2017 Santa Cruz Tallboy & Juliana Joplin Review

The Santa Cruz Tallboy and Juliana Joplin are XC-ish mountain bikes that have been beefed up to handle rugged downhill terrain with the help of extra travel and burlier forks. At TPC the Tallboy and Joplin are favorites for climbing up the local goat trails while still being beefy enough to bomb down rocky and steep singletrack. 

2017 Juliana Joplin CC

2017 Santa Cruz Tallboy CC

There’s a small, legendary underground Strava race that happens every year here in Colorado. It’s called the Cougar Slayer, an epic 70-mile endurance adventure that takes riders high up into the mountains to ride some of the roughest and least traveled terrain on the Front Range. It’s been a goal of mine to complete the course and I’ve thought long and hard about the perfect bike I’d use to accomplish the task. It would need to be light and efficient, yet capable enough to handle long steep descents and smooth out the chunky alpine rock that litters Colorado’s high country. The answer, I’ve decided, is the Tallboy, or its Juliana equivalent, the Joplin.

The Tallboy and Joplin aren’t quite like regular XC bikes. With 110mm of travel in the rear and 120-130mm forks, they edge more into trail bike territory.

The head angle is on the slacker end. The reach is just long enough to give extra confidence during fast and technical descents. And the option to run either 29er or 27.5+ wheels give the bikes extra versatility for different terrain and riding styles. They can be built light without feeling fragile.

With solid tubing and amazing paint, the Tallboy and Joplin exude classic, rugged Santa Cruz build quality, and I’d trust their durability as much as I would a metal framed bike. And most importantly, they’re fun to ride! The bike feels spry, tight, and fast, able to roll over most trail obstacles thanks the bit of extra travel and progressive geometry.  

There’s an exact niche that this sort of bike fits into, the niche of the everyday rider. With efficient VPP suspension, they’re bikes that climb and pedal near as well as an XC bike but can descend competently in places where a full-on XC race bike might falter.

It’s what most riders need, something that goes beyond the strict necessities of racing. It’s a bike you can spend all day riding, and that’s comfortable going any distance. It’s a bike without extremes, and because of this, it’s a bike without any major pain points. I’ve spent entire weekends pedaling the Tallboy deep into the woods, high above treeline, and down into the desert, and no matter the terrain it always just works, disappearing beneath me, leaving me alone in the bliss of nature. These qualities are the exact reason why my next attempt at completing an epic ride like the Cougar Slayer will most definitely be aboard the Tallboy.

In marketing, you might hear brands describe their bike’s as “no compromise” machines. The Tallboy and Joplin are bikes that don’t subscribe to that sort of genre confining ad-speak. They are full of compromises that let them excel at the type of riding most riders do on a daily basis. This is what makes them great, and what endears them to so many riders. It’s the type of bike you choose if you can only have one bike for the rest of your life. The Tallboy and Joplin are bikes capable of satisfying someone coming from any end of the riding spectrum. It’s the bike for the rider who simply wants to enjoy the ride, to go places, to see things, to work hard, and to go fast, all at the same time.

Bruce is a writer who loves getting his bikes dirty, trying new tech, and riding tough trails that make him suffer for hours at a time.