Staff Bike Check: Janey’s Santa Cruz Bronson 4.1

For those of you who’ve more recently got into riding the Tweed Valley, Janey might be new to you but she has a solid history of riding and racing behind her. Formerly a competitive Enduro racer, she was on the verge of winning the Scottish Enduro Series in 2017 before a massive crash in practice at the Innerleithen round put an end to her season. More recently she’s dabbled in some ultra distance riding with the ‘highlight’ being a midwinter single push lap of the Capital Trail along with Fi from Dirt School a few years ago.

After being diagnosed with chronic fatigue a couple of years ago she’s mostly been riding E-bikes as a result, but with that now improving and some winter uplift riding and trips on the cards, Janey decided to put together a trail bike again. The goal was to build a light but hard riding all round bike that she could still pedal, but that could hold up to any trail, so the Bronson seemed the ideal candidate. She’s also got good history with the platform with her old Bronson 3 being one of her favourite ever bikes. 

Her new Bronson 4.1 has quite a lot in common with that bike - still sporting a 160mm fork paired to 150mm travel, it’s a well rounded frame that can cope with anything from enduro race stages to mellow flow trails and not feel out of place on any of them. Unlike her old dual 650b V3, the V4 uses an MX wheel setup adding the extra calmness out front that the larger 29’ wheel brings. Janey has ridden full 29’ wheeled bikes in the past also, but at 5,2’ tall finds she prefers the quicker handling MX wheel configuration and the more agile on trail feel it creates. Despite riding a lot of challenging terrain (Janey is a real lover of steep off piste stuff) she’s never been a fan of the deadened feel of long travel bikes, preferring a bike that responds to rider input more immediately over the 170mm options. 

A full custom build, her bike is built from a mix of her favourite parts, and makes a few sneaky changes compared to the norm to save weight and improve it’s pedalling manners while she gradually makes the switch back onto mountain bikes again.

Janey’s Build

Wheel and tires can have a huge influence on a bike’s ride and Janey has gone her own way here with a custom built set of Reserve carbon rims, laced onto Hope’s super low drag and bulletproof Pro 5 hubs. Unlike a stock wheelset, she went with a custom combination of their lightweight SL30 rim out front to reduce overall weight, coupled with an HD30 rim for the back wheel to make an ultra reliable option where more strength is needed. 

Tires are Maxxis and follow a similar theme, with a Minion DHR II 2.4 in the sticky 3C MaxxGrip compound, but the lightest EXO casing out front to try and deliver as much grip as possible with the minimum weight and rolling resistance. That light tire might not work for everyone but at only 60 kg Janey can get away with it with no problems. Out back she’s specced a slightly heavier but still fast rolling Dissector 2.4 in EXO+, again looking to have just enough grip and toughness to avoid punctures and take on steeper tracks, while keeping the bike as pedal friendly as possible. Looking to squeeze as much grip as possible from the combination, Janey runs just 19psi front and 21psi rear for the Tweed Valley’s typically slippy trails. 

A big Burgtec fan, she’s got her usual cockpit from them on the Bronson, pairing a Enduro Carbon Bar trimmed to 740mm with a 35mm stem to keep the reach short and handling sharp while a set of Burgtec Bartender grips give a thin profile for her smaller hands. 

As well as her cockpit, there are other neat touches of Burgtec adding function and style around the bike with the steerer stack, top cap, chainring and seat clamp all colour matched in their Kash Bronze.

The other big presence throughout her build is from Hope, who’s legendary parts and backup have made their components staff favourites here for years now. 

Her brakes are their excellent Tech 4 E4s, paired to 200mm front and 180mm rear floating rotors. Janey has loved their brakes ever since the Tech 3s came out for both their benchmark levels of modulation and reliability. The smaller E4 calliper is more than powerful enough for her, and the slightly reduced rotor sizes keep the brakes in a good temperature window and even easier to feather and use without accidental lockups. 

Her drivetrain also bucks the high end norm, being a full mechanical SRAM X01 setup, (chosen mainly to save weight over T-Type) driven by a set of 165mm Hope Evo cranks. She had considered making the switch to the shorter 155mm length but for the moment is choosing to keep things consistent between all her bikes.

Pedals are Hope Union Trail, which Janey rides with the 4’ cleat option to create a more solid ‘shimano’ in and out feel to the cleat engagement. She’s running all four pins for an extra stable platform, but keeping the spring tension fairly loose for easily clipping in and out. She’s ended up liking this set up so much that she’s specced the Hope Union Trail and Race pedals across all of her bikes now.

Finally, suspension is a fully RockShox affair, with the stock Super Deluxe Ultimate complemented by a Lyrik Ultimate fork at 160mm. She could have gone with a Zeb here (she has one on her Heckler) but chose to save weight and being a smaller rider doesn’t really feel she necessarily needs the stiffness of the wider stanchions.

If she’s got you convinced that a Bronson might be for you, then we’ve got good stock in both the GX AXS and S builds on the V4.1 bikes, with both at very competitive discounts right now. C S builds are available for £3999 and C GX AXS builds for £4499. Want to ask any questions about them or any of our other bikes? 

☎️ 01896 831429

📧 shop@tweedvalleybikes.co.uk