• Home
  • Services
  • News
  • Home
  • Services
  • News

Hours:
Monday-Friday: 11am–7pm
Saturday: 10am–5pm
Sunday: Closed

Ph: 773.654-3419

3259 W Lawrence Avenue
Chicago, IL 60625
VIEW MAP

Custom Santa Cruz Jackal

November 2, 2018

   

“Who mountain bikes in Chicago?” “There are no mountains here.” “This isn’t Colorado, California, Arizona, or North Carolina. Why would I get a pricey mountain bike if I live in this big city with no mountains?”

We hear things like that all the time in the shop. It gets a little frustrating because while all of those places offer amazing trails and riding, you shouldn’t just dismiss our city all together and give up on mountain biking here. Sure, you have to get a little creative within the city limits, and need to drive a bit to get to sanctioned, maintained trails with singletrack. Which is why a 26″ dirt jump bike makes a lot of sense if you live here and want to scratch your mountain bike itch more than once or twice per week. Just 1.5 miles from the front door of our shop, and soon to have an off-street bike path covering almost that entire distance along the river is The Garden- Chicago Dirt Jumps. The Garden is in the heart of the city and has something for everyone with a pump track featuring table top jumps for beginners and small, medium, and large jump lines for everyone to hone their skills. Also within the city limits, but further away from the shop on the South Side of the city is Big Marsh Bike Park. Big Marsh is much newer than the Garden, but the first phase of the park has been completed and features some great jump lines, a street section, pump track, and short singletrack loops with progressive features to help you build up your skills.

There are also skateparks in the City of Chicago where you can get creative with your riding. Wilson Skatepark and the Logan Square Skatepark in particular are fun places to get your transition on. You can also just ride around the city and find plenty of spots to session and mess around with like Brandon Semenuk did when he visited Chicago a few years ago.

You would be hard pressed to find a better 26″ dirt jump bike than the Santa Cruz Jackal. The Jackal is available as a frame-only from Santa Cruz for $745, and then you custom build the bike with your choice of parts from there.  Here is one we just built up for a customer:

 

The highlight of the build is the Rockshox Pike DJ fork. In our opinion, this is the nicest 26″ dirt jump specific fork on the market. It’s got 35mm chassis for plenty of strength and support, a custom tuned Charger Damper to smooth out rough landings, and a solo airspring with built in bottom-out resistance to give the fork good, smooth progression while also keeping it from bottoming out after a big drop. The fork came with an extra set of stickers for the lowers, so we removed the traditional white, black, and red ones and replaced them with black-on-black to match the subdued color sceme of the rest of the bike.

The Jackal comes with sliding rear dropouts with an integrated derailleur hanger, so you can easily run the bike with or without gears. We opted to go single-speed on this build. The frame has a 73mm English-threaded bottom bracket shell with ISCG tabs. We decided to use Truvativ Descendant cranks with a Dub spindle and bottom bracket to give the cranks some stiffness. The 32 tooth chainring pulls a 17 tooth Surly cog on the back wheel.

We installed Truvativ Hussefelt bars, stem, and seatpost on the bike. This gave us the strength and support we were looking for without breaking the bank. The bars are finished with ODI x Vans grips in natural rubber color. The 90’s skateboarder in us appreciates these grips. There was a bit of debate about what to do with the brakes on this bike. At first, we were just going to build the bike with only one basic brake on the rear, which would be totally suitable for park riding. But then we talked it over with the customer and decided to run both brakes, since the bike would be ridden in busy urban streets as well as being used at the park. The customer already had a NOS pair of Shimano XT levers, so we just got a simple set of Shimano calipers to mate with them. We left plenty of extra hose on the rear brake, and ran the front brake hose through the topcap and steerer tube to allow the bars to spin around freely, either for tricks or in case of bike-bails so the bars can spin around without kinking or breaking the hoses.

We used Standard Issue wheels from Atomlab on the build. Again, we wanted to prioritize durability without breaking the bank. These are great wheels, but we found the stickers on the rims to be a bit much, so we removed those also to preserve the clean look of the bike. We topped off the wheels with Maxxis DTS tires in 26″x2.1″ in skinwall. We think these tires look great on this bike, and we have had nothing but good luck with Maxxis mountain bike tires. The last fun detail on the bike is the Chromag Overture saddle in Rawhide finish.

We hope the owner has as much fun riding this bike as we did building it!

« Previous // Next »


/TAILWINDCYCLES

Open
We're working through our suspension service schedule right now and currently have about a 7-10 day turnaround. That time will go up as we get into mtb riding season. Remember the old saying "If you don't schedule time for maintenance, your equipment will schedule it for you". Don't be stuck with your bike out of commission during prime riding season this summer! Call, email, or just bring your bike to the shop to get your suspension serviced. 
.
.
.
.
.
#mountainbiking #suspension #rockshox #foxshocks #manitou #marzocchi #dvo #canecreek #aircan #lowerleg #50hr #150hr #squishy #wemakeyourrideeasy
Open
Mountain bike sale! @santacruzbicycles is putting all of their in-stock bikes on sale for 15-25% off (depending on model) though the end of March. Our in stock mountain bikes from Santa Cruz and Scott are on sale for 20% off.

These include a Medium Bronson C  R-build for $4,319

A Large Blur C S-build for $4,439

A MD Chameleon S-build for $2,080

Our Jackal demo build for $2,200

Scott Scale 940 carbon hardtail bikes in Sm, MD, and Lg for $1,840

Scott Aspect 940 Granite in Xs, Sm, MD, or Lg for $823 

We can also order in any Santa Cruz in-stock bike for the sale price! 
.
.
.
.
.
.
#mountainbike #santacruz #scott #sale #spring #wemakeyourrideeasy
Open
Here is a new build we just completed for a customer! It's an @otsocycles Warakin Ti all-road built up with a @shimanoroad GRX800 2x drivetrain. The build features @sunringlewheels G30 Expert disc wheels with @panaracer_world 700x35 Gravel King semi-slick tires, setup tubeless of course. When you order a bike from Otso, you get the option of picking the color of your @wolf_tooth_comp headset. The brushed silver aluminum finish looks so good against the bare titanium head tube, our customer decided to go with that. 
.
.
.
.
.
.
#allroad #gravelbike #titanium #ti #otsocycles #wemakeyourrideeasy
Open
Here it is all built up! A custom repainted @santacruzbicycles Stigmate for @thebonebell. The  @mphpaint finish on this bike is stunning! We tried to catch as many of the cool details as possible in the photos, but if you are local and have the chance, try to get a good look at this bike in person. We put the original @sramroad and @zippspeed components back on the bike after the repaint. 

We're especially stoked on how the paint design on this bike is a love letter to the owner's Guatemalan heritage. The N14 logo on the seat tube references the district in the country the bike's owner is from. Coincidentally, the capital of that district is Santa Cruz del Quiche' , which works perfectly with the branding of the bike, named after Santa Cruz Bicycles' home of Santa Cruz, Ca.  The Quetzalcoatl artwork on the top tube pays homage to the Mayan god of the sun. 
.
.
.
.
.
.
#custom #custompaint #mph #quiché #n14  #perhapsyouneedalittleguatemala #guatemala #mayanculture #sungod #quetzalcoatl #saintofthecross #santacruz #wemakeyourrideeasy
Load More

Archive

2022 Tailwind CCC Cyclocross Package

[caption id="attachment_585" align="aligncenter" width="572"] Let us take care of your muddy bike![/caption] Cross is here! For 2022, we have the official return of the Chicago Cyclocross Cup, and we're back with our cyclocross support package. We're going to keep most...

View More »

Archive

2021 Chicago Cross Cup* Service Package

Well, it's been a pretty wild ride since 2019 when we last had a cyclocross racing season in Chicago! We sincerely hope all of our customers (past and present) and friends of the shop are hanging in there and doing...

View More »

Archive

2020 Santa Cruz Jackal

We just had the chance to build up another Santa Cruz Jackal dirt jumper and deliver the bike to it's new owner. These builds are always fun for the shop since the Jackal is only offered in a frame from...

View More »

Archive

Shop News/ New Shop!

We've got some big news coming out of Tailwind Cycles during these strange and unprecedented times. We're moving the shop to a new and bigger location! It might not seem like the best or most logical time to do something...

View More »

Archive

2019 Chicago Cross Cup Service Package

Here we go again! Whether you are ready or not, 'cross season is upon us.  And, once again Tailwind Cycles is back with our ‘Cross Cup service package.  The package will stay the same as last year. Bring your bike...

View More »

Archive

Custom Highball

The mission: build a custom mountain bike weighing 20lbs with gears and front suspension, and make it durable enough to hold up to endurance mountain bike racing and trail riding on chunky East Coast trails. Not an easy task, but...

View More »

Archive

Carbon Carbon Carbon Chameleon!

We just finished up a fun build for a customer this week, a custom Santa Cruz Chameleon. We started out with the top-of-the-line SE+ kit on the carbon frame and upgraded a few things from there. You really need to...

View More »

Archive

Custom Santa Cruz Tallboy CC Featuring Sram XX1 AXS

It's always a pleasure bringing a customer's custom dream bike to life, especially when budget isn't the main concern. It gets even better when the customer is eager to incorporate the latest technology into the build and we get some...

View More »

Archive

2018 Tailwind Cycles Chicago Cyclocross Cup Service Package

Well, cyclocross season is upon us once again. Tailwind Cycles is back with our 'Cross Cup service package. The package will stay largely the same, with a few minor changes. The service will stay the same. Bring your bike into...

View More »

Archive

Kindhuman Bicycles

We are happy to announce Tailwind Cycles as the exclusive Kind Human fit center in Chicago! We delivered our first bike to a customer this week, a Kampionne aero road bike.   The Kampionne is impressive as a race bike, and...

View More »

Tailwind Cycles is a full-service bike shop located in Albany Park, Chicago offering in-shop and mobile bike repair, tune-ups, and bike fitting.


View in Google Maps

Contact Us

Mobile Service appointments:

We will come to you and tune up, build, or repair your bike on the spot!

Book Now
Newsletter Signup
© 2023 Tailwind Cycles   //   Site by Bark Design