Plus, the lightweight alloy wheels add to the bike’s speed and agility. The matte black finish with neon accents is sure to turn heads on any trail. V2100 from Genesis Bicycles is just what the doctor ordered for on and off-road exercise, genesis bicycles and fun. Aluminum four bar linkage suspension frame with a strong spring loaded suspension fork, front disc brakes, rear linear pull handbrakes, and a 21 speed drivetrain with Revo twist shifters from Shimano are the vitals.
There has been much talk about the Alpitude and the clear design ethos behind it, which was to make a bike that you could… The correct tyre choice would also help calm the stiff and somewhat unforgiving rear end, it is not as harsh as many aluminium frames but taking the edge off it with some floaty rubber would help ease take some of the sting out of the trail. Set up was simple, the bike did come with a whole bunch of spacers below the stem, after less than 30 seconds on the bike I had genesis bike these shuffled to get the front as low as possible and it was off to the trails. Genesis supply the 27.2mm seat post, 75mm stem and 685mm medium rise bars, the Flux saddle is practical but may not suit everyone. Testing hardtails often throws up some pleasant surprises and the Core was calling out to me with its old school looks and promising geometry, motivation enough to get me out in the cold through frost and snow galore to see what this 120mm equipped ‘trail hardtail’ was all about.
The Montane Icemen (Pete Sissons and Paul Cosgrove) underlined the bikes capabilities as they used a pair of Croix de Fers to circumnavigate the 1600-mile coastline of Iceland in 14 days.
At around 27lbs the Core weighs in somewhere in the middle of the scale that you would expect for a 120mm trail blaster but it feels nippy and easy to spin up to speed thanks to the lightweight rims and fast rolling tyres. In collaboration with the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, we have rated bike helmets using the STAR evaluation system. Our impact tests evaluate a helmet’s ability to reduce linear acceleration and rotational velocity of the head resulting from a range of head impacts a cyclist might experience.
The Core 26.4 came fitted with 2.2 Mountain Kings, the originals not the much improved Mountain King II. The Core range is based around a 6061 aluminium tube set that is butted where needed with some gentle manipulation to ovalise the down tube as it meets the seat tube at the bottom bracket shell. There are strengthening gussets where the down tube and top tube meet the tapered head tube and the seat stays are an old school wishbone style, the lack of a bridge gives ample mud clearance. The greatest restriction on how fast you can go when pinning singletrack is the tyres, yes they are fast rolling but they lack bite, something with greater cornering grip would certainly show off bikes handling better. An impressive fork at this price point and sensible kit are great and the wheels finish the package off nicely but the main attraction here is the geometry. Point it downwards and speeds soon pick up, the Core has a tendency to encourage an attacking riding style but it is worth remembering that the bike is equipped with 120mm up front and can get out of its depth if you try to blunder through rather than use finesse.