Up to now the most travel you were going to get out of a women’s trail bike from Juliana Bicycles was the 150mm/6″ of the all-mountain Roubion. But now hot on the heels of brother company Santa Cruz’s reworking of the Nomad, Juliana gets her own 170mm enduro bike in the new Strega that promises to pedal like a trail bike and descend like a proper DH sled. Like the v4 Nomad, the new Strega uses the two-position Virtual Pivot Point suspension design adapted from Santa Cruz’s long 216mm travel V10 to create what is probably the most aggressive mountain bike developed for women…
Juliana feels that women haven’t had their own options for a long travel bike because the industry hasn’t seen a real need from more aggressive women trail riders. But with plenty of women racing enduro, DH & other gravity disciplines, the Strega says it is about time for women to get their own.
The overhaul of the Nomad was the perfect opportunity for Juliana Bicyles to chime in and say they wanted a version for the ladies too. They recognize that this is pretty niche, but why not when they’ve already got the Nomad molds in hand. What’s different you ask?
Well, the Strega gets the exact same frame as the new 27.5″ Nomad, but sticks to the smaller three frame sizes only – XS, S & M. So, that means the same two-position high or low gravity-inspired progressive VPP suspension design, with its grease port equipped alloy linkage. It shares the same 65° headtube for thrashing down the mountain and 74.5° seattube & dropper post for climbing back up to do it all again.
But Juliana attention to detail for women makes its way out in suspension tuned for a typically lighter range of smaller riders. The shared frame already gets low standover height, but the Juliana probably will benefit even more from the option to set the bike up in either high or low stances with the flip chip at the lower rear shock mount.
The Strega also pairs standover with frame size-specific dropper seatposts, so smaller riders get the extension they need to pedal back up the hills without hauling around more weight (150mm Reverb on M, 125mm on S & 100mm on XS.) The build kits also get adapted out to better fit most female riders with contact points selected by Juliana’s own dedicated female product testers.
Drivetrain on the new Strega is 1x only, so gearing is key so for the most part the Strega gets a small 30T chainring when paired with 11 speeds & a 32T with Eagle 12 speed setups. This really is a bike that will benefit from SRAM’s super-wide Eagle cassettes to be able to handle both going up & down again & again.
The 27.5″ Strega is available in two carbon levels – C & CC – in that Wicked green. They include a bolt-on (upper downtube) shuttle guard for tossing off the back of your pick-up, a standard downtube bash protector, and the little rear shock fender. Complete Strega C bikes start at $4500 with a NX setup and climb to at least $8200 for the Strega CC with XX1 Eagle which gets a claimed weight of 29.1lb (13.2kg).
There’s also the option to upgrade your builds with Santa Cruz’s new Reserve carbon enduro wheels that actually get the same carbon warranty asa the frames.
The bikes with full carbon main frame & rear triangles (+alloy links) will be available from June 15 and come with a lifetime warranty, ready for anything from big mountain trail days to trips to shred the bike park.
