And if so, what works? What doesn’t? And how much will it all end up costing?
This is a real mountain bike that belongs to a real mountain biker. The biker’s name is Seb. This bike is a 2016 Santa Cruz Hightower LT. A 150mm travel full 29er.
The Hightower is ten years old. Seb is considerably older than that. But whilst Seb is a fit and capable rider, the Hightower is beginning to show its age a bit.
Seb has ridden more modern bikes over the past few years and he’s starting to wonder about replacing his ol’ faithful Hightower. But does he have to? Is there anything that can be done to this bike that can eek out another few years of (ab)use?
Well, let’s find out
Talking with Seb, there are three main things about the Hightower that feel a bit outdated, or have since been improved upon. Firstly, he likes the way mixed-wheel mullet bikes handle. Secondly, the seat angle feels too slack on the Hightower now (the claimed 73.7° effective seat angle sounds rather optimistic). Thirdly, a slacker head angle wouldn’t go amiss either (66.4° with a 160mm fork sounds very wrong in 2026AD).
(The fourth elephant in the room is the reach figure. At 443mm reach on this Large, it ain’t roomy. But we’re just going to try and ignore this for the time being. Mainly because there’s not much you can do about it.)
What to do? What to do?
We have our plans. We have various bits and pieces in stock or en route.
What would you have a mess with first?
Some things to be aware of: the head tube uses drop-in bearings, and there’s only a few mm of clearance between the swinglink and the seat tube.
Stay tuned…
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Exactly what I thought too. Just of it’s time: Tallboy LTc v1 2012-2015 vs Deviate Highlander v1 140 2021. Six years later though and the Deviate’s still spot on.* reach 385 vs 473 (+88mm)* stack 630 v 623 (-7mm)* ETT 586 v 630 (+44mm)* HTA 69.5 v 66.0 (3.5deg slacker)* STA 69.0 v 76.0 (7.0deg steeper!)* WB 1113 v 1228 (115mm longer)
I had a Tallboy 3 which I thought was the dog’s bollox. Until one ride on the G15… which led me to replace it with a Nicolai Saturn 14 soon after (as in Readers’ Rides). The Tallboy 3 was just a wheelie machine when climbing due to that slack STA, accentuated by lots of seatpost extension being a tall rider.
Strangely, another SC – a Tallboy 5 – replaced my Nicolai, showing how much SC geometry has changed over the past decade. Hence why my advice for the OP here to modernise a 2016 SC is replace the frame.
I am the only person who looks at that bike and thinks it looks perfectly decent, I’d be quite chuffed to have that bike exactly as it is!
Well, I was going to say only if you have your bars rolled back to the same axis as the HA, but I’ve just checked my bikes and they are all pretty much on the same axis, so yeah 🤣
Mountainbike Makeover: can this 2016 bike be modernised?
Naaah – don’t waste your time. Sell it to me for £100.00 – and that’s generous for some old tech! 😜
I need to get out on a bike sometime!
Yeah, I’d say so. The seat tube angle definitely looks a bit slack compared to what I’m used to seeing now, and maybe the saddle position reflects that; but it’s still miles on from my own (10 year older) bike which I find perfectly fine to ride!
It really, really grates on me when even the mountainbike professionals, media etc dont actually know (or incorrectly state/hint) at what Seat Angle actually is.
Its not this:
It IS this:
I’m not having you down as bang-to-rights this time STW, but the way you’ve written your article certainly hints at this level of misunderstanding!
Regardless, this bike is simply the wrong size for that rider/body shape. Throw as much money as you want at it, but I agree with the sentiment above.
Even changing from that generation Hightower, to the now 6 year old first gen ‘low shock’ hightowever (Like https://singletrackworld.com/forum/bike-forum/2020-hightower-alloy/ ) picked up second hand for bugger all, would be a massive difference.
Just buy a frame that fits better.
ETA – I can’t beleive I didnt even think of this first time round but theres even a very, very nice, excellent condition frame in the classifieds that would probably cost you about the same as all the faffing around with bits. Same travel, same use/intent, better build quality than the SC (yes, I’ve owned both and that is a factual statement) That would get you 430mm full insertion seat tube (and thus probably a 200mm+ dropper fitment), 490mm reach there or thereabouts, AND adjustable head angle, ability to run mullet, all included, AND everything from the hightower would swap right over.
Bascially just highlighting
etc…
You want to make it modern?
Well you can piss about with the angles and components as much as you like but where are you going to fit the motor?
🙂
Interested to see the result but not sure how you can mullet it without making the seat tube slacker? Reduce the front travel and slacken the head angle maybe? That’ll drop the bb too but not do much for the SA?
Kit wise, electronic shifting, modern shock and fork, higher rise bars, wider rims……. It’ll be spendy
Did all that to my 5010, and it did work better as a result, but didn’t handle any differently. That’s not a bad thing, I didn’t want it to, but if I did I might be disappointed, as well as skint.
I have a Orbea Occam TR 2016 vintage. I have tried to do same thing. Offset shock bushes and 10mm more travel on front fork slackened head angle but the lower BB and slacker seat angle made it feel rubbish and it hurt my already injured hip. Compared to my 2024 Epic Evo it’s not great. Gonna put it back to stock and use it as a winter bike I think.
Depends what you are going for. As someone who is L – XL borderline, but bought the L because it was discounted £1000, I’m the opposite. Risers pretty much rising straight up (they have some back sweep to the shape too). Although my latest change as I mentioned in the what have you done to your bike today thread a few weeks back, is I’ve gone to a lower bar for more front end grip.
Back to the Hightower. The fundamental limitation is that the head tube and seat tube are fixed relative to eachother. I think santa cruz integrated headsets prevent anglesets? maybe not on one of this age?
And anything that lengthens the reach is also going to steepen the front end – including dropping the fork from 160 to 150 which would be my next suggestion.
Ironically, 67ish head angle is more XC these days and they seem to get suitable performance from a longer stem. the short 35mm ones tend to be on sub64 degree bikes.
How long is the current dropper? looks pretty substantial 180-200? you might eek a bit more out of a correctly shimmed one up and maybe a low stack saddle. But really, the saddle when dropped is in line with a virtual line from the grips to the rear tyre – realistically, does more drop than this actually make much difference?
Someone in the USA got a Santa Cruz nomad and chopped the front triangle and remade it.
I was tempted I til I found out just how tricky it was
So yes, buuuuut
https://www.pinkbike.com/news/review-the-digit-datum-delivers-on-most-of-its-promises.html
these slightly odd bikes use (or used) a SC rear end
I kept my Remedy 29 going for years with updates but tbf it was a better bike in the first place and it had more options. Angle headset is pretty much the first and most important but this one can’t do that. Everything else is compromises.Going to 650b rear is a huge boost for most old 29ers, since they tended to be tall and steep, but that’ll slack off the seat angle more. Nothing else really makes a big difference.Oh I did replace the frame, I went up a size to gain reach and wheelbase, but it was really cheap to do. I could still be riding that bike today, it was great. My Bird’s a better jumper, mostly because it doesn’t have the clever suspension, and it’s bigger and slacker but there’s other things it doesn’t do as well.
How many of the components would fit on a new SC frame? The limitations of the 2016 bike are principally on frame geometry and it’s awkward to do much about that. The new frames come in some nice colours…
Own the same bike as a backup.despite being short /steep it is really light, fast and agile. There is some thing slightly special about the HTLT
The seat angle is silly slack and the rear wheel still nudges the frame though. it was so obviously a longer travel stop gap with altered links till the Megatower came out.
can only think a 170 fork fork may improve it over the stock 160. Otherwise it’s frame swap time as above.
Sell it. Get a new bike. I should have done similar several years ago and I’d have had even more fun than I did.
“2026AD” or “2026CE”?
It’s no longer my main bike – I use it for short and slow pootles or uplift days but I still ride my Transition Patrol Carbon – Size LG, from 2016 and it is great. Image from Geometry Geek.
Yeah, I’d just ride it and enjoy the riding rather than wishing your seat-angle was steeper – the seat-tube fairy isn’t real btw – or sell it and by something that’s more ‘modern’ or strip it down, buy a new frame and hang all the bits on that.
I know that won’t make a great article. Maybe the answer is to radically alter it, so it’s no longer recognisable as a mountain bike? Drop bars, gravel wheels and tyres, some prayer flags, a Thomson Elite layback post, but reversed to steepen the seat angle, a nice rack etc. At least it would be different then.
Ride it as is. Save the funds for a frame swap when possible.
I’d also keep it as it is. Older bikes are still loads of fun, especially if you don’t regularly ride (or never ride) bikes from 2020ish onwards. My cousin is the third owner (passed on via my brother) of my old 2013 Camber 29er. He absolutely loves it and it still ridden regularly and properly – but his last bike was a 26 inch hardtail from about 2002 that was too small for him really! Pretty sure the Camber had a 70 degree head angle, but he still rides the same stuff as the rest of our group on more modern machines!