I’ve been away from the trails for some time now due to simply not having the available time but been doing reasonably well at squeezing in various road rides so still reasonably fit.
I’m planning on doing some basic single track trails, wind farm/fire roads and the odd Trail centre visit when I can and have a real ‘fancy’ for a Steel HT, both for style and substance.
The N+1 principle is kicking in as I still have my CaaD3 F700 (converted to disc) and a Giant VT2 in the garage but just fancy something “new” and a bit more up to date as all my experience is on 26”.
The first thing that caught my eye was a Genesis Tarn 20 (my Winter road bike is an Equilibrium disc and I love it so brand loyalty and SIR is probably behind this initial thought), that combined with the fact there was one I could throw a leg over at the lbs. I had my niggles before I event started looking at the +size due to living on the West Coast of Scotland and most of my riding will likely be winter based, so muddy - reviews suggest they’re not very good for that and although I was only on a 3 min “car park” test ride, it just felt “wallowy” and weird.
I find myself leaning towards a 29er as I imagine I want a good balance of mile munching, climbing, natural trail miles moreso than anything “aggressive”, at my age I roll stuff rather than find air
The Tarn comes in a 29er version if you liked the fit and geo of the frame.
My cotic mk1 solaris is a great all rounder imo. Can't comment on the genesis stuff. I had an inbred29 before which was nice, but cotic is a better version of the same. Not ridden a genesis so cant compare