Arrghhhhhhh the time honoured question of Spark or Genius, I cant make my mind up?
My bike got stolen on new years day – it was a Genius 740 which I absolutely loved. I now have the replacement voucher sat in my bank and cant decide whether to get another Genius or the try the Spark.
I was after either the Spark 950, Genius 950, also thought about topping it up to a Carbon Spark 930
Can anyone help me make up my mind, anyone got the Spark 950 ? how does it ride ?
Its a Wheelies, which does limit the choice of brands.

Thanks

Depends on your riding, i have a spark 910 and love it

As Jonny says, depends on your riding. If you’re bimbling around the woods, riding marathons, fancy a bit of casual xc racing or generally prefer to keep your wheels on the ground then go spark. Upgrade to the 930 with the nude and carbon front would be nice.

If you have the odd BPW, peaks trip etc, look for the harder lines and want a bike even more capeable in the tech then the genius is the one. I’d look for this upgrade to 930 spec to get carbon and more importantly on the 150mm genius platform is the Nude rear shock giving you an even more versatile bike with the 120mm travel option.

Thanks

My local trails consist of a real mix (Bringewood Forest), so some national DH tracks, all the way to nice flowing smooth singletrack. I do like to ride the DH runs quite alot, although I roll the jumps rather than actually jumping them. Its been along time since my wheels were more than two feet off the ground 🙂

I have heard though that the Spark is no better at climbing than the Genius, but lacks the downhill capability, so you not really gaining anything from the Spark. Is that True?

Depends on what kind of climbing you mean. On a 1000m vertical singletrack dedicated climbing trail, my 25.5lb spark will absolutely be faster than my 28lb genius.
Doing a slower techy climb full of stalls and ‘moves’ and other terms for challenging bits then I’d suggest the genius would be better….
Mostly also as for my local riding, tech climbs invariably means there’s going to be something pretty tech off the other side.
To be fair, the ransom climbs the tech incredibly well too.
Out of the spark, the genius and the ransom, if I had to choose one to keep forever, it’d be the genius.

thanks all