Genesis 2015 on road and off road tourers

[BrianP]

Two nice additions from Genesis for touring and off road adventure touring. Both well priced.

The first is a re-worked Croix de Fer for touring with longer chain stays, lower bottom bracket and adjusted trail.

http://www.genesisbikes.co.uk/blog/02/0 ... our-de-fer

The second is aimed at the bikepacking offroad rough road adventure market with 35mm rims which take 2.4" tyres with a triple and even take the new 3" tyres when using just a single chainring.

http://www.genesisbikes.co.uk/blog/01/0 ... -longitude

Brian

[pioneer]

Yes indeed. If I was looking for a new tourer, then the Tour de Fer would be pretty much at the top of the list. Looks like a similar frameset to my Day One and that is one of my most comfortable (and adaptable) bikes.

[hamish]

They both look good. Genesis must be looking and listening.

One thing that I wish, though, is that they would leave the steerer uncut on the Tour de Fer.

[531colin]

Apparently they have lowered the BB (a whole 5mm) on the 2015 Croix de Fer as well...http://www.genesisbikes.co.uk/blog/03/07/14/2015-bike-launch-croix-de-fer-20

But its pointless giving us just some of the steering geometry.
They say its based on the Croix de Fer, but they have increased the fork offset to 55mm to give 60mm trail, and then they don't say what the head angle is.
For 2014, if I'm reading it right, http://www.genesisbikes.co.uk/bikes/frames/adventure/croix-de-fer it seems the Croix de Fer head angle varies between 70.75 and 72 deg,** and they don't say what the offset was in 2014, I guess 45mm?
Do they mean that for 2015 the head angle is the same across all sizes ?....for both bikes?
55mm offset works pretty well with 71 deg for a touring bike with 700c wheels, but the only way they will get 60mm trail with the one fork offset on bikes with different head angles is to use different wheel sizes...
I just love the way the marketing men try to cover all the bases...apparently increasing the offset to 55mm gives a "medium trail" of 60mm so the bike handles great with front loads but isn't too twitchy without....like its new, or something. (Tony Oliver recommended 71 deg and 2 1/8" to 2 1/4 " offset in a book written in 1990, and he says that he had to work hard then to sell such an "old-fashioned" set up to club cyclists whose heads had been filled with steep-angle short-offset nonsense by the marketing men of the time)
It is to be hoped that eventually they will see fit to show us the numbers, not just feed us marketing-speak.

**using the same fork offset with different head angles will result in different steering characteristics for the different bike sizes.....its difficult for me to see how they can ALL be "optimal". Changing the head angle one quarter degree is pointless or pretentious, depending on your point of view....