Back end of last year I got a new bike on the cycle to work scheme. A local bike shop had last season’s Genesis Day One 20 available for a good price. It fitted the bill with disk brakes, mud guards fitted and the hub gears I wanted so I bought it.
Having lived with this bike for a while here are my musings. It’s pleasant to ride. Comfortable, stable at speed and generally mostly what I’d hoped for from a fast commuter bike.
There are downsides though, the paint finish isn’t good enough; it’s very easily scratched and seems really thin. A gentle altercation with a colleagues machine in the bike shed has left me with a surprising amount of bare metal showing, which will rust quickly left alone as the bike frame is steel. Of greater concern are suspect pin holes visible near some of the welds. I suspect this bike will rust badly, which makes me sad and more than a little disappointed.
Probably the biggest issue I have with the Genesis is the choice of components. Some are just not good enough. This isn’t a very expensive bike, but it isn’t cheap either and I’d expect things to work properly. The gear shifter is apparently known to cause problems, though mine has been fine so far. But the brakes are really the big issue.
The fitted promax dsk-717 is a cable operated mechanical disc brake and imho it’s terrible. In fact the brakes setup on my bike has been so bad I’d say it was dangerous. This is the first bike I’ve owned with disc brakes and I expected good things. I’ve previously had rim brakes and I have a beaten old carrera subway 8 with Shimano roller brakes. These should be out performed by the more modern disc brakes, but they weren’t,
The comparison with roller brakes was particularly interesting because these are not well regarded for their stopping power. I actually quite like them because whilst they may not be the most powerful brakes, they are consistent in all weathers, which is worth a lot on a commuter bike.
Anyway, I set off with my shiny new bike and was immediately disappointed by the brakes. I expected improvement with bedding in but it never came. Eventually I realised the rear was particularly bad and I wasn’t safe indicating right with traffic around. Something had to be done.
Adjustments checked I couldn’t find a way to lock up the rear wheel at any speed other than a crawl. Not good. So new pads, following a clean of the rotors with isopropyl alcohol in case of oil contamination. It was better but not good.
Because mechanical calipers only have one piston, the arrangement requires one pad to be as close as possible to the rotor, which means there’s always a small element of flexing the disc to squeeze it between the pads. Get this out of adjustment due to poor installation or worn pads and it dramatically affects the braking effort.
Despite clean rotors, new pads and numerous attempts at setting things up I couldn’t get satisfactory performance so I opted to replace them with the Juin Tech R1.
The R1 isn’t cheap at £151 delivered (they come as a pair), that’s a hefty price tag for some bike bits... for me at least, but brakes are something I don’t like to skimp on. There are Shimano hydraulics available for sensible money unless you have drop bars when they suddenly get very expensive. I also quite liked the idea of just replacing the calipers, rather than having to re-tape the bars of my not very old bike.
The Juin Tech R1 is a hybrid hydraulic brake. It’s cable operated, so works with my existing levers, but is internally hydraulic. The most obvious advantage is both pads move against the disc which means you avoid the regular fine adjustment of having a pad almost dragging all the time. There’s no wasted effort of flexing the rotor, just two brake pads neatly clamping the disc.
Because I’m fabulously lazy, and for a couple of other reasons I opted not to change the rotors, just giving them a clean once more. The mountings from the promax lined up nicely so actually installing the R1s was just a matter of swapping them over and took me no more than 15 minutes.
The difference is like night and day. Suddenly I get the disc brake experience I was expecting. The Juin Tech R1 has a nice feel with good modulation and significant stopping power when required. I’ve yet to test them thoroughly but I immediately felt far more confident for my 8 mile ride home.
I suspect I could probably have got decent performance from a different mechanical brake (surely they’re not all useless), but I like a gadget and had heard good things about these and similar hybrid designs. As a very simple swap out I’m delighted with the performance. My only frustration is Genesis fitted such terrible brakes to begin with.
Which reminds me, there’s one other disappointment with the Genesis, the CST tyres.... terrible. Got a puncture at both ends of the bike. So they were replaced with Schwalbe Marathon Plus for a drama free commute. Perhaps what this says is, as I suspected a while ago, I should have spent more money on the bike in the first plce. Still, making these gradual improvements is actually quite fun.
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