Santa Cruz Bicycles, LLC is an American division of Dutch conglomerate Pon Holdings that manufactures mountain bikes in Santa Cruz, California.[2] They sponsor the Santa Cruz Syndicate, a downhill racing team. The company moved premises from 104 Bronson Street to 2841 Mission Street in 2013 .[3] Formerly owned by NHS, Inc. On July 3, 2015, Santa Cruz Bicycles was sold to Pon Holdings, a family-owned Dutch conglomerate with a bicycle division including brands such as Cervélo, Focus and Royal Dutch Gazelle.[4]
Santa Cruz Bicycles was founded by Rob Roskopp, Mike Marquez and Rich Novak in 1993.[5] Roskopp had spent many years as a professional skateboarder, and Novak's Santa Cruz Skateboards company had put out a special "Roskopp" model before the two met. Roskopp and Novak went into partnership with bike engineer Mike Marquez, who had particular experience in bicycle suspension, and Tom Morris, a designer, to build some prototypes.[6]
Their first bike, in 1994, was a full suspension bike called the Tazmon. It had an 80 millimetres (3.1in) travel single pivot design,[7] the first on the market.[2][5] It was followed a year later by the 100 millimetres (3.9in) travel Heckler, a model that was discontinued for the 2016 model year and relaunched in 2020 as an e-bike.
A 2013 Santa Cruz Tallboy mountain bike (aluminum frame)Santa Cruz head badge
The company manufactures around a dozen models of mountain bikes made of carbon fiber and aluminum, ranging from $1500 to over $10000 retail. Their bikes are suited to a wide range of mountain biking disciplines.[2] Frame fabrication occurs in China and Taiwan, but all bicycles are assembled in Santa Cruz, built to customer specifications just before being shipped out.
In 2013, a single model, the "Juliana" was spun off as a stand-alone brand and range of mountain bikes for women, designed by and named for Juli Furtado.[8]
In 2017, Santa Cruz announced the addition of carbon fiber wheels[9] to their product lineup.
Current Santa Cruz/Juliana Production Models[10][11]
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