Having just bought a second hand Genesis IO Singlespeed for £150.00 for the complete bike, i was wondering if anyone has any experience of one after i have been reading mixed reviews. Probably should have asked before i bought it but HEY HO it was an impulse buy.

Seems fine.
A mate's got one with an alfine hub on. Looks nice and elegant, ride's like any other hardtail of similar ilk.

At £150 you won't be disappointed. I paid a lot more than that for mine and have been well pleased with it.

Is it still running rigid?

Bargin for £150.

The one I tested out felt nice enough.

Yep its still a fully rigid, steel frame. The frame is a little scuffed. I havent had a chance to ride it yet

Stop worrying and go and ride it. £150 is a bargain.

I bought the frame only in '07, and it's one of my favourite bikes. I'd suggest upgrading the freewheel to a White Industries at some point – expensive, but very worth it – and maybe putting suspension forks on if you end up riding it lots.

Out of interest, where are the mixed reviews?

Cheers for the info. There is a mixed review on this web site under reviews albeit some of the gripes were with componentry

I have a Recon 351 on mine which has made the bike much quicker than I can actually pedal. I am tempted to go back to rigid.

Thats nice mate. What front chainring are you running there? and have you got the original brakes or have they been upgraded?

I seem to remember one of the original criticisms was that the rigid front end was very rigid, getting quickly uncomfortable.

But as others have said, for £150 ride it, enjoy it and decide yourself if it needs another fork whether that's carbon or short travel suspension.

Mine is a 20008 model so slight changes from your bike. I am running the chainring it came with, a 32 tooth something or other. The brakes are Deores, I fitted them to replace the Shimano 485 that came on it. The 2007 model came with Hayes So1e which were not the best. I had some of those and replaced them with XT after just one ride.

Mine has still got the Hayes brakes which seem pretty poor. I will probably replace them with some Avid Threes i have spare. The bloke i bought it off had it set up for the road so it has skinny tyres and a big front ring, so i am going to make a few changes and turn it back into a mud machine

I can't comment on the bike as a whole but I used a set of the rigid forks from the IO on my '95 Explosif and the review was right, they are a bloody harsh ride!
I soon fitted some Salsa CroMoto forks, which are a huge improvement.

I have a 2007 iO and I love it. It's probably the bike I ride the most. I upgraded the brakes to some s/h XTs straight away. The BB gave up the ghost pretty quickly and seized totally solid. Getting it out of the frame proved a challenge, but I replaced it with a Deore external BB setup which is great. Recently I put some carbon bars on, but my best advice is run the fattest tyres you can. I'm running 2.35 Nevegals which grip well and have a bit of give.

I enjoyed the one I tested. It is the only bike that I've had to rest descending the roman road in Hope on, though. The combination of stiff oversize bars and rigid and very solid forks makes the front end brutal. I'd put some 25.4mm eastons on there and a nice fat front tyre. Other than that, it's a great bike.

I've got 2, 1 is alfined. Great bikes for the money except for the so1e brakes and poor bb.
I replaced the brakes with bb7s and the bbs for lx ones.

£150? Steal! Mine's now got Vanillas, old Hope Minis and an XT HT2 set-up, but as a winter singletrack bike I can't really fault it.

Older shot of it here:

Nice ride. I going to try the rigid forks out first jsut for the white fingering experience

I have just been looking at the 2010 model 😉

And the 2010 Flyer.

"I seem to remember one of the original criticisms was that the rigid front end was very rigid, getting quickly uncomfortable."

yeah we had a PG oversize bar on the 2007 model (some riders wanted a stiff bar to haul against) – it's amazing how comments stick around.. we dropped that in 2008. The Hayes brakes were also a yr 1 thing to stay at £499. At the price you won't get a great brake or crank, but you do get a great frame and fork and sound kit. New version 2010 has Race face crank / bb (replacable with Shimano if reqd) Shimano brakes and a std size bar.

haven't got one but mate has and at times i quite covet it. Ditto all above, super frame for the price, componentry that is functional but to a price point.

On second thoughts:

No it's an awful bike, but out of the goodness of my heart I'll refund you your £150 and save you finding that out for yourself 😉

I got one for my daughter. She loves it.

It's a great bike for the money. Very nice handling.

The Hayes brakes should be ebayed as soon as possible.

(The front brake failed in the 'Puffer – the little bleed screw on the master cylinder popped out. The bike handled the View Rock descent ok and felt safe on just the rear brake.)

My son has one too.

Got an 07 on sale for a bargain in 08. Upgraded to a carbon riser bar (pre susp fork), brakes (off another bike, seat and susp forks (off another bike). Its a lovely bike that is functional and cheap. It seems to get the bits an bobs of my other bikes as they get upgraded. The carbon bars really took the edge off the ride.

Ive up graded the brakes as the Hayes were toss, at have just put some fat tyres on. Its going for its maiden ride tonight

Got an '09 with a fox float on it – what a ripper!

Budget Shimano discs have been a bit of a faff and I need to tweak the chain line as it's not totally straight from the factory and on 32:18 it's generated a slap/clunk noise as the chain passes over the freewheel under high but powerful cadence.

These are minor annoyances which I could easily fix and don't spoil the ride. I was happy with mine at £500 – £150 is a bargain!

Fork now fitted…

Mines the same as above but with a 100mm reba. Paid £590 + £250 for the fork i think, I was happy at that and love it to bits!
Now have a Hope SS on the rear with 719, put the SLX on it from the Whyte so its got HT11 bb. Put some Hayes Stroker trails on there as the shimano ones were a bit pants.
Raced Bristol Bike fest on it this year and loved it.

Here's a link to the 2010 range sneak peaks (including the 2010 iO)…

http://www.madison.co.uk/news.aspx

Mine may well be appearing in classifieds very soon 🙁

Presumably the Altitude 853 frame only will still be available? In the cherry red colour hopefully which looks so much nicer than the current ghastly lime green 🙄

I have a 2008 io and I loves it 😀 Stuck on a carbon fork and seatpost and some juicy 5s bish bash bosh one shweet bike imho.

If you have a silver one you have a 2007 or a bronze one is 2009.

The Altitude 853 frame will be coming back but the colour seems to be a mystery at the moment. And the lime is not ghastly, I wouldn't ride a ghastly bike!

I have an 07 frame only (725) one. built with the salsa cro moto forks.

Rides really well. use it for daily off road commute. Can't fault it. rides like a bike. low maintenance. Looks nice. JD.

Mister P – sorry! I don't like to stand out – my riding is rubbish and don't want to draw attention 🙄

How sweet does the 2010 iOid look in yellow! I really hope they're still under a grand as I'm hoping to cyclescheme one. Perfect winter bike.

Mister P – how come you might be selling it? Could be interested.

New baby forcing you to sell your bikes Mark??? 😥

Kind of. I am looking at a new car big enough to carry all the gubbins that go with a baby.