Santa Cruz Stigmata review

The Santa Cruz Stigmata cyclo-cross bike comes with classy looks. But how does it handle out in the wild?

Santa Cruz Stigmata cyclocross bike

Santa Cruz Stigmata cyclocross bike

(Image credit: chris catchpole)
Cycling Weekly Verdict

The Santa Cruz Stigmata is a class act, with great handling, well though-out components and eye-catching looks. The WTB tyres give good grip and can be run at low pressure off road. The Stigmata is comfortable to carry over trickier terrain too.

Reasons to buy
  • +

    Superb off-road handling

  • +

    Tyres work well even at low pressures

  • +

    Striking looks

  • +

Reasons to avoid
  • -

    Not cheap

  • -

    Double ring set-up prone to dropped chains

  • -

You can trust Cycling Weekly. Our team of experts put in hard miles testing cycling tech and will always share honest, unbiased advice to help you choose. Find out more about how we test.

Santa Cruz is a brand with a huge reputation in mountain biking, with its machines ridden by multiple downhill world champion Steve Peat and by Danny MacAskill in many of his mind- blowing trick riding edits.

But hidden away among all those big-tyred bikes is its high-pedigree cyclocross offering: the Santa Cruz Stigmata. And it’s not a bike to be overlooked by cyclo-cross aficionados. Besides its bright orange paint job (for 2017, it's turned bright yellow; there’s a black version too), the frame was used by Paul Oldham when he won the Three Peaks cyclo-cross race in 2015.

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Paul Norman

Paul started writing for Cycling Weekly in 2015, covering cycling tech, new bikes and product testing. Since then, he’s reviewed hundreds of bikes and thousands of other pieces of cycling equipment for the magazine and the Cycling Weekly website.

He’s been cycling for a lot longer than that though and his travels by bike have taken him all around Europe and to California. He’s been riding gravel since before gravel bikes existed too, riding a cyclocross bike through the Chilterns and along the South Downs.