The Hightower was designed as the Santa Cruz for everyone. Everyone with deep enough pockets, anyway. It’s got 145mm travel, 29er wheels and relaxed but not silly-slack geometry, and the idea was you could ride it almost everywhere, on any trail, and have a great time.

The trouble was, UK riders didn’t agree. The Nomad is still the brand’s biggest selling bike, a 170mm travel super enduro bike that wouldn’t look out of its depth on the gnarliest of downhill tracks. Clearly, the Hightower wasn’t cutting it against the best enduro mountain bikes around. My guess is riders felt they needed more muscle for those bike park days or annual forays to the Alps… and I’d tend to agree.

The solution from Santa Cruz is, of course, to beef up the Hightower. More travel, more aggressive geometry, plusher suspension. Those Californian engineers have been busy this year, first redesigning the mullet-derived Bronson, before moving onto the slightly more sensible Hightower here, now in its fourth generation. And, surprise surprise, the bike’s really bloody similar to that fifth generation Bronson Guy reviewed earlier this summer, in X0 AXS RSV build. 

Santa Cruz Hightower Gen 4 need to know

• New version of the Hightower, a 150mm travel all-mountain bike, with 160mm fork
• VPP suspension now drives the GripX damped Factory-level Fox 36 fork and Float X shock
• New shock position is lower and more horizontal, giving a clearer window for shock setup
• Santa Cruz has reduced the anti-squat for plusher, easier to access suspension travel
• Carbon frames only, in C and CC-level, with new glovebox storage door
• X0 AXS drivetrain, Reserve carbon wheels, SRAM Maven brakes and OneUp V3 dropper post
• Six bikes in the range, check out the full Santa Cruz Hightower breakdown including prices and spec in our news story

The Stone King Rally is probably the rockiest, gnarliest and most physically demanding enduro race in the world. Or at least it was, until it finished in 2024. It’s telling that Santa Cruz decided to launch its new bike on the race’s wild trails, and the marketing message is loud and clear – this is a bike that’s more aggressive than the one it replaces.

Those who’ve raced the event proper in the past told me their bike of choice had been the longer-travel Megatower or similar. One old hand laughed when I said I was due to tackle some of the Stone King trails on a Hightower. However, and this is a huge credit to this new bike rather than the pilot here, I never felt underbiked when sampling the trailmaggedon that is the Stone King.

The changes are more than just adding 5mm to the bike’s travel too, Santa Cruz has masterfully reimagined how the bike rides, without seeming to change very much at all.

Frame details

The first thing to say is how incredibly good Santa Cruz is at making beautiful bikes. I’d happily saw it in half and submerge the thing in formaldehyde or stencil its shape onto the side of the building, if it wouldn’t be a waste of a good bike. There’s something about the lustre of the colours, profile of the tube and balance of the bike front to back that’s really appealing, and goes a long way towards explaining the brand’s appeal. The headbadge sums it up for me, instead of being stuck onto the headtube, Santa Cruz has inset it into the carbon, so it’s more part of the bike while still adding texture and depth. That’s class.

The basic Hightower silhouette has hardly changed and the bike still uses the through shock and VPP suspension design that almost all Santa Cruz bikes use. Now though the shock is mounted slightly more horizontally and lower in the frame, and that’s to manipulate the suspension feel, which I’ll come back to in a minute. It’s also made more of a window into the shock and that makes setting the sag easier than it had been on the old bike.

There’s no alloy option, it’s carbon only in C grade or slightly lighter and more high end CC. Santa Cruz hasn’t gone for headset cable routing, which we can all rejoice about, instead it enters through the headtube as per usual. The CC frame has a cleaner look though because it’s designed for wireless-shifting only, meaning there are only two ports, one for the dropper post cable and one for the rear brake hose. I’d guess this means Santa Cruz is expecting more SRAM AXS shifting in the future, and more from Shimano’s Di2 engineers.

Plenty of brand’s offer size-specific chainstays, Santa Cruz included, but the new bike also uses different carbon layups across the sizes to ensure each size rides the same. That’s the goal anyway, and in theory it means really lightweight riders won’t be smashed around by a bike that’s too stiff, and bigguns won’t end up on a flexy noodle. How accurate and consistent you can really be in a carbon layup isn’t obvious to me, but I’ve got to applaud the attention to detail.

You have to pay a lot of money if you want a Santa Cruz, but the brand does look after you when you’re a member of the club. There’s a lifetime warranty on the bike’s bearings, the frame and Reserve wheels, so after you’ve parted with your thousands of pounds or dollars for one the maintenance shouldn’t be too steep. Santa Cruz has also fitted downtube protection galore and a wicked rubbery chainstay protector to fend off rocks. There’s even a service-friendly threaded BB rather than a press fit.

Finally, the glovebox has been tweaked to make the opening wider and the space more usable. The Hightower actually has less space in there than it used to though, with the extreme bottom end of the downtube blocked off. I managed to cram tools, food and a lightweight jacket in, but it’s still a tight fit getting it through the hatch. The door latch is new too and, well, latches.

Suspension

It wouldn’t be a Santa Cruz without using VPP suspension. It works by using two short links – one connecting the chainstays to the front triangle, the other from the seatstay to the top tube – that turn in opposite directions. That creates a virtual pivot point and lets Santa Cruz mess around with things like anti-squat, shock progression, anti-rise and all that technical stuff that basically boils down to how the bike rides.

In the case of the Hightower, Santa Cruz has removed some of the anti-squat on the new bike, the theory is this makes the suspension smoother and more active, but less able to hold you up when pedalling or cornering.

The XO AXS Reserve I tested now gets 150mm travel up from 145mm, and the fork has been jacked up 10mm to 160mm. You get Fox 36 Factory fork and Float X Factory shock, both with the latest Grip X damper inside, letting you independently adjust the high and low speed compression damping, as well as the rebound. The most important change is that the baseline compression has reduced on the new damper in the fork, meaning you can decide how many of the 15 and 16 high and low speed clicks respectively to dial back on.

Geometry and sizing

This one’s easy to sum up in three words: longer, lower, slacker. The usual treatment then. But not by much, the head angle is now a degree slacker at 64° and the chainstays have grown by around 2mm, depending on the size. There’s a flip chip that’ll budge the head angle by 0.3° and adjust the BB height by 3mm. Santa Cruz doesn’t recommend you try and mullet the Hightower, but I suppose it would be possible by using the flip chip to raise the bike’s BB height and compensate for the lower 27.5in wheel. The Hightower and Bronson actually share the same front triangle too, but really if you want a mullet there’s no reason not to go with the Bronson in the first place.

Sizing is generous and pretty much unchanged from the old bike, there are five sizes, and the XL with its 500mm reach was spot on for me.

Components

I spent the first 30 minutes on the Hightower practising stoppies, so powerful are the Maven brakes. This isn’t because I’m a steezy rider, you understand, but more because I couldn’t help but mess around on this plaything of a bike.

Santa Cruz has specced 180mm rotors front and rear, which I figured would be hugely underpowered for the 1,000m+ descents planned for the bike’s launch. Honestly though, I didn’t feel like I needed more power. At no point did the Mavens start to fade or the bite point wander, and the arm pump I experienced was more from the rocky trails at a thousand miles an hour than having to grab the brakes too hard. The Mavens are powerful, consistent, silent, and solid.

I smacked the XO AXS mech on almost every rock in the Italian Alps, but it never missed a shift. Perhaps a mechanical drivetrain would have stood up to the abuse just as well, but all I can say is that SRAM’s shifting was amazing on this occasion. Remembering to charge the battery is another matter, I set off on my first test ride without the ability to change gear, but it charges pretty quickly.

Maxxis tyres are ubiquitous now on most new bikes, and we’d probably all complain if something else came as standard: although perhaps not for much longer now the likes of Continental and Michelin are pushing things on. The bike comes with EXO and EXO+ casings as standard, which are too flimsy for enduro racing and nothing like as competent as the bike. I was pleased to see a Double Down version with MaxxGrip rubber applied for the Stone King tour then.

I’ve been reminded recently just how important a good bar, stem and grip combo is to your confidence and precision on a bike, after riding some odd-shaped and overly stiff controls. In contrast, the Santa Cruz carbon bar is a great shape, the Burgtec stem stiff without being harsh, and even the ownbrand grips are decent enough.

My test bike came with a Fox Transfer dropper but the stock bike switches to the excellent OneUp V3. With just 180mm in drop it won’t be long enough for my pins without having a fair chunk of lower leg poking up above the relatively short seatpost.

Performance

The Hightower has grown up, it’s now a bike for big terrain and long days out in proper mountains, and as such it’ll be more useful for more riders, I suspect.

Climbing

I like to do my homework, and in this case it involved reading Guy’s review of the also-new Bronson. It’s a bike that’s lost its spark for him, doesn’t climb as well as the old model and isn’t as engaging on the descents.

I was surprised to find the Hightower a proper goat on technical uphill sections, then. Yes it dips into its travel as you press on the pedals but there’s enough bike behind you to keep your body centred and that rear wheel gripping. Perhaps it’s the 29er rear wheel that makes all the difference, reducing the torque from the drivetrain, slowing down my pedal strokes and generating more grip. But it felt like there wasn’t much I couldn’t get up.

The Hightower is no XC whippet, it’s pretty heavy for a trail bike and changes to the suspension have made it more sluggish on the climbs for sure. But the grip is undeniable, and the only limiting factor for me was the power of my legs. The seated position is also ideal for winching up fireroads, and with the excellent Silverado saddle I could (and did) pedal it all day long.

Descending

Back in the noughties if you weren’t slamming your stem down onto the headtube and building up spacers on the top like chips in a casino, you weren’t doing it right. I’ve still got a bit of this nonsense in my head, and I still enjoy a low bar to drag my weight over the front wheel. But the Hightower had me progressively raising the bar height and stacking up headset spacers under the stem. Was I trying to out Dak Dakotah Norton and his 75mm high riser bars?

Well yeah, kind of. The steeper Alpine terrain naturally meant I wanted to shift my bodyweight back. But more than that, I found the Hightower really well balanced front to back, letting me weight both wheels with my feet. I could then drop the fork pressures and have a squishier, more supple front end.

That leads me to the only real criticism I have with the Hightower, the Fox 36 was totally underwhelming in terms of compliance and comfort. The Grip X did a brilliant job keeping the front of the bike from collapsing into the huge rocky holes that passed for tracks in the mountains. And the little bit of flex in the chassis really helps it cling to off-camber sections too. But it was far from plush or cosseting, something I really wanted for my softie hands.

Excited by the idea Fox had removed some of the compression damping, I wound on seven or eight clicks as suggested by Santa Cruz. I then spent the next three days winding it all back off again to try and free the fork up and make it glide up and down its stanchions.

Asking around, I’m not alone in this feeling of stickiness from the fork. I’m told it can take a long time to free up and get loose, something that wasn’t accomplished in my 4,000-odd metres of descending. On my first ride back in the UK I hopped on a bike with a Grip2 damped Fox 38 and was blown away with its effortless movement.

This is all the more annoying given how great the bike as a whole feels on a variety of terrain. It’s Trek-like in feel, solid enough to put a dampener on properly rowdy terrain and keep the wheels tracking the ground. Santa Cruz calls this brawn, I’ve always thought of that trait as muscular, but whatever your adjective it’s a beguiling effect on big terrain when you’re a little bit out of your comfort zone.

On a couple of occasions the trails caught me out, I’d come into a rocky section too hot or fail to notice that the grip had changed from sublime to sketchy. But the Hightower has a way of damping all this away and slowing things down, soaking up the terrain without breaking traction and throwing you off line. It’s the kind of bike that’ll save your ass, flexing just enough to keep you on point.

It’s really impressive, all the more so given there’s only 150mm of travel here to play with. I’ve ridden bikes with more supple suspension, but not many with as much control and confidence as the Hightower.

Guy’s criticism of the Bronson was that some of the fun had gone from the bike. I’m not familiar with the outgoing Hightower or Bronson, but I think I know what he means. Load the new Hightower into the ground and it doesn’t return your energy like the Santa Cruz 5010 I know really well. There’s too much bike here for that to happen, and the needle has been swung firmly in the direction of competence over playfulness. That said, it’s not unwilling to leave the ground, I found plenty of natural doubles and kickers to play on, some of which I had the guts to pull for… plenty I didn’t.

The trails I rolled down on the Stone King route varied minute by minute. Loamy slaloms that fill your shoes and even jersey with loam, huge rocky minefields, slabs of rock like dinner plates, loose shale singletrack, rounded rocks and shiny roots coatd with anti-grip. The Hightower took it all. The only trouble is, I have no idea how it rides on mellow trails I like to ride in the UK.

I said earlier the fork is my biggest criticism, but the downtube protector fared much worse. I lost mine in a rock garden, smashing its lower fixings to smithereens, and two other journalists had guards that suffered similarly. I know it’s there as a replacement part, but Santa Cruz needs to put something more resilient and rubbery in there so you don’t have to worry about it.