With a long top tube and snappy pedaling manners, it's a climb-happy, nimble bike with sure-footed geometry that begs to go claim some tall peaks in the backcountry.

With five inches of sophisticated APP suspension travel designed to eat rocks and roots and jumps with all the ability of longer travel bikes, it also does a mighty fine job of whipping the descents into shape as well.

The Nickel's a perfect bike for those days when you have to flip a coin to decide where you want to ride.

• 125mm Rear Wheel Travel
• Actual Pivot Point Technology
• 7.37lbs with Fox Float R Shock (Medium)
• Max Rotor Size 203mm
• Recommended Fork Range:120-140mm
• Headtube: Tapered (1-1/8" Top 1.5" Lower)

APP is a single pivot suspension that utilizes a pair of links to create a variable shock rate. It represents the confluence of two different Santa Cruz Bike technologies- combining their proven single pivot location with the shock rate characteristics of their VPP suspension - and is the result of a design process that started back in 2005.

Santa Cruz built some mules so ugly only a mother could love them and proved to ourselves it would work. Then we applied for some patents, the first of which was granted in 2009. By this point, Santa Cruz had four years into the design, and had evolved it away from an initial floating shock concept toward the more streamlined bikes in this presentation, the 150mm-travel Butcher and the 125mm-travel Nickel.

Not all single pivot suspensions are the same, so don't go tarring them all with the same dismissive brush. The single pivot used on Santa Cruz's new APP bikes is similar to that found on their highly evolved Superlight and Heckler models. It features a high (but not too high) forward (but not too forward) placement that is about the very best place you can locate a single suspension pivot. The placement creates a slight degree of anti-squat, which allows for lively pedaling response, and the high-forward positioning provides a more neutral braking reaction than other lower, more rearward, locations.

Santa Cruz use 15mm diameter aluminum axles in the main swingarm pivot and at the APP link/swing link pivot. Those axles roll on angular contact bearings, thread directly into their swingarm or link counterparts on one side of the bike and feature locking collet heads on the other. The links themselves are stout little chunks of forged aluminum. They don't flex. The axle and bearing design, aside from being a whole lot more sophisticated than just about anything else on the market, is sturdy, reliable, and when the time comes, easily serviceable.

APP employs a variable shock rate. At the beginning of travel, the shock rate is slightly falling, it flattens in the middle of travel, and then changes to a rising rate near bottom-out. Looking at it on a graph you would notice two things - it looks the same as a shock rate curve for a similar travel VPP bike, and it resembles a smiley face. What this means is that during the initial falling rate part of travel, the suspension is very responsive to bump forces - it uses more of the suspension for a given bump size. Basically, this feels like "more travel" than is really there. As APP suspension progresses through mid-stroke, the shock rate flattens and then changes sign to a rising rate. This translates to a gradual shift from the plush initial travel into more heavy impact resistance deeper in the stroke. As the suspension nears bottom-out, the shock rate progression helps resist bottoming, and creates superb jump landing and g-out characteristics.