THE BRAINS BEHIND THE GENIUS

Scott's Genius has been an integral part of their mountain bike range since the early 2000s. 15 years ago Thomas Frischknecht even won the 2003 CrossCountry Marathon (XCM) World Championships on a Genius MC, the 130mm variant of the bike! The Scott Genius has evolved via a number of iterations, and in 2017 Scott unveiled a long-travel trail bike boasting the geometry numbers of an enduro bike, with the weight of a light trail bike, and even the climbing prowess of some XC bikes. With one bike that could take either 27.5” or 29” wheels with the flip of a chip, had Scott truly released a mountain bike, for mountain bikers? We tested a Genius 920 in our Alpine Issue, and found it truly did perform across a wide variety of terrain – but to find out more we travelled to Friebourg to visit Scott and meet with the brains behind the Genius. “The Spark really re-defined the next generation of mountain bikes, as we cycle through the range each time,” states Joe Higgins, Chief of MTB Engineering at Scott Sports as I ask about the latest Genius. “We went quite far with new ideas on the Spark. We didn't go so far as to redesign the steerer tube or the crown. There's a certain limit as to how far you can go with an integrated system design when you have to work with off the shelf components.” The Spark was designed with an Olympic medal in mind. And it won two. And two World Championships titles, and then Nino Schurter went and won all the World Cups, World Championships and the Cape Epic in 2017. The bike met the brief! But what of the longer travel Genius, a bike that has been known to be ready to tackle long climbs and charge descents? “It's one of the best projects I've worked on, it's the bike I use the most,” says engineer Timothy Stevens. “It's like a mountain biker's mountain bike. It's a trail bike that can do everything. You do see the influence of what we ride around here, it's a bike you can take out for a big ride all day and still have a lot of capability for big descents. We do 2000 or even 2500m of descending in one go here, and you need to be comfortable, and you need to save energy on the climbs.” The new Genius sports 150mm of travel, but with frame weights of barely 2200g with shock and hardware, they are seriously light, too. “It makes your riding days much better to not be hauling around a heavy bike and not be struggling going up or down, or having too little travel and tiring out. You can go for big double-day weekends, and it's perfect for this.” It's not just low weight that stands out with the new Genius. It can take either a 29” or 27 plus wheel, without the need for head set spacers or a new fork. But the TwinLoc system where you can adjust the travel and damping characteristics – and therefore the geometry – with one lever really sets this trail bike apart. But on paper, the geometry really stands out. With a slack head angle of 65 degrees (65.6 with 27.5” wheels) and a long reach, the Scott Genius pushes modern geometry for a major brand. “I do a lot of riding, from crosscountry on our lunch ride to big tours in the Alps. But also I do downhill,” says Stevens. “The Genius was always the bike I rode the most. I really liked the Genius, it was super capable. I really had a vision in my head of the direction I wanted it to go, in terms of the geometry. I tested a lot of bikes, and we can modify our own bikes with angle sets or more complicated modifications. I tested some very, very long bikes on the market, and I tested those a lot. In some situations they are really good. But if you want an all-round bike, you need to be a really good rider riding at 110% to make it work. And