly rocks, inchworm up the rock, and spit the rock backwards while blowing all traction. Better rebound damping, I believe.
Unfortunately for me, I could never justify plunking down money for Heckler when I was getting free proflexes, and each year my proflex sucked a little less, so I stayed more or less happy. After I left the bike shop and got a grownup job (hah, you should see this place) SantaCruz started shipping the much heralded Heckler Superlight, using the same geometry and design as the original Heckler. SuperDan and Keith each bought one late last summer, and they've been raving about them ever since. Both of these guys are experienced racers and shop mechanics and excellent bike handlers. More importantly, they ride the same kind of stuff I do, so what I knew of their experiences plus what I knew of Hecklers almost made it a no-brainer.
I also sort of looked at Klein Mantras, since they now come with sensible top-tube lengths, but my local shop couldn't find the xl size they claimed they had, so I couldn't test-ride one. They also seemed to be a bit heavier than they needed to be. I sort of glanced at '99 Diamond Backs, but they got heavier this year. I frittered pretty hard over a Rocky Mountain Element TO, with it's sweet blue/white paint job, but the shop I went to (used to be a pretty good shop) gave me a hokey spiel about how flexy Hecklers are. I knew this to be a lie, and I kind of lost some respect for those guys after that. I figured if they were lying about the competition, how could I believe what they told me about the reliability of the Rocky Mtn pivots? So I finally gave up and just bought a Heckler.
The bike built up very easily. The head tube was carefully faced and the BB threads were spotlessly smooth and clean. The carbon seatpost goes up and down smoothly, with no burrs or scraping. They seem to pay pretty careful attention to detail on all the welds and alignment.
The Sid XC is a perfect match for the Fox Air Vanilla. Both use an air main spring, air negative spring, and oil damping. Rock Shox lets you adjust the negative spring, but Fox doesn't trust you, so they make it automatic when you fill the main spring. Either way, the end result is a plush ride that responds to small bumps much like a coil-over, without the initial stiction that non-negative-spring-using air shocks of old displayed. Big bump performance is also very strong, taking advantage of the progressive nature of air springs. I like my '98 SID alot, which is one reason I was so interested in an air spring setup, and I wasn't disappointed. As a bonus, when you buy a SantaCruz they throw in a Fox pump and the adapters for the front and rear shocks. One more reason why Specialized sucks and SantaCruz doesn't.
I've read good and bad about bushings and cartridge bearing pivots. As far as I can tell, either one works fine, but bearings are less troublesome. Some newsgroup posting geeks (who probably own squeaky bushing bikes) suggest that only bushings can handle the lateral loads on a swingarm. Well that's pretty stupid, and disproved as far as I'm concerned by the fact that SantaCruz has used beefy bearings for years, and I sold tons of the bikes, and I've never had to replace a pivot bearing. A bonus is that you can get cartridge bearings from any bearing supply house, whereas bushings may or may not be custom jobs for the manufacturer that could be hard to find in a couple years. On the other hand, the bushings in the latest proflexes ('97 and later) seem awfully reliable too. It's not a religious issue to me, as long as the bike works.
I suppose the best thing I can say about the SL is that the suspension doesn't get in your face or beat you over the head. You can go faster, and hit stuff harder, but the bike has none of the bad habits of dualies (weight, bounciness, etc...). That's a good thing.
Since I'm a old, fat, slow puss, I spent a considerable amount of time in the granny ring on a 7 hr adventure at cow mountain. Compared to my various proflexes, the SantaCruz climbs much better in the small ring, with no bobbing or biopacing that I noticed. I would guess this is due to the slightly lower pivot and the slightly more dialed damping on the shock.
The Avid brakes are a weensy bit cheesy for an XTR-equipped bike, but they're super light, and they stop, so no complaints from me. The OEM Bontrager Ti seat (made in taiwan by Velo) is also not quite what I might expect. It does have kevlar sides though. I haven't used the seat yet, since I have plenty of other seats floating around right now. Other than that, the SL has been everything I expected, and also more (performance) and also less (weight).
Look for a long-term review towards the end of summer, and a review of XTR 9-speed next month.
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