Reviewed by Sharon Bader
Scott, a company making its mark as an innovator starting with ski poles in 1958, to the first carbon mountain bike in 1995, the Genius is their latest conception. Forced to redesign their suspension from previous horst link to the 2009 Genius with a linkage assisted single pivot design. The unique feature of the Genius is the proprietary DT Swiss engineered shock that offers three levels of travel adjustability. Matched with a travel adjust fork, the Genius allows the rider to choose their bike style depending on terrain - from fully locked out, to mid travel to long travel. The sub 30lb weight for a 150mm/5.9inch travel bike puts this bike at the top of the long travel, marathon style bikes.
The Bike
This bike was obtained by Obsession: Bikes in North Vancouver, Canada for this review.
The Scott 40 alloy bike, reviewed here, weighs 28.19lbs. Six versions of the Genius are offered, the 50 and 40 being alloy, the 30, 20, 10 and Limited being Carbon and are progressively lighter to 22.9lbs for the Limited version. The hydroformed tubing provides varying diameters throughout the frame to offer strength and stiffness where required and weight savings where possible. The popular asymmetrical chainstay is also present on this bike.
The Traction Control lever on the handlebar changes the rear travel from 150mm to 95mm to locked out and back with the flip of a switch. This allows for efficient locked out - hard tail climbing on smooth surfaces, traction mode - mid travel on irregular surfaces for increased traction and full travel when heading down on any terrain. A blow out is present in the locked out mode in case you forget to unlock the bike when riding over rough obstacles. In full travel mode the 68.5o head angle provides an all mountain geometry which steepens as you click through the other travel modes.
