Santa Cruz Nomad Carbon

Posted by Charles Thu, 15 Jul 2010 02:14:00 GMT

Service customer and frequent bike buyer Nigel Ray sent us a few notes about a good ride he had last week:

“I took my first ride on the Santa Cruz Nomad Carbon today and was very impressed. Some of you may know I have had a lot of bikes over the years, keeping two or three good mountain bikes in the stable, and buying a new one maybe once per year. Some I felt immediately at one with (‘03 S-works Enduro), some take a few weeks to settle into that sweet spot (Ibis Mojo), and some just never get there (Ellsworth Moment). My ride on the Nomad today, definitely placed it in the former category.

I have been riding a Santa Cruz Blur LT carbon with a 150 mm Fox Float 32 fork over the last several months and I have found it a light (~26 pounds), well-mannered trail bike. There are a lot of positive things to be said about the BLTc, and if I had a complaint about it that would be that, when climbing, the pedaling force tends to negate the suspension suppleness, resulting in sub-optimal rear wheel traction. In the early years of mountain biking, when all we had were hardtails, climbing required a certain finesse, as you needed to apply power intermittently depending on available traction. Plush, full suspension rigs have largely done away with this skill, allowing riders to just sit and spin, regardless of the rocks and roots that the rear wheel is tracking over. The BLTc climbs well, but requires that the rider exert a degree of finesse as the rear wheel tends to skip over rocks and roots during hard pedaling, rather than track through them. The BLTc also has a low bottom bracked, which results in frequent pedal strikes and the need for extra oomph during log-overs.

The Nomad carbon has the typical geometry for a 6” bike, in that the angles are slack, the front wheel is well out in front, and you sit more over the rear wheel. At 29 pounds, this bike is light for bike with 6.5” of travel, thanks to a mostly XTR build, some sweet carbon RaceFace cranks, and a light wheelset.

Color is Matte Black, which looks cool both clean and with a coating of dust (photos were shot without cleaning the bike after a dusty UC ride). Overall color motif is black and gold with silver accents—I typically like my bikes to be tastefully stealth, but this color scheme, while not exactly “pimp daddy,” matches the pin striping on the frame. I don’t know if it is the rigidity of the frame or the light wheelset, handbuilt by Charles on King hubs, but the Nomad is a very lively pedaling bike.

It pedals much more like a 26 pound bike than a 6-inch, 29 pound bike. It also lacks the aforementioned climbing traction problem, as it seems to track through rock gardens and sketchy traction sections without hesitation. In fact, Bill and I dropped Mailboxes and climbed Fence Line and I cleaned the steep, loose, rocky climb at the bottom of Fence Line on the first try. The BLTc descends well, but the Nomad just rails the same downhills. The Nomad is burly and well mannered, but has that BMX-bike feel that just makes you want to jump things and push the edge of the envelope. It also has a higher BB, which means fewer pedal strikes and easier log-overs, and unlike a lot of 6” bikes which tend to sacrifice agility for strait line stability, the Nomad changes direction easily, carving up the downhills. On the first ride, the 36 Float 160 and the rear shock were plush and well tuned, using more than 97% of available travel with no adjustments needed! Drivetrain was butter smooth. All in all, I would put the Nomad in the top 10% of bikes that I have ridden over the years….”

Thank you Nigel. You can find more pictures of Nigel’s Nomad at Bikes 2010 and other Passion builds at the Bike Doula site