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Santa Cruz

FAST-FORWARD TO THE FUN STUFF

Heckler

Agile. Playful. Fun.

When Santa Cruz set out to make their first e-bike, they made a conscious choice to build a rider's bike, not a reader's bike. Nothing against reading, but specs on a page ain't tires in the dirt. If you want the most agile, playful, and fun e-mountain bike on the planet, you want the Heckler. Throw a leg over one and you'll see what we mean.

CHECK OUT ALL THE HECKLER BUILDS

Proven Suspension

Featuring Santa Cruz's supple yet efficient Virtual Pivot Point (VPP) suspension, the 150mm-travel Heckler is built to brawl on the descents, and tuned to come back for more with easy, efficient pedaling. While Heckler shares the same lower-link driven suspension design as its non-powered brethren, it's specially tuned to be more active for seated pedaling–a riding technique, which, along with a high pedal cadence, makes scaling previously unthinkable steeps possible.

Design Choices

Just like all Santa Cruz bikes, Heckler comes with thoughtful spec and smart, "simply advanced" design features. High-quality pivot hardware is married with smooth-moving and easy-to-adjust radial bearings (which come with free lifetime replacement); cable routing is easy to access and maintain; the bikes lines are clean and well-thought-out, and the design choices just make sense.

Full Carbon. Full Blast.

Santa Cruz builds all versions of Heckler from their own high-grade CC carbon, and not just the front triangle, but the rear swingarm and battery cover to boot. This helps keep Heckler svelte, maneuverable and tough enough to carry the same legendary Lifetime Warranty as all Santa Cruz carbon frames and Reserve carbon rims.

Shimano Steps Integration

Santa Cruz chose Shimano's STEPS electric drive system for its awesome performance, extreme reliability, and worldwide support. The Shimano E-8000 drive unit, along with the 504 watt-hour E-8035 battery combine to keep weight reasonable, and make Heckler easy to manuever, agile in the air, and synonomous with the pedal mountain bikes we all know and love. Because the system is fully integrated, riders have access to the full compliment of diagnostics and mode adjustments via Shimano's eTube smartphone app. And if you're after that extra long ride, switching to a spare battery is a three-second, keyless swap-out.

E-Specific Components

Using an electric motor amplifes some of the ride and performance dynamics of a mountain bike, and Santa Cruz has chosen components carefully to compensate. E-bike-specific forks are purposely spec'd with added speed and weight in mind, while four-piston brakes with 200mm rotors are the standard. On the drivetrain side, SRAM's killer Eagle 12-speed systems provide the same wide-range, dependable gearing we put on all our pedal bikes, but come with an e-specific shifter to prevent disasters during high-torque shifting events.

Level-Up To Reserve Carbon

Higher speeds, more weight, and more saddle time calls for a stiffer, stronger rear wheel, so X01 and XX1 Heckler builds feature the proven 32-hole Reserve DH carbon rim out back, paired with a Reserve 30 rim up front. High-end builds feature a new Di2-compatible Santa Cruz carbon handlebar that has grooves and holes so you can run all the STEPS wiring stealth style on the inside of the bars. Pretty sweet.