Santa Cruz has added a carbon fibre version of the hard-hitting and versatile Chameleon to its lineup, keeping the 29″/650b Plus and geared/singlespeed compatibility but removing plenty of weight thanks to a move to the black stuff. 

To celebrate this alliterative new Carbon Chameleon, they’ve also released a Culture Club-inspired video, which is well worth watching for the bike building choreography alone. Anyway, there will be a frame only price of £1,399 and builds starting at £3,799 for the S level and a whopping £5,699 for the tippy top SE Reserve build.

There’s Something in Our Aisles – The Carbon Chameleon, by Jon Woodhouse

The Chameleon was one of the original do-it-all hardtails and this new bike continues in that vein, with it’s stated aims being everything from messing about in the woods to big bikepacking adventures, where the three bolt ‘anything cage’ mount on the downtube might come in handy.

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Chameleon_Studio5 (Image Credit: Santa Cruz)

You can run 120mm or 130mm forks up front, with Fox 34 forks coming on all the complete bikes, though we imagine if you’re building your own you go either go lighter for distance work or go full banzai and slap a Fox 36 or RockShox Lyrik on the front if hucking hardtails is your thing.

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Chameleon_C_S_Profile (Image Credit: Santa Cruz)

Either way, we hope to get our paws on one soon. More details here:

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