Genesis Bikes has launched an addition to its popular Equilibrium range of road bikes, the Equilibrium Ti.
As the name suggests, it’s made from titanium, but in a thoroughly modern, over sized configuration. Up front, a whopping 44mm head tube with reinforcing rings top and bottom allows for a similarly huge down tube and fat top tube. If you’re used to thinking of titanium bikes as svelte compared to aluminium and carbon, this one is positively beefy.
The idea is to stiffen the front end and so improve handling, while allowing titanium’s natural resilience to stop the road surface from rattling out your fillings.
A carbon fibre fork and clearance for fat tyres helps in that department too. Steel Equilibrium frames will take 28mm tyres with mudguards, and the titanium version is similarly roomy.
Genesis brand manager, Albert Steward, says the carbon fibre fork was the hardest part of the bike to get right, or, in fact, to get at all.
Most carbon fork makers are geared up to make road racing forks, so finding one who could make a fork with extra clearance, mudguard eyes and a taper steerer was a challenge for Genesis designer, Dom Thomas.
Out the back, pencil-thin seatstays should also help dissipate road shock, and the sloping top-tube frame shape leaves plenty of exposed seat post, another handy comfort trick.
The pipes are all seamless 3Al/2.5V titanium. This is the most common titanium alloy used for bikes, with aluminium and vanadium alloying elements to increase its strength (and therefore decrease the weight of the final frame) without making it so hard it can’t be formed into seamless tubes.
There’s no such thing as a cheap titanium bike, but the complete Genesis Equilibrium will cost a reasonable £2,299.99 with Shimano 105 components. 105? Yep, Steward says the mid-range group was a deliberate choice to keep the cost of the whole bike under control.
