2025 Santa Cruz Bronson!

• Posted on 20 August 2024
• 0

It's been a while since the Mk4 Bronson came out, so as Santa Cruz's product development cycle loops round again it's no surprise to see a revamp for 2025.  Here's the Mk5 Bronson!

So what's new?  To sum it up;

- A new VPP layout to give lower anti-squat

- Tweaked geometry

- A streamlined range of builds, with changes to specs across the board

- A return of frame only?!

- Kalimotxo (the Pink one!) or Root Beer (the transparent Brown one!)

And the other important bit, prices;

- 2025 Santa Cruz Bronson Carbon C R Kit - £4900

- 2025 Santa Cruz Bronson Carbon C S Kit - £5700

- 2025 Santa Cruz Bronson Carbon C GX AXS Kit - £6600

- 2025 Santa Cruz Bronson Carbon CC X0 AXS Kit - £7800

- 2025 Santa Cruz Bronson Carbon CC X0 AXS Reserve Kit - £8800

- 2025 Santa Cruz Bronson Carbon CC Frameset - £3600

Scroll on for more of a deep dive...

New suspension layout and geometry.

Santa Cruz are constantly tweaking VPP, all while keeping the same core idea of 2 short links connecting sturdy front and rear triangles.  For the new Bronson, they've reconfigured the shock placement and links to give lower anti squat for a more efficient ride than ever before.  There's a wee bonus that the new cutaway gives even better view of your shock for checking sag.

On the ride geometry side of things, they've taken what they've learned from subsequent MX bike designs and brought those to the Bronson too.  Most noticeably - longer stays to better balance a rider between the wheels, size specific so the length of the bike grows at the front and rear as you move up the bike sizes.

We still see the same great frame features that we love on Santa Cruz bikes - Carbon C and Carbon CC versions, reliable collet axle system and their lifetime frame and pivot bearing warranty backup.

New build kits

Santa Cruz have slimmed the range in terms of what they're offering on the Bronson and we're glad to see this.  With bike stock always proving difficult, making sensible moves to simplify a range is only a good thing in our eyes - hopefully we'll see better availability because of this.

Specifically, the XX kit at the top end is gone, along with the GX AXS Reserve.  It could be said that someone after an XX kit would prefer to custom build and pick and choose components to suit - and we can always add Reserve wheels/rims to a GX AXS kit to make a GX AXS Reserve.  No worries!

In terms of components changes, there's still the familiar build kits, but with tweaks to bring them bang up to date;

- Fox Float X and Fox 36 forks across the board, other than the R kit

- Sram DB8 (R and S kit) and Maven (GX AXS and above) brakes

- Reserve 30 Aluminium rims (Reserve 30 HD Carbon on the X0 AXS Reserve)

- Assegai EXO+ MaxxGrip/DHR II EXO+ MaxxTerra across all build kits.

Sensible moves all round!

Frame only looks to be back on the cards, which is promising given the very limited supply over the last few years.  Bear in mind that CC bikes and frames won't have gear cable routing - wireless drivetrain only on these!

We expect stocks of the new 2025 Bronson to be pretty tight until the New Year proper, partly while the last of the 2024 stock winds through.  As always - give us a shout to discuss a potential purchase, whether a complete bike, custom build or frame swap.  Email's usually best!