Santa Cruz launch the new Bullit E-MTB

Today Santa Cruz launch a brand new Bullit, giving the Vala a bigger, meaner longer travel brother and rounding out their full power E-Bike range. 

When the Santa Cruz Vala arrived last year it went straight to the top of our list as absolutely the best full power bike we’d ever ridden. Composed and silent, with enormous reserves of grip and unusually easy to pump and accelerate it seemed almost the perfect compromise of traits for an all round full power E-Bike. 

Given all that, we were both excited and nervous to see what the new Bullit would look and ride like when we got word it was due. Could it possibly match the ride of the Vala or would it even go one step further? Before we get into our riding days, let's have a look at what makes up the new Bullit and where Santa Cruz expects it to shine. 

Those of you who’ve read all the details on the Vala can skip ahead a bit here, as a huge amount of what was applied to that bike carries over seamlessly to the Bullit. Almost all of the design cues and updates map between the two bikes with the Bullit essentially providing a longer travel sibling to the Vala at 170mm travel front and rear and rolling on mixed wheels. Despite the obvious visual similarity between the two, it is worth noting that they actually share no frame parts at all, with every carbon element adjusted for the longer travel bike.

Once again, the Bullit uses the newest Gen5 Bosch CX motor. Smaller than the older unit, lighter, quieter under power and totally silent while the bike is descending, it delivers 85Nm of torque and 600W of peak power (for now, there are rumours of a firmware update to increase both of those figures coming soon). Both speed sensor and handlebar controller are wireless to reduce routing faff and with all four of the power modes fully user tunable, it can be dialled up or down to suit pretty much any rider. Power delivery and traction are the best we’ve ridden from any system, with the motor output incredibly easy to control using pressure at the pedals to avoid unwanted spikes in power or wheelspin. Reliability from Bosch systems has historically been excellent, so the overall package it offers now is absolutely solid, with no real areas of weakness or poor performance.  Bosch may not generate the internet hype of some other motors, but in a world of unreliable bikes and rapid change it is simply a competitive, easy to ride, and well designed motor system. Battery efficiency is also much better than average, with the CX motor helping to extract the maximum kilometres from any given size of battery.

As with the Vala, Santa Cruz has once again gone with the smaller of the two Bosch battery options, choosing the 600W integrated battery for the Bullit. That move surprised a few people then and likely will again now, but Santa Cruz are adamant that using the 600W system keeps the centre of mass in a better place on the bike, improving handling. Given that the Vala was the best full power E-Bike we’d ever been aboard at the time, maybe they’re not all wrong with that. As with the Vala, the Bullit is also compatible with the Bosch Powermore 250W range extender for extra large days out, taking total capacity to a potential 850W.

The other change that really created a stir at the Vala launch was the switch to a 4-Bar suspension layout, in a shock move away from Santa Cruz’s defining VPP dual link design. Struggling to make the VPP linkage perform the way they wanted on a Bosch E-BIke, with the necessary pivot positions being compromised by the mounting points of the motor, rather than compromise performance, Santa Cruz went back to the drawing board and made what they thought worked best. The resulting new linkage rides excellently and suits E-Bikes especially well, with improved climbing traction and excellent suspension activity under braking thanks to reduced anti-squat and anti-rise values compared to the regular mountain bikes. With how well the new design was received and rides, it’s no great surprise to see it used again on the new Bullit and we’d expect it to become the standard layout for their full power E-Bikes from this point onwards.

A side benefit to the design switch was massively improved dropper insertion due to the space created by removing the shock tunnel from the seat tube. That means that Medium bikes now allow a 180mm dropper to be fully slammed, while the Large frame can do the same with a 210mm post creating a ton of room for rider movement. 

Elsewhere around the Bullit, the attention to detail we’ve come to expect from Santa Cruz is present throughout. Cables and hoses are far easier to thread and remove than most E-Bikes, the pivot bearings are all reassuringly large and the frame hardware is especially easy to work on, with captive axles making it almost impossible to drop and lose small parts when removing or installing bolts. These are small details really, but over time they can make quite a difference when actually living with a bike, not just to overall running cost, but quite possibly to whether an emergency part swap is even possible if you’re away from home and needing a quick job done.

Sizing on the new Bullit follows a similar trend to their other recent bike releases with what looks to be a very well thought out and balanced set of numbers, set to prioritize handling at speed without becoming anything too wildly extreme. Both head angle / BB height and shock progression are independently adjustable from separate flip chips while chainstays grow with frame size, ranging from 441mm on the Small to 453mm on the XXL.

A size Large Bullit (in the low linkage position) shapes up with a 477mm reach, 63.3’ head angle, 1280mm wheelbase and 447mm chainstay, so hardly small for the size but very much a ‘normal’ rideable bike which should work well in a good variety of different situations. Compared directly to the Vala, it runs a bit bigger, with identical Reach numbers but a noticeably longer wheelbase per size (1268mm vs 1280mm in size Large) emphasising the Bullit’s focus on speed and stability over slower speed agility.

Weight was another mystery metric before we got to see the new bikes, but slightly unexpectedly the Bullit is once again right at the lighter end of the range for a full power E-Bike with builds varying between 21.8kg and 22.5kg depending on the spec (with solid Double Down Maxxis tires).

Riding the Bullit

With Santa Cruz passing through Innerleithen a couple of weeks ago, we were lucky enough to get some time on the Bullit with Neil, Matthew and Tom all managing a couple of rides on a variety of our local trails.That’s definitely not enough time for a proper review, but enough to get a decent impression of the new bike and what it does best.

All three of us rode our ‘normal’ size in the bike, with Neil (176cm) riding a Medium, Tom (180cm) on a Large and Matthew (186cm) testing the XL.  

The Santa Cruz tagline for the Bullit reads ‘it’s a downhill bike with a built in chairlift’ which conjures up images of a super capable high speed focused bike built to work on steep, lumpy and gravity fed terrain. That isn’t entirely wrong, as the Bullit is incredibly impressive when blasting through rougher ground but it’s nowhere near as pigeonholed as that catchphrase might imply. Despite limited time, we made an effort to take the Bullit onto not just fast and chunky trails where we knew it was going to excel, but also more rolling and flat descents and some tighter and slower sections too. For those who know the Tweed Valley, our test tracks were: Wardell Way, Big Baw, Repeat Offender, Flat White, Final Fling and New York New York.

Far from being sluggish and unwilling to pump terrain, we found the Bullit to still ride brilliantly through rollers generating speed easily when pumped and happy to be lofted off the ground for a small trail gap or root hop. For a long travel full power bike, it’s exceptionally easy to move around on trail with none of the negatives we might have expected. High speed rough sections are its absolute specialty as you might expect, with the bike just absolutely erasing trail chatter and generating enormous levels of grip. 

Our local handbuilt bike park trail, Flat White, is almost custom made to its strengths with endless supported corners but rough sections to brake and set up on. In here, we just kept pushing harder and harder, waiting for the bike to lose composure but we never managed to find the limits of the Bullit, only our own bravery. Another standout section was the long rock gardens on Big Baw where the Bullit was quite happy to just accelerate through the rough, picking up more and more speed in places where other bikes would begin to hang up or get nervous enough to encourage the rider to back off. This is a bike that you could definitely get yourself in trouble with.

Heading back up, climbing performance is similarly impressive. The Gen 5 Bosch motor is our favourite system to ride right now, with not just plenty of torque but exceptional modulation, allowing the rider to manage traction by easing up on their input which makes a huge difference when climbing more technical sections. The new Horst link design does a good job of keeping the shock active under power and a decently steep 78.4’ seat angle keeps rider weight nicely in front of the rear axle. The slightly longer than average chainstays are also good here - we rode the bike up some very steep sections (and some short bits of trail in reverse, just to see what it can do) and it both applies power and resists looping out well with good weight balance. Cruising up fireroads, it’s simply a comfortable, efficient feeling bike. 

Build Kits and Pricing

Santa Cruz are offering the Bullit in four build kits, three using their C frame, plus a single CC model. The base C 70 kit bike is £6799,  while the upgraded C 90 bike (the model we think is probably the better value entry bike, given what the frame can dish out) is £7699. Above that sits the Fox Performance Elite equipped C GX AXS build at £8599. Finally, there is a single CC model, sporting a near perfect build kit of Reserve Wheels, Fox Factory suspension, SRAM XO drivetrain and Maven Silver brakes. That bike is not cheap at £9999 but it’s also near perfect, with every part on it built to last. 

Bullit or Vala?

This is a tricky one. Up until we rode the new Bullit the Vala was easily the best full power bike we’ve been aboard but the speed and composure of the Bullit gives it a solid edge when the trails are fast or rough (or both). It’s still easy to pick up and maneuver and the cornering grip it puts out is wild. For someone who predominantly rides higher speed, or bike park style trails and DH runs (think Inners DH, Glassie Bike Park, Heartbreak Ridge) the Bullit becomes the obvious choice, especially for the kind of person looking to go as fast as they can on that terrain. It’s simply more forgiving, and cushions out more of the bumps with a bottomless feel to the rear suspension. It's a bike that encourages you to push your limits, making you feel far safer than you perhaps really are. 

Once things slow down or smooth up however, it’s much less of a clear cut win, with the Vala having more of a platform feel to its suspension and a shorter wheelbase that helps it squeeze quickly through tight trails. Jump trails, rolling descents and really tight technical sections (of which we have plenty of in the Tweed Valley) are where the slightly shorter and quicker handling bike is still potentially going to outperform its big brother. For someone looking for a true all rounder, or a bike that’s as good when cruising as going flat out, the Vala is still the one. We’ll do a back to back test once we have both in our fleet but for now that’s how we’d break the bikes down. 

Keen for a Bullit? We’ve an initial pre-order of them due in the next few weeks. Get in touch with us and we’ll be happy to chat bikes or reserve you one.

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