Meet the Genesis Volare Team bike that Pete Hawkins will race for Madison Genesis in the biggest domestic races this year.
A machine with nearly 400 miles beneath its wheels in just four days with its new owner, this is the fourth iteration of the flagship bike of British brand, Genesis. If you’re heading to the Tour of Britain this year, a round of the Pearl Izumi Tour Series, or the RideLondon-Surrey Classic, look out for Hawkins and this very bike.
Fashioned throughout from Reynolds’ flagship 953 tubing, custom drawn to a wall thickness of just 0.3mm in its slimmest sections, we’re reliably informed the steed weighs around 7kg – not light by carbon standards, but within a gnat’s crotchet of the UCI’s 6.8kg minimum (sadly our hotel was without a set of Park scales). RCUK has had the pleasure of putting in some Mallorcan miles on this 52cm steed and we’ll bring you our first impressions in a subsequent article. Here we’ll focus on the set-up and the idiosyncrasies that make it Pete Hawkins’ bike.
Close observers of the domestic scene will recognise Hawkins as a class act and a rider who suffered more than his fair share of bad luck in 2013. The Belfast-born all-rounder crashed out of the RAS, the de facto tour of Ireland, while wearing the leader’s yellow jersey. He’s hoping for a change of fortune in 2014, his debut season with a strengthened Madison Genesis squad.
