Total Women's Cycling

Santa Cruz are mountain bikes that have grown out of skateboards. The company was established in 1993 by Rob Roskopp, who had been a professional skateboarder for years, and Rich Novak, one of the founders of Santa Cruz Skateboards. The first ever Santa Cruz mountain bike went on sale in 1994. Called ‘The Tazmon’ it was a single-pivot, full suspension bike with 76mm of travel. This was followed up the next year by the Heckler, which is a model that the company continues to develop. Probably the key piece of trademarked technology owned by Santa Cruz is their Virtual Pivot Point suspension system, which they acquired in the late 1990s.

The Santa Cruz range of mountain bikes come in five categories; all mountain, cross-country, downhill, hardtail and trailbike. Alongside the Heckler, signature models include the Tallboy, the Blur, the Highball and the V10 downhill bike. In the cross-country category you’ll find their women’s Juliana model, named for Juliana Furtado, a winner at the first Mountain Bike World Championship. Since starting life as the first ever female-specific mountain bike in 1999, this has grown to include a new line of bikes and accessories designed and developed for women riders by Furtado under the ‘Juliana Bicycles’ umbrella.

The Santa Cruz Syndicate – featuring MTB stars Steve Pete, Greg Minnaar, Josh Bryceland and John Waddell – compete in the downhill category at the UCI World Cup and World Championships. They also support independent riders such as Cedric Gracia and Miranda Miller.