Santa Cruz Bullit or Specialized Demo7 one

[Mark Larson]

I cant decide on my first full suspension bike and I can only afford one bike so I need something that gets me up the hill but will take a beating going down so i cant decide between the demo 7 one, or the santa cruz bullit and i want the demo more then the bullit cause it looks cooler but where I live i need to bike up the hill in order to get down it and the bullit will climb slowly, but can you climb with the demo? and i’m going to be doing intermidiate to hard DH and flowy singletrack will the demo handle it? The bike setup on the bullit was going to be fox 36 van rc2 on the front with rock shox vivid 5.1 on the back so is the demo a better bike and setup then the bulit? Noobee to full suspension bikes so please bare with me.
Any info. Helps
Thanks

[cjm]

Both are popular and sturdy sleds. You really can’t go wrong with either. The Demo 7 is a horst link suspension. I can tell you, from experience, that Horst Link designs pedal like pigs with out a lot pedal damping. On the other hand, Horst Link all but eliminates brake jacking, so it’s a trade off. I would check the weights on the two frames, something tells me, the Bullit is a much lighter frame. Both bikes will have a slight problem on the uphill side of flowy single track. You’ll just have to pump the corners and transitions to compensate.

For intermediate Downhill and flowy single track, the Trail SX from Specialized might be more suitable. It’s by far and away tough enough for gnarly DH and any single track. The Demo 7 is more of huck bike, so unless big air is in your plans, the Trail SX will probably be better.

If I went with a specialized and was planning on pedaling it, I would go with a DHX 5.0. The "trail adjustable" pedal damping, for me, is a must when combining long pedals and rotten descents on a Horst Link bike.

[Leppah]

If it were me, i’d get the bullit. Those bikes are primo. Single pivot way over built. That thing can handle a lot of abuse. It could probably out live some of us on this forum. :0)

I’m a heavy guy, so i like bikes with less pivots. Less pivots equals less things to become loose and worn out in the long run. The only bad thing about a single pivot is brake squat/brake jack. But since you would be coming from a hardtail, you wouldn’t even notice. You can get used to it and change up your style a bit to compensate if it’s that bad. It’s usually not that bad unless you’re riding a downhill shuttle trail that has a lot of braking bumps.

[Leppah]

There are a couple of guys out here that both have Bullits. They ride them on everything. They take them dirt jumping, they take them downhillin, and they ride them xc. They have them set up with a chain guide and only one ring up front. they’re really strong riders all around. After seeing their bikes, i wished i had the money for one.

[Syd Patricio]

Did you check out the website lately you may want to check out Santa Cruz’s latest offering the Driver 8…Looks nice. It’s not a single pivot but a VPP still very tough 8 inches of travel. Looks kind of like a V-10..Sadly i am not sure when it is avaliable. I am a fan of the VPP linkages. I like to also ride up hill with some degree of sanity. LOL

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