Genesis Equilibrium...?

timbob

timbob

timbob

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27 Nov 2002
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Pondering over a new purchase. I'm looking for a "not quite a race bike" and a "sensible" budget. I'm an average weekend rider, not particularly fast, have ambitions to do some sportives and take my bike to Europe with the other half who's recently got into road cycling. No racing aspirations, but I like the look of more racy machines - the tall headtubes of the Spesh Roubaix for example turns me right off.

I had been swayed by the Planet X carbon RT58, but all the builds I was interested in have gone. I initially loved the Canyon Endurace CF, but have gone a bit cold on it... With a budget nominally around the £1000 mark, I have wondered whether a high end aluminium frame would be a better bet than a lower end carbon one. I've been gawking over the Rose SL Pro 3500 (Athena) build for the last week...

But out to lunch today in my local town, I spotted a new bike shop down a side alley that's just opened, popped in and got chatting to the owner, who's a Genesis fan and stockist. I've previously looked at Genesis but had dismissed for one reason or another... They had a Tiagra equipped Equilibrium in, and I loved the look of the frame in the flesh far more than in photos. There's a Campagnalo Athena build in a lovely pearl white which I could potentially get for around £1500, which is within justifiable budget creep range...

Thoughts...? Or alternatives?!
 
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timbob said:
Pondering over a new purchase. I'm looking for a "not quite a race bike" and a "sensible" budget. I'm an average weekend rider, not particularly fast, have ambitions to do some sportives and take my bike to Europe with the other half who's recently got into road cycling. No racing aspirations, but I like the look of more racy machines - the tall top tubes of the Spesh Roubaix for example turns me right off.

I had been swayed by the Planet X carbon RT58, but all the builds I was interested in have gone. I initially loved the Canyon Endurace CF, but have gone a bit cold on it... With a budget nominally around the £1000 mark, I have wondered whether a high end aluminium frame would be a better bet than a lower end carbon one. I've been gawking over the Rose SL Pro 3500 (Athena) build for the last week...

But out to lunch today in my local town, I spotted a new bike shop down a side alley that's just opened, popped in and got chatting to the owner, who's a Genesis fan and stockist. I've previously looked at Genesis but had dismissed for one reason or another... They had a Tiagra equipped Equilibrium in, and I loved the look of the frame in the flesh far more than in photos. There's a Campagnalo Athena build in a lovely pearl white which I could potentially get for around £1500, which is within justifiable budget creep range...

Thoughts...? Or alternatives?!
Click to expand...

If you are going to have one bike and plan to ride all year round on our crappy Bedfordshire roads then I would be looking for the following spec

Cyclocross frameset or one that can take disc brakes and at wider tyres (28mm at least) and potentially mudguards. There are loads to choose from - I thought this looked a decent value bike.

http://www.hargrovescycles.co.uk/ridley-x-bow-10-disc-2015-bike-25817.html?gclid=CLSa9fyc5cQCFcuWtAodiQQAoQ

Of course you can run skinny slicks in the summer and something a bit chunkier for winter. Cross bikes can go anywhere within reason and this can be a ton of fun.

The only other advice I can offer is - get something you like to look at. Loving your bike is important.
 
The Equilibrium is a very highly rated frame, I'll say that much.

Taking into account Calpol's post above...

The Equilibrium disc 20 has mudguard mounts, HyRd disc brakes and a 105 groupset. It will definitely fit 25c tyres, and you can probably get 28c tyres on there even with guards. That's £1500 at Evans, so maybe cheaper if you can find it elsewhere. It is very yellow, though :p
 
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Genesis also do a range of "cyclocross" bikes called the Croix de Fer, definitely worth looking into and trying out if you can to see what fits you better. The Charge Plug 5 with Rival 22 has to be worth a mention as well, but there really are a bunch that could fit the bill. Basically, try as many as you can and find the one that works for you.
 
Interesting thoughts - I've gone and flicked through the Genesis catalogue and had a look at the Equilibrium discs and CDF bikes. I don't fancy a cross bike at this point in time (maybe as an n+1 in her future though?!), it's all about pure road bikes for me - I like the lighter weight, spindly look, and I still don't like the look of discbrakes on a road bike...!

Reviews of the disc Equilibrium seem to mention that the extra weight of the disc setup pushes the bike into heavyweight territory, and the bike suffers for it. The Athena equipped bike I'm looking at comes in at about 9.3kg - so it's not particularly light to start with, but I suppose a weight starting with an 8 would be on the cards with some new wheels and a few other bling upgrades. The disc bike starts off at 10.3kg...

Once finances are in order, I'm planning a test ride so I'll get a feel for whether I like it, or whether I want something a bit more lightweight.
 
I would suggest the rose, just budget a little extra for soem Campagnolo zonda wheels and it would be a great relaxed road bike
 
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