Does anyone have a new Santa Cruz Hightower? If you were to do it again, would you?
Those are really nice! If I were hitting trails & maybe an occasional race then that would be my top choice. Way better than the Specialized Stumpjumper, IMO. Something about the Stumpjumper geometry made the head angle feel extremely slack to me. Like the front wheel wanted to flop over like an old 5 speed chopper bike... even though it measures out the same as the Hightower (I ride a sz medium).
A Hightower would make the enduro & "A line" downhill sections faster & more enjoyable than my Blur but I've never ridden another mountain bike that climbs as well... lose 20 seconds on the downhills & make up 40 on the climbs. Lol... but the fun factor isn't the same as with the Hightower.
I was also thinking about a Blur TR with an extra 20mm of travel over the Blur XC but there are 2 main reasons I the XC (100mm travel):
1) This bike is for racing & training to race... because I ride mountain bikes exclusively to race and/or train. I know it's weird but it's my passion...
2) My background is road racing & I've got 1000x more hours worth of seat time on a road bike than a mountain bike. As such, I prefer the bars set up pretty low relative to the seat height, and the extra 20mm on a Blur TR puts the front end higher than I like.