Slacky gets to test ride Bling, SC Blur LT2

So there has to be some payback for being a low paid bike wrench and getting to ride fruity bikes is one of those things

First off, I want to point out that I've always been slightly dubious of al the Santa Cruz Fanboi's and their constant tosspottery in saying "Best Bike EVA!!!"
So I was rather keen to ride the Blut LT2 so I could decry their standpoint. So I'm quite gutter to having to admit that whilst not maybe the best, it's pretty darn close.


A frantic after work bike build of Peter Burkes new Blur LT2, the night before heading up to Roto-Vegas for the wideopen product launch gave me a new bike to thrash for that weekend. Built up with Sram XO for the shifting, XT cranks for the pedalling, Avid Elixr CR brakes for the stopping, Deore XT wheels for the turning, Conti Mountainking on rear and Schwalbe Nobbie Nic up front for the ground gripping, Fox 32 Talas (15mm QR) for the bump eating, thomson seatpost, Hope Stem, Monkeylite XC carbon bars and naturally the obligatory ODI grips (in pearl of course). And the bike weighing in at a respectable 27 pounds
Lucky me had the pleasure of the first ride, so I celebrated taking it's cherry with a 3 hour strop on the Vegas trails.
First impressions were pretty impressive. The bike pedals very well, and then you flick the pro-pedal on and it just eats the track up. The rear end doesn't react to pedal input so much, but it's very active when the shock is open. Thankfully it doesn't sit/sag back into it's travel when you put the good news to the pedals, even on really steep stuff. the Blur LT2 just soaks bumps up without any noticeable killing of speed or momentum, they just seem to disappear from underneath you.
The handling of the Blur LT2 is fairly neutral, with no weird quirks or peculiarities, which meant I was very quickly able to get up to speed. Heading down singletrack on this bike was nothing short of awe inspiring. It was at the same time both nimble and stable. It's very predictable and neutral handling characteristics allowed me to feel super comfortable in letting the bike slid around and really attack sections of trail.
The only things on the whole bike that I can really fault is lack of bottle cage (but I am a jeyboi) and the low BB, but this also allows for it's fantastic cornering, so it's a wee bit of catch 22.]
It asn't until I got the bike back to Welly and on familiar trails that I really appreciated what the Blur LT2 could do. I rode up some super steep and techy trails that normally test me to clean, but I got up the same trails without a hint of a struggle or sign of loss of traction. In fact, instead of looking for the sweet lines, I found myself looking for the hardest one's, for the rootiest and rockiest. now IMHO I'm a pretty darn good techy climber when I'm on game, but the Blur LT2 made me feel like a climbing God!. The climbing grip displayed on the bike with a Mountain King 2.2 UST tire was nothing shy of outright incredible.
Going down the braking stays active and doesn't pitch you up and forward like some bikes tend to do. And with the outstanding Elixr CR brakes, you have so much more control and confidence at your disposal that when you come accross something that you normally ummm and ahh about, your far less likely to have any qualms in hitting it.
In redesigning the Blur LT, Santa Cruz have come very close to the holy grail of trail bikes. And you have no idea of how much this pains me to say it, but if I had the cash, I'd get one. If your partner tells you that you can only have 1 mountain bike, and you do the odd race, the odd epic, jungle rides, and a bunch of just general riding, this is one bike on the poduim of choice. And it's a very small and select group at the top, very small.