Question — Jon H. writes: Hi, stumbled across an old write up on the Jackal frame size. Have you been happy on your short? I am 5’10 and have been struggling on their sizing. I mostly ride the pump tracks and small/med lines with my son on an old Giant STP and have been looking to upgrade. Think I should go Large? thanks, Jon
Hi Jon, that is a good question. One that I struggled with myself, and having made what I felt was the wrong answer, ended up as a pricey mistake. That said, the answer can depend on what you’re looking to get out of the bike, what you’re used to, and whether you value high speed stability or maneuverability.
Now that I’ve owned both the size medium and size large, I’m quite happy with the large. I primarily ride it on dirt jumps and pump tracks, and seeing as how all my bikes have grown in reach, it felt better to migrate to the larger size.
However, when I visit our local indoor bike park, and ride the ramps there, I occasionally wish I was on the medium, which is much easier to maneuver when airing out a quarter pipe.
To make the large a bit more like the size medium, I took off the 50mm stem I’ve been running since, well, forever, and put on a shorter 40mm, which has helped considerably. I may try a 30mm if I get back into riding ramps again. Unless you’re planning to ride a ton of street, I’d say that following the size chart on the Santa Cruz website is the way to go here. As you’ve no doubt discovered as a fellow person coming in at a height of 5’10”, we’re often on the cusp between sizes. In this case, Santa Cruz recommends a size large and we agree with this assessment.
The Santa Cruz Jackal’s geometry chart hasn’t changed in over three seasons.. if it isn’t broken..
Yesterday I cruised around the neighborhood (shelter in place restrictions) on the Jackal where I enjoyed some manuals, hopping over some curbs and a few laps through the local skatepark, reinforcing forcing that – with the 40mm stem, the bike still feels small compared to my regular trail bike. For me, definitely size Large for the win.
That said, if you can score one used on the Pro’s Closet, that’s the deal..
I’m still playing around with bar height but I’ll definitely be going back to a bar with at least 40mm of rise.
