2024 eMTB LITE GROUP REVIEW

SANTA CRUZ HECKLER SL STOUT REVIEW

Words by Staff  |  Photos by Dusten Ryen

We thoroughly enjoyed riding the Santa Cruz Heckler SL last year, following its launch. The balance of handling traits that Santa Cruz delivered with their first lightweight eBike was impressive, and aside from some criticism of the VPP rear suspension platform, it was a hard bike to fault. Would the cheaper, burlier spec’d Heckler SL Stout build solve our issues and take performance to another level? We were excited to find out as part of our 2024 eMTB Lite Roundup.

We’d like to offer a huge thank you to our sponsors: Outdoor Research, Schwalbe Tires, Ride Concepts and the Running Y Resort. Without their gracious support, these types of content series would not be possible. Give them a thanks down below!

ABOUT THE SANTA CRUZ HECKLER SL STOUT

The Heckler SL is Santa Cruz’s first entry to the SL market, and is essentially an electrified version of their Bronson all mountain bike. With a Fazua Ride 60 system powering a 150mm rear and 160mm front mixed-wheel machine, we were excited to see how the Heckler SL in the aggressive Stout build would stack up.

DRIVE UNIT AND ELECTRONICS | Santa Cruz selected the Fazua Ride 60 system to power the Heckler SL, as with three other manufacturers in this year’s SL eMTB Shootout. The Ride 60 system produces 60Nm Torque with up to 450W when using the Boost mode (which activates for 12 seconds with each press), and tips the scales at 1.96kg (4.3lbs). Powering the system is an integrated fixed battery with 430Wh capacity that weighs 2.3kg (5.1lbs). A Range Extender should hit the market in the future, but we’re unsure when that’ll land.

The Fazua Ride 60 system ecosystem features an LED display in the top tube, using Five colored LEDs to display the ride mode selected and battery life remaining. Popping this simple display up reveals a USB-C port to charge accessories. On the handlebar there’s a Ring Controller to allow for the modes to be selected and Walk and Boost functions to be enabled.

The Fazua app allows users to customize the riding modes, check battery life and update the firmware via Bluetooth.

FRAME AND FEATURES | Depending on the level of build purchased, the Heckler SL is manufactured from Santa Cruz’s C or CC level Carbon Fiber, with the latter reducing weight but retaining the same strength. Regardless of the frame material level, you’ll find the same high-quality features throughout, and a dedicated mixed-wheel setup.

Protection is well considered with a generous downtube protector and effective chain slap protection on the drive side chainstay and seat stay. Cable routing is internal for the majority, with guided lines through the frame to minimize rattle and ease maintenance. The suspension pivots are given extra sealing, and the links house the bearings for easy replacement, featuring grease ports for easier servicing. A neat integrated mud flap protects the shock and lower link from spray off the rear wheel. A flip chip in the lower shock mount allows the rider to choose between a “Hi” and “Lo” position, modifying head tube and effective seat tube angles by 0.3° and bottom bracket height by 4mm.

SUSPENSION | The Heckler SL uses Santa Cruz’s classic VPP dual-link suspension design to produce 150mm of rear wheel travel. This is paired with a 160mm fork up front. Santa Cruz offers suspension setting recommendations for each build spec, letting you easily get the rear end dialed in to a good base.

GEOMETRY | Santa Cruz offers five sizes from Small to XXL, claiming to fit riders from 5’1” (155cm) to 6’7” (200cm). The rear end lengths grow for XL and XXL to best balance rider weight on these larger sizes.

Reach gaps of 20-25mm between sizes should allow most riders to get close to their perfect fit. Our size Large sported a comfortable 477.5mm Reach in “Lo”, with a low 430mm seat tube allowing for reasonable dropper insertion.

BUILD SPECS | Santa Cruz offers a variety of Heckler SL builds from the “R” at $7,299 to the $12,999 XX AXS RSV. We were provided with the “Stout” build for this test, which featured a burlier build that’s more tailored towards gravity riders looking to push hard. At $9,299 this Stout build felt like a real “riders” build, with sensibly selected componentry throughout that delivered high performance without going into the ultra-flashy territory.

A Fox Performance Elite 38 160mm fork and Float X2 shock offered all of the adjustability and performance of their Factory level units, only losing the flashy Kashima coating.

SRAM provides a GX Eagle mechanical drivetrain and the Maven Bronze brakes with 200mm rotors on both ends. A Praxis crankset drives the Fazua motor.

OneUp provides a chainguide and the dropper post; there’s a Burgtec Enduro Mk3 stem and Santa Cruz in-house e35 Carbon Bar.

Rounding out the specs is a e*thirteen SL e*spec hubset laced to Race Face ARC30 HD rims. As standard these are wrapped in a Schwalbe Magic Mary Radial tire combo, with Gravity Soft in the rear and Trail Ultra Soft up front. However, these were switched for our Schwalbe Albert Radial Trail Ultra Soft control tires. Total build weight for the Santa Cruz Heckler SL Stout in size Large came in at 46.1lbs (20.9kg) with these control tires.

TESTING THE SANTA CRUZ HECKLER SL

SETUP | The Fox 38 was a breeze to set up as per usual. Nothing new for us there. The Fox Performance X2 out back was a bit fickle to get feeling perfect, this is due to the VPP platform having a narrower set up window than many. Both Drew and I landed on slightly less sag (28%), with the compression run open. This gave us the least amount of feedback to our hands and feet over chattery terrain. Our control Schwalbe Albert Trail’s were pumped up to 27 psi front and 31 psi rear just as we have done with all other bikes on test. We did switch back and forth between the High and Low setting depending on the feel we were looking for, and opted for 25mm of spacers under the stem.

ELECTRONICS & INTEGRATION | The Fazua Ride 60 System spec’d on the Heckler SL blends into the background of the frames clean lines. Like all other Fazua equipped bikes, there is a simple ring controller on the bars to select power modes as well as turn the system on and off. The top tube is home to the power and battery level indicator as well as a nifty USB-C charger.

The Fazua Ride 60 power unit delivers 60Nm of torque at up to 450w of peak power. The small drive unit is barely noticeable at first glance. The 430wh battery in the downtube is fairly slim, benefitting the overall look of this bike. The motor is quiet, sleek and is an awesome match for this frame. It performed flawlessly on this bike, but this wasn’t the case across all. We don’t consider the Ring Controller to be a high quality unit, but when it works it does a solid job. We’ve had numerous reports of issues with the Ride 60 drive unit, and have had issues with two of around 10 drive units that have crossed our testing desks. We’d certainly want to make sure we’ve got a local dealer who’s “on it”, to ensure we could get a replacement in quick time should it fail. But the performance, when it’s working, is stellar.

CLIMBING | Pointing the Heckler SL up the hill provided a familiar feeling. The 77.5º Seat Tube angle was tied for the steepest on test, providing a comfortable upright position, especially with 25mm of spacers under the stem and 35mm rise bars. The reach, wheelbase and bottom bracket drop all landed somewhere in the middle of the bikes on test. This gives you a confident and comfortable climbing bike in a variety of situations on trail. We like to talk about some weird characteristics some bikes have, but when it comes to fit and feel on the climbs, there is next to nothing we’d change about the Heckler SL.

The VPP suspension platform was especially efficient when getting out of the saddle and putting the power down. When encountering higher speed sections of the climb, especially when there were chattery square edge rocks, there was a bit of feedback to your body. This quickly melted away as large compressions were encountered – more on this later.

We feel that the Fazua Ride 60 system strikes a solid balance between weight and performance. The power is there when you keep your cadence high, and the battery life is excellent for its 430Wh capacity. The crew members in the 160-180lbs range had no problem getting 3K+ feet of vert in the highest power mode. Overall, the testers at this shootout had little to complain about when it came to technical climbing on the Heckler SL. It was a bike that simply worked.

DESCENDING | When it came to getting the Heckler SL pointed down some vert, not one person in our group had a bad time. Cole especially fell in love with this bike within the first few corners. We ran the bike in a mix of the Hi and Lo settings, ultimately landing on the group’s favorite being the Lower. If you have tons of technical climbing, high may be a better option to eke out some more pedal clearance, but the Low setting exudes a confidence inspiring “in the bike” feel. Whatever magic math Santa Cruz did with their geometry resulted in a comfort and confidence like no other bike on test.

The 150mm VPP rear end soaked up big compressions with ease, yet remained high enough in the travel to be very playful. Even with the Fox Performance X2 shock, the bike was active and playful under all our riders. As a group we are not typically the biggest fans of that shock, so this says a lot for what Santa Cruz has done with this frame.

When it comes to the VPP suspension platform, there are some inherent drawbacks we have found. Drew is especially outspoken about his opinion on how they feel over high speed chatter. While the Heckler SL still presented some harsh or vibrating feedback when encountering fast repeated square edge hits, the latest generation of Santa Cruz’s VPP layout has been greatly improved upon. When taking the time to properly set the shock up and play around with compression, huge gains were made in minimizing this feeling. With that said, we have found there is a fine line between the shock and frame working in harmony to it not feeling very good. Be prepared to put in the time in experimenting with the shock setup if you want to obtain the best performance from your Santa Cruz Heckler SL.

As a “trail” eBike, the Heckler SL is very impressive when the chunk gets deep. The more you push into the bike, the more it gives back. We found that the 150mm rear end had a much softer line of being out gunned when it comes to rough terrain than many. There was a very slow indictation of the bike getting overwhelmed and out of control. The feeling we all felt of being “in the bike” provided tons of confidence when it came to dipping the bike into any type of corner. For its travel class, there were very few areas the Heckler SL did not excel in.

FINISH AND VALUE | Like all Santa Cruz bikes, there is an excellent level of attention to detail as you would expect. The quality of the frame is of the best in the industry and will no doubt last the test of time. When it comes to value, there is a bit to be left desired. At $9,299 the parts spec is just ok, with plenty of room for improvement. For example the $6,399 Devinci e-Troy Lite has a nearly identical build for $3k less. Sure, it is an aluminum frame, but it’s also Made-In-Canada and similar in overall weight. When looking at the Heckler SL, value is not the selling point by any means.

COMPARISON AND RANKING?

The Heckler SL for us slots high in any of the riding categories. It’s fun and playful, yet also composed when the trail gets rough. This makes it hard for a single comparison, but the closest feeling we found was between the Devinci e-Troy Lite and the Ari Nebo Peak. The Heckler SL has many of the same playful confidence inspiring feelings the Nebo Peak has, but does not get as overwhelmed in more aggressive terrain. The Devinci’s supple off-the-top feeling beats out the VPP equipped Heckler SL, but both bikes handle big hits and technical terrain very well. The Heckler ekes out the Devinci in overall ride feeling and quality, but at a significant price increase.

Ranking this bike was pretty easy. Everything we could throw at it left us with a grin that went ear to ear. We all had the Heckler SL ranked no lower than the top 3 spots, with two of us having it at #1. Drew agreed that the bike truly was one of the best on test, and Jared has actually purchased one for his wife.

The Wolf’s Last Word

While the Heckler SL may not be your choice for a value-based buying proposition, it will likely wow you at every corner, jump and drop. Backed by a legacy brand who consistently deliver high quality and great performing bikes, the Heckler SL is an absolute riot on the trail.

Price: $9,299
Weight: 46.1 lbs (as tested)
Website: Santacruzbicycles.com

Thanks again to our amazing sponsors who made this group test possible.

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