Thanks for the suggestion - the Aurora looks like a nice touring machine but not so well-suited to more "rugged" terrain.
Totally agree about the cost of parts; I unashamedly like nice things but there's a fine line (or perhaps increasingly not!) between paying for reasonable value quality / innovation / performance and getting just plain stitched. I'm all for longevity, low cost, ease of maintenence and sustainability when I buy anything, and am always skeptical of "the latestest, greatest" thing..
A great point IMO that I'd not considered; although I guess "we" probably largely abandoned cycling as a mass-transit necessity in what, the '50s? I'm relatively green when it comes to the bike market, but have witnessed this constant marketing-led-reinvention-of-everything mantra play out in many other industries as companies become increasingly desperate to wring their customers dry.. are you familiar with Hambini on Youtube? Less marketing more quality, but I think you'd like his channel
Thanks - not familiar with the Koga, but from the name and the groupset I'm guessing it's not going to be a boat anchor
I can fully appreciate how you're more likely to notice the mass difference between bikes if one's getting on for double that of the other; even more-so if you're an accomplished racing snake (which I'm certainly not!).
So, I made it to the shop earlier today; the following monlogue intended to be as much for my benefit as anyone else's...
Tried both medium and large variants; the excessive reach of the latter instantly ruling it out.. so that's one (thankfully easy) decision made. For reference / anyone else in a similar situation stumbling across this thread in future, I'm about 177-178cm tall (dicky tape measure) with an (overly long) 83-84cm inside leg.
After watching the (otherwise very helpful and friendly) shop assistant scratch the b*ggery out of the seatpost with his fold-out set of Allen keys while setting the seat position (seriously, people actually used these for anything other than an emergency stop gap?
) I took the medium CdF 20 out for a 40-50 minute test ride.
First impressions were that at around 12kg yes, it felt
heavier, but not
heavy (IMO) during handling but not once in the saddle. Take this for what it is; coming from a background of 9-10kg entry-level road bikes (and a boat-anchor of a town bike).
I didn't spend too long looking at the bike itself but fit and finish seemed generally very good, with no cosmetic defects or sub-par quality bits immediately obvious. It looking very nice in its understated dark grey / black monochrome colour scheme.
The stack at the bars was noticeably higher than my sunday-best road bike which felt a little strange for all of about 10 seconds after I'd set off.
The bars are slightly swept back which reduces reach a touch further, while the drops are flared out a fair bit (with the brake levers also angled to follow their orientation). IIRC Genesis state the bar width on this model as 420mm (pretty standard for drops on a med. frame IME), which I guess must apply to the drops as the hoods feel quite close together. Again no issues in this department and if all felt nice and comfortable.
I found myself on the drop perhaps a bit more than usual; probably a combination of maybe 30mm more stack on this bike and 60mm less on my waistline since I last rode my road bike.
My small paws had no issues reaching and manipulating the Tiagra levers for braking and shifting. Braking from the cable-operated hydraulic TRP calipers felt very similar to that of my 5800 rim brakes in terms of feel, modulation and outright bite. Shifting was noticeably lighter and crisper than the (on paper identical) Tiagra 4700 setup on my road bike; perhaps because of degradation in my components of the slight redesign Tiagra has seen recently.
While the saddle position probably wasn't optimal, over my few test miles it felt comfortable and not especially position-sensitive.
Setting off the bike didn't feel at all sluggish; the 37mm WTB tyres generating a degree of road noise (which is doubtless killing efficiency a little) but generally rolling well with no hint of the "cycling through treacle" feeling you get on really fat and knobbly off-road tyres that on tarmac that never want to get up to speed and scrub off speed at an alarming rate as soon as the pedals stop turning.
Again, take this account for what it is as I rode to the shop on my old OCR which has a Specailsed Armadillo double-hard-b*stardd tyre on the back; which I think is a complete energy thief with enormous rolling resistance.. ultimately the fat, treaded tyres on the Genesis are going to generate more rolling resistance than thinner, un-treaded road tyres, but IME they don't feel starkly sluggish when used on the road.
Ride felt nice; tbh I'm probably not experienced enough to notice the subtleties of the steel frame's alleged ride quality (and I suspect the fat tyres make a lot more difference in practice) but the ride felt smooth with no glaring road buzz. While giving no magic carpet ride over the cratered road surfaces of the city, compared to my ally-framed OCR on 25mm road tyres the CdF was unsurprisingly a good deal less crashy and more comfortable when encoutering potholes and dropping off kerbs.
Nothing about the bike's performance struck me as remarkable tbh (and I mean that in a good way) - steering felt responsive without being twitchy and the bike generally going wherever it was pointed without surprise or fuss.
I tried a couple of hills (Div. road and Headington hill, for the locals) which seemed remarkably easy (I did headington with two sprockets left to spare on the rear cassette
); however I suspect I was assisted by the wind to an extent for at least some of it. I've also been riding old / heavy / high-geared bikes a lot recently and have lost a fair bit of weight since I last ventured out on the "proper" road bike, so again a totally unscientific "test". By the same token I've not done any "proper" rides since August, so have probably lost a fair bit of strength / fitness in the interim too.
Out of respect for the shop in question I didn't take the bike off-road so can't comment on its capabilities in this area (and of course it's never going to be as capable as "proper" MTB on rough / technical stuff, but that's not what I want it for).
Bottom line I was very impressed by the CdF. While clearly a compromise / jack of all trades and master of none, nothing glaringly obvious stuck out as being an overly-costly trade-off for the bike's greater versatility and comfort. Really my experiences only echo those of all the others of this bike on the net - very capable, comfortable and accommodating if not outright "fast".
Off the back of my time with the CdF 20 I'm pretty much sold on the idea of the 30 (tbh I'd be happy with the 20 were it not for it's older-standard brakes andQR wheels) and once I've had a few more sleeps to settle on the idea will probably go ahead and order one. My only real reservation now is that apparently for Genesis to honour the bike's warranty they require it to be built in the shop; however today's experiences have only strenthened my existing desire to built it myself (well, as much as is required out of the box) to ensure it's done properly and without any damage.... the guy I've dealt with so far at the shop has been very good so (without dropping today's staff member in it) I'll raise these concerns with him at the time of ordering and hopefully persuade him I'm fit to build it, or get him to do it himself.
Thanks to everyone who's contributed to this thread - I appreciate having some more objective opinions and will (FWIW) update it once some more progress has been made
)
