I’d been looking forward to riding the 2010 Genesis Alpitude, I rode last year’s and loved it so I was keen to see if this year’s model was as fun to ride.
The Alpitude differentiates itself from the Altitude by it’s slacker angles, beefier tubing and longer travel fork. When you first lay eyes on this bike the low slung frame and long fork make it look mean as hell and you know it means business.
The top tube is dropped with a neat gusset linking it to the seat tube, not unlike the Pace hardtail frames. The main triangle tubes are made from Reynolds excellent 853 steel and are oversized (although still skinny when compared to an aluminium frame), the compact rear triangle is made from much more slender tubing and the overall result is a very pleasing looking frame. It also has the nice (almost essential) UK friendly addition of crud catcher bosses on the underside of the downtube, which proved very handy on my two test rides! It also has chain guide mounts should you want to fit a chain retention device or perhaps a Hammerschmidt crank.
Genesis Alpitude
It’s kitted out with pretty much an entire SLX groupset, the only differences being the rear mech (upgraded to XT) and the shifters (downgraded to Deore). As is usual with a full Shimano build it all works together faultlessley, with the light action of the shifting a real pleasure to use. The highlight though is the buttery smooth Rock Shox Revelation fork, but more on that later.
After a bit of fiddling with the set up I finally arrived at what seemed to be a good compromise on the tyre pressure, it was very muddy and 25psi seemed to stike a good comfort / grip balance.
One of the unique features of this bike is despite the slack head angle the seat angle is quite steep, this makes it an exceptionally well mannered climber, there’s little in the way of front wheel wander when climbing, except on all but hte steepest climbs, and even this can be dialled out by dropping the fork down to a shorter travel temporarily.
Genesis Alpitude
So how does it ride? Well in a word fun. It wants you to ride quick, it needs you to ride quick. When you really start to push it the bike comes to life, the ‘twang’ of the steel frame is really enjoyable as you speed your way through the singletrack. The compact back end makes manualling over roots and obstacles a piece of cake.
Turn the terrain steep and gnarly and it excells. It’s easy to get your weight off the back and the fork does a great job of keeping everything tracking smoothly in the direction you want to go. Popping of jumps and drops with ease is the name of the game, again the fork saves you if you get it a bit wrong.
You can push it as hard as you like on the downhills and it just laughs back at you, it’s a bike for scaring your mates who have paid significantly more on a full suspention bike as you buzz their rear tyres and then overtake with a grin on your face!
Genesis Alpitude
The only real downside would say is maybe it would climb a bit better if it was a bit lighter. But that said it would probably be at the expense of it’s bombproof descending ability, so perhaps it’s just that I need to get a bit fitter.
For the price this is an amzing bike for riding round these parts, South or North downs singletrack will be hammered with ease and in all likelyhood the only limitation will be your ability to hang on when it encourages you to really go for it.
Hummerlicious
5 comments
BigSi says:
March 3, 2010 at 8:25 pm (UTC 0)
Genisis come through with another good looking bike,,, I just wish they would make a 29er version
dobby says:
March 4, 2010 at 10:35 am (UTC 0)
Yeah, I rode last year’s version a few times, it was great fun. An excellent bike
Alpitude – rider review « Genesis Bikes says:
March 4, 2010 at 2:55 pm (UTC 0)
[...] http://www.southdownshosting.co.uk/smtbsite/2010/03/genesis-alpitude-review/ [...]
pike says:
March 4, 2010 at 4:25 pm (UTC 0)
Is this a Quest Demo bike?
Hummerlicious says:
March 4, 2010 at 5:12 pm (UTC 0)
yep