2017 Santa Cruz Chameleon Review (same frame as 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021)
Pros and Cons
Pros:
Cons:
Who it's for:
Who it's not for:
- FUN!
- compliant for aluminum
- super versatile - can run 27.5, 27.5+, and 29, geared or singlespeed
- Adjustable chainstays
- great standover
- easy to ride
- incredible resale value
Cons:
- integrated headset means bearings sit in the aluminum cups on the frame
- expensive for the components
- nx shifter isn't robust enough
- dropper grommet wears out
- head angle is a bit steep
Who it's for:
- people looking for a FUN hardtail that's easy to ride
- bikepackers
- people who want 3 bikes in one
- people who like to experiment with chainstay length and tire size
- lighter riders who don't want an overly stiff bike
- Everyday riders who want to have fun on green, blue, and black diamond trails
Who it's not for:
- xc racers
- enduro shredders
- riders over 250lbs will get it to flex quite a bit
- people who value components over geo and ride feel
My full thoughts on the 2017 Santa Cruz Chameleon
Hey it's Steve from hardtail party this is my Santa Cruz Chameleon.
I've had it for a year now and I've ridden it all over the US and I want to share this long-term review with you. Back in 2000 my roommate had a Santa Cruz chameleon and I was always bumming that off him to ride because it was so much fun. Today's chameleon is just as much fun probably more so than the old one back in the 2000s. It lives up to its name it's extremely versatile; the chameleon can change to match its surrounding so what I mean by that is the chain stays are adjustable. Right now they're at a super short 415 millimeters but they can be adjusted back all the way to 430 millimeters. That means we can fit 27.5 plus tires, 29 inch tires, and people are even fitting 29 by 2.6 tires now. Plus hardtails are gaining traction, thankfully, because I think they're so much fun and I think people really should get out there and try them and this chameleon kind of lands in the middle ground. It's not very XC-based, but I wouldn't call it a hardcore hardtail either. It's kind of a trail bike, kind of all-around.
It's like the Santa Cruz tallboy in hardtail form, so it rides well on a variety of trails. If you're looking for a cross-country race machine, it's not the right bike. If you're looking for an enduro hardtail, I would argue it's not the right bike either. But if you're just looking to play around, ride trails, commute, have fun on it; it's a fantastic bike for that.
So there are two things in particular that make this bike super special:
First off is its aluminum frame. Aluminum is cheap its durable, and it's usually super stiff in a hardtail and beats you up. However, Santa Cruz has built this to be extremely compliant. It feels like a steel bike to me. They don't have a seatstay bridge, which helps it flex a little bit more and that rear end just does not beat you up. I don't know if it's the dropouts or what kind of voodoo they're doing, but it's amazing.
The second thing that makes this hardtail super special is the 415 millimeter chainstay. That is crazy short. I talked a bit about this in other videos but what a short chainstay lets you do is play around. It rides like a dirt jumper. That short rear end makes it fun to manual, fun to bunnyhop, fun to slash corners at low speeds. At high speeds you might want to move the chainstays back to 4:30 and you can do that, so it's pretty versatile in that fact. It's really hard to find a plus bike with super short chainstays these days.
Another super cool part of the chameleon that makes it adaptable is you can run it as a singlespeed. You can swap out these adapters and run a non boost wheel in the back as a singlespeed. So you could run it as a single speed 29 or single speed 27,5 and 27.5+ , 27.5+ geared, and geared 29er. There's just a whole bunch of options with it.
What I like about that is it encourages you to play around and try stuff. A lot of bikes are kind of locked into one wheel size and you're kind of stuck with what you've got. This bike encourages you to try different things and I really really commend them for that.
I've changed a lot on this bike. The only things that are stock are the bar and stem, which work but I don't love them but at least they're 35 mils so it's easy to upgrade later. I've kept the seat and seat post and I've kept the front wheel and the cranks and the derailleur. Everything else has been swapped. So I've got a Wolf Tooth dropper lever on this which I really like. I'm running SRAM guide RSC brakes. I do that because I really like this contacted point to adjust where in the stroke it grabs.
Let's see... I'm running a timberbell on here, especially for Sedona to alert people when I'm coming down the trail. I am running a big factory 36 fork now this is a 25.5 fork. Here's a little nerdery for you guys. A 27.5 fork is 20 millimeters shorter than the same exact fork in 29er world. So if this is a 160 fork 27.5 the axle to crown is the exact same as a 140 29er. So my head angle is about 66.5 degrees on this, maybe 66 degrees and I still wish it was slacker.
That's one of the biggest downsides for me to the chameleon. If you're gonna ride it really hard or on really steep terrain or go really fast, the head angle is going to hang you up. The Santa Cruz chameleon runs an integrated headset/ That means there are no steel cups to press into the frame. You just drop your bearings right into the frame. I'm not a fan of that because the bearings can kind of wallow out the frame over time and it means you can't run an angle set and change the head angle and that makes me really sad because this bike would be close to perfect with like a 64, 65 degree head angle.
Let's see... the frame has been extremely robust for me. I've taken it bikepacking. I've taken it dirt jumping. This is my loaner bike that I lend out to people and I just don't worry when they're out riding with it because I know it's stout. One thing that's kind of worn out are the grommets for the dropper those never quite sat in here and they just kind of got worn out especially when I would let other people ride it. We'd raise the seat and push cable through. So anyway, that kind of wore out. I wish this had ISCG tabs because this bike really deserves a bashguard and for how this could be ridden is like a little trials bike. It could be a street bike, it could be a dirt jumper, it could be a bikepacker, it could be your trail bike or your commuter with slicks on it.
I mean having that ability to run a bashguard would be super cool. The NX shifter was lacking, it developed play after two months. But the NX derailleur has been flawless. I love that it comes with a 30 tooth. Sorry it's so dirty, I've been riding not washing my bike. And we have an 11 speed out back. I've replaced my rear wheel. I'm running an onyx hub with a dt rear wheel. I really like that onyx hub. It's completely silent. It's very heavy unfortunately, but it's also got instant engagement and it's not a harsh engagement . There's no teeth catching on gears, it's a sprag clutch which I'll include a link to that so you can learn more about how a sprag clutch works. I'm running bigger rotors in the back: 180 in the rear, 200 in the front. Right now I'm testing these Fooker pedals. They are $24 on Amazon. I'll include a link in the description below. They're Chester knock-offs and I honestly can't tell a difference between them and Chester's. I was testing them out because I know a lot of you need cheap options for pedals and rather than buying something that's awful, buy something like this and get a pair of five tens with the money you saved on your pedals and you'll have a great setup .
The dropper has gotten a little bit slow the last inch so I probably need to just run some slick honey all over there but it's been working. The saddle has become my favorite saddle. I really like the WTB volt saddle. It's a simple $30 saddle but I love it.
Another super cool thing about the chameleon is Santa Cruz has a lot of dealers in this day and age it's hard to find an aggressive hard tail in a shop that you can throw a leg over and pedal. Santa Cruz has done a good job because of their dealer network. A lot of dealers have these these chameleons lying around so a lot of people are able to go in and throw a leg over them and see what size they are that is a huge plus.
I sized down on this cuz I wanted a BMX playful bike and I'm glad I did. But yeah this has been such a fun bike. I have more smiles on this bike probably than any bike I've ever ridden. This bike just brings joy. It's so much fun. It's what Hardtail Party is all about. It loves to wheelie, it loves to manual, loves to jump, it loves to take on super technical terrain especially with the bigger fork with the slacker head angle. I did notice some difficulty climbing on doing lifts like where you're trying to get up a two foot ledge and lift that back wheel up a little bit harder with the longer fork. It's raised the bottom bracket and kind of kicked it back a little bit but other than that it has been worth it.
So let me give this my final rating. I'm gonna sell it and get another bike that's slacker with the same chainstays because I love that short chainstay. I love being able to run plus tires but that head angle has got to be slacker for how I'm riding lately.
So climbing 10 out of 10 especially for a hardtail. There are full suspensions that will have more traction, but I love the way this climbs especially since you can adjust that chainstay. If you like how a long chain state climbs throw it to 430mm. If you like how a short chainstay climbs, throw it to 415mm.
On corners I'm gonna give it a 9. If that head angle were slacker it would rail corners a little bit better. For slow speed corners though I'm gonna give it a 10. It's just a really fun playful bike to throw underneath you and with all this stand over height you can really move the bike around.
Descents I'm gonna give it an 8 out of 10. It can go down anything, it just can't go down everything fast, and here in Arizona where I've been riding lately, there's a lot of these steep slabs that end abruptly into a flat landing and with that steep head angle when you hit that landing it feels like it wants to pitch you.
So with a little bit slacker head angle you could push through those a little better. For most people this is gonna be just fine and they're gonna like it and they may not want it any slacker. I know guys riding these as if they were cross country bikes and putting the lightest parts on it. They are just crushing out the miles. And then I know guys that are treating it like a dirt jumper or an enduro bike, so it's really quite versatile.
think it's happy place is kind of in the middle of those two: everyday trail riding, especially on not ridiculous trails that are super super bumpy. But if someone were to get a hardtail from a bike shop without doing a ton of research and really learning what all the angles are and what's gonna work for them the chameleon is a super safe bet. I will say it fits really solidly in the trail category. I would not classify it as an enduro hardtail per se.
I do not think the chameleon is a great value for the money: it's an aluminum frame and it's retails around like two grand with very bottom level parts. The brakes that came on it were fine from a braking standpoint but the cable routing was all awful and they were at weird angles and I replaced those as soon as I could.
Santa Cruz also has a carbon chameleon which some people are gonna like but I would not get one personally because the aluminum bike is perfect. It's the thrasher bike you can loan to a friend. It's super durable. It's super rugged. It's super light. I think the carbon one comes in like a third of a pound maybe half a pound lighter, which one you're running plus tires and all these heavy parts is not a huge difference.
If you care about carbon more than anything else great go ahead and get one. I definitely would ride it differently; I do think I'd take the carbon to dirt jumps and I'd still have fun, but I'd worry when my friend crashed it or when it fell over when I was bikepacking and I didn't lean it against a tree just right.
So finally we have to talk about the party factor. Party factor on this bike is a solid 9.5 and that is due to the rear end being super short. It's easy to manual, easy to throw around, easy to play on, and the rear end not beating you up with that compliant aluminum. I never thought I would say compliant aluminum, but it feels quite compliant and yeah it would be a 10 maybe an 11 if it had that slacker headangle. It's a chameleon in the greatest sense of the word and it's a perfect name for it.
'm sad to be selling this bike and moving on to another one, but I'm also happy. I'm sad because I've made some incredible memories on this bike the simplicity of a hardtail and the fun factor of the geometry on this is so amazing and it has created so many fun memories for me. I'm excited because the next bike is gonna ride great and carry all of the great characteristics of this over with a better head angle and an even more compliant frame.
So stay tuned for my next video where I announce my next frame and who I'm going to be riding for and yeah I can't wait to show you. I hope you've enjoyed this. I'm happy to answer questions about the chameleon. I think it's a fantastic bike for a lot of people especially those dipping their toes back into the hardtail world who want to get a little bit rowdy and have fun on the trail.
Thanks for watching I'm Steve. There's a party in the mountains you're invited.
I've had it for a year now and I've ridden it all over the US and I want to share this long-term review with you. Back in 2000 my roommate had a Santa Cruz chameleon and I was always bumming that off him to ride because it was so much fun. Today's chameleon is just as much fun probably more so than the old one back in the 2000s. It lives up to its name it's extremely versatile; the chameleon can change to match its surrounding so what I mean by that is the chain stays are adjustable. Right now they're at a super short 415 millimeters but they can be adjusted back all the way to 430 millimeters. That means we can fit 27.5 plus tires, 29 inch tires, and people are even fitting 29 by 2.6 tires now. Plus hardtails are gaining traction, thankfully, because I think they're so much fun and I think people really should get out there and try them and this chameleon kind of lands in the middle ground. It's not very XC-based, but I wouldn't call it a hardcore hardtail either. It's kind of a trail bike, kind of all-around.
It's like the Santa Cruz tallboy in hardtail form, so it rides well on a variety of trails. If you're looking for a cross-country race machine, it's not the right bike. If you're looking for an enduro hardtail, I would argue it's not the right bike either. But if you're just looking to play around, ride trails, commute, have fun on it; it's a fantastic bike for that.
So there are two things in particular that make this bike super special:
First off is its aluminum frame. Aluminum is cheap its durable, and it's usually super stiff in a hardtail and beats you up. However, Santa Cruz has built this to be extremely compliant. It feels like a steel bike to me. They don't have a seatstay bridge, which helps it flex a little bit more and that rear end just does not beat you up. I don't know if it's the dropouts or what kind of voodoo they're doing, but it's amazing.
The second thing that makes this hardtail super special is the 415 millimeter chainstay. That is crazy short. I talked a bit about this in other videos but what a short chainstay lets you do is play around. It rides like a dirt jumper. That short rear end makes it fun to manual, fun to bunnyhop, fun to slash corners at low speeds. At high speeds you might want to move the chainstays back to 4:30 and you can do that, so it's pretty versatile in that fact. It's really hard to find a plus bike with super short chainstays these days.
Another super cool part of the chameleon that makes it adaptable is you can run it as a singlespeed. You can swap out these adapters and run a non boost wheel in the back as a singlespeed. So you could run it as a single speed 29 or single speed 27,5 and 27.5+ , 27.5+ geared, and geared 29er. There's just a whole bunch of options with it.
What I like about that is it encourages you to play around and try stuff. A lot of bikes are kind of locked into one wheel size and you're kind of stuck with what you've got. This bike encourages you to try different things and I really really commend them for that.
I've changed a lot on this bike. The only things that are stock are the bar and stem, which work but I don't love them but at least they're 35 mils so it's easy to upgrade later. I've kept the seat and seat post and I've kept the front wheel and the cranks and the derailleur. Everything else has been swapped. So I've got a Wolf Tooth dropper lever on this which I really like. I'm running SRAM guide RSC brakes. I do that because I really like this contacted point to adjust where in the stroke it grabs.
Let's see... I'm running a timberbell on here, especially for Sedona to alert people when I'm coming down the trail. I am running a big factory 36 fork now this is a 25.5 fork. Here's a little nerdery for you guys. A 27.5 fork is 20 millimeters shorter than the same exact fork in 29er world. So if this is a 160 fork 27.5 the axle to crown is the exact same as a 140 29er. So my head angle is about 66.5 degrees on this, maybe 66 degrees and I still wish it was slacker.
That's one of the biggest downsides for me to the chameleon. If you're gonna ride it really hard or on really steep terrain or go really fast, the head angle is going to hang you up. The Santa Cruz chameleon runs an integrated headset/ That means there are no steel cups to press into the frame. You just drop your bearings right into the frame. I'm not a fan of that because the bearings can kind of wallow out the frame over time and it means you can't run an angle set and change the head angle and that makes me really sad because this bike would be close to perfect with like a 64, 65 degree head angle.
Let's see... the frame has been extremely robust for me. I've taken it bikepacking. I've taken it dirt jumping. This is my loaner bike that I lend out to people and I just don't worry when they're out riding with it because I know it's stout. One thing that's kind of worn out are the grommets for the dropper those never quite sat in here and they just kind of got worn out especially when I would let other people ride it. We'd raise the seat and push cable through. So anyway, that kind of wore out. I wish this had ISCG tabs because this bike really deserves a bashguard and for how this could be ridden is like a little trials bike. It could be a street bike, it could be a dirt jumper, it could be a bikepacker, it could be your trail bike or your commuter with slicks on it.
I mean having that ability to run a bashguard would be super cool. The NX shifter was lacking, it developed play after two months. But the NX derailleur has been flawless. I love that it comes with a 30 tooth. Sorry it's so dirty, I've been riding not washing my bike. And we have an 11 speed out back. I've replaced my rear wheel. I'm running an onyx hub with a dt rear wheel. I really like that onyx hub. It's completely silent. It's very heavy unfortunately, but it's also got instant engagement and it's not a harsh engagement . There's no teeth catching on gears, it's a sprag clutch which I'll include a link to that so you can learn more about how a sprag clutch works. I'm running bigger rotors in the back: 180 in the rear, 200 in the front. Right now I'm testing these Fooker pedals. They are $24 on Amazon. I'll include a link in the description below. They're Chester knock-offs and I honestly can't tell a difference between them and Chester's. I was testing them out because I know a lot of you need cheap options for pedals and rather than buying something that's awful, buy something like this and get a pair of five tens with the money you saved on your pedals and you'll have a great setup .
The dropper has gotten a little bit slow the last inch so I probably need to just run some slick honey all over there but it's been working. The saddle has become my favorite saddle. I really like the WTB volt saddle. It's a simple $30 saddle but I love it.
Another super cool thing about the chameleon is Santa Cruz has a lot of dealers in this day and age it's hard to find an aggressive hard tail in a shop that you can throw a leg over and pedal. Santa Cruz has done a good job because of their dealer network. A lot of dealers have these these chameleons lying around so a lot of people are able to go in and throw a leg over them and see what size they are that is a huge plus.
I sized down on this cuz I wanted a BMX playful bike and I'm glad I did. But yeah this has been such a fun bike. I have more smiles on this bike probably than any bike I've ever ridden. This bike just brings joy. It's so much fun. It's what Hardtail Party is all about. It loves to wheelie, it loves to manual, loves to jump, it loves to take on super technical terrain especially with the bigger fork with the slacker head angle. I did notice some difficulty climbing on doing lifts like where you're trying to get up a two foot ledge and lift that back wheel up a little bit harder with the longer fork. It's raised the bottom bracket and kind of kicked it back a little bit but other than that it has been worth it.
So let me give this my final rating. I'm gonna sell it and get another bike that's slacker with the same chainstays because I love that short chainstay. I love being able to run plus tires but that head angle has got to be slacker for how I'm riding lately.
So climbing 10 out of 10 especially for a hardtail. There are full suspensions that will have more traction, but I love the way this climbs especially since you can adjust that chainstay. If you like how a long chain state climbs throw it to 430mm. If you like how a short chainstay climbs, throw it to 415mm.
On corners I'm gonna give it a 9. If that head angle were slacker it would rail corners a little bit better. For slow speed corners though I'm gonna give it a 10. It's just a really fun playful bike to throw underneath you and with all this stand over height you can really move the bike around.
Descents I'm gonna give it an 8 out of 10. It can go down anything, it just can't go down everything fast, and here in Arizona where I've been riding lately, there's a lot of these steep slabs that end abruptly into a flat landing and with that steep head angle when you hit that landing it feels like it wants to pitch you.
So with a little bit slacker head angle you could push through those a little better. For most people this is gonna be just fine and they're gonna like it and they may not want it any slacker. I know guys riding these as if they were cross country bikes and putting the lightest parts on it. They are just crushing out the miles. And then I know guys that are treating it like a dirt jumper or an enduro bike, so it's really quite versatile.
think it's happy place is kind of in the middle of those two: everyday trail riding, especially on not ridiculous trails that are super super bumpy. But if someone were to get a hardtail from a bike shop without doing a ton of research and really learning what all the angles are and what's gonna work for them the chameleon is a super safe bet. I will say it fits really solidly in the trail category. I would not classify it as an enduro hardtail per se.
I do not think the chameleon is a great value for the money: it's an aluminum frame and it's retails around like two grand with very bottom level parts. The brakes that came on it were fine from a braking standpoint but the cable routing was all awful and they were at weird angles and I replaced those as soon as I could.
Santa Cruz also has a carbon chameleon which some people are gonna like but I would not get one personally because the aluminum bike is perfect. It's the thrasher bike you can loan to a friend. It's super durable. It's super rugged. It's super light. I think the carbon one comes in like a third of a pound maybe half a pound lighter, which one you're running plus tires and all these heavy parts is not a huge difference.
If you care about carbon more than anything else great go ahead and get one. I definitely would ride it differently; I do think I'd take the carbon to dirt jumps and I'd still have fun, but I'd worry when my friend crashed it or when it fell over when I was bikepacking and I didn't lean it against a tree just right.
So finally we have to talk about the party factor. Party factor on this bike is a solid 9.5 and that is due to the rear end being super short. It's easy to manual, easy to throw around, easy to play on, and the rear end not beating you up with that compliant aluminum. I never thought I would say compliant aluminum, but it feels quite compliant and yeah it would be a 10 maybe an 11 if it had that slacker headangle. It's a chameleon in the greatest sense of the word and it's a perfect name for it.
'm sad to be selling this bike and moving on to another one, but I'm also happy. I'm sad because I've made some incredible memories on this bike the simplicity of a hardtail and the fun factor of the geometry on this is so amazing and it has created so many fun memories for me. I'm excited because the next bike is gonna ride great and carry all of the great characteristics of this over with a better head angle and an even more compliant frame.
So stay tuned for my next video where I announce my next frame and who I'm going to be riding for and yeah I can't wait to show you. I hope you've enjoyed this. I'm happy to answer questions about the chameleon. I think it's a fantastic bike for a lot of people especially those dipping their toes back into the hardtail world who want to get a little bit rowdy and have fun on the trail.
Thanks for watching I'm Steve. There's a party in the mountains you're invited.
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