NOVA BIKE
Autor: ferlin | Publicado: 2012-02-18T08:42:00-08:00


TESTEDSCOTT
GENIUS
LT 10WORDS RC
With  roots deep in World Cup cross-country racing, it may be hard for  all-mountain riders to seriously consider Scott as a player in the  long-travel game. Scott believes that the carbon-framed Genius LT 10  will reverse that prejudice, and after spending some quality time on the  30-pound, 185-millimeter-travel machine, we might agree. Reduced to its  performance and capabilities, the Genius LT 10 is a nimble-feeling,  very capable descender with the potential to meet or exceed the climbing  performance of anything in the 180-millimeter-travel club.

There  is, however, nothing reductionist about Scott’s showcase all-mountain  machine. With adjustable geometry and handlebar-remote functions that  offer three shock modes; a simultaneous lockout feature for its fork and  shock; and a dropper seatpost button, this is not the blunt instrument  of a bike-park skidder. Rather, the Genius LT 10 is a precision tool for  the experienced all-mountain rider who wants to squeeze every meter of  shred from a trail system. Scott’s all-mountain over achiever retails  for about $6499 USD. www.scottsports.com




&nbsp;&nbsp;Set  Scott's 185-millimeter-travel Genius LT 10 as plush as your downhill  sled and, with the help of a few buttons and levers, it will efficiently  scratch its way up a long section of switchbacks that would challenge  many trailbikes.
. 
Genius LT 10 Construction

One  may ask why Scott, the one brand that has banked its reputation on  uber-tech carbon fiber frames, would make its premier long-travel AM  chassis half in carbon and half in aluminum? In he-man terms; Scott used  carbon fiber to build the front section of the LT 10 because it is the  strongest and lightest way to make a frame. A welded-aluminum structure  is the most efficient way to weave a rear triangle around tires,  chainrings and spinning crank-arms – and the perfect material to house  bearings and to support brake calipers. The Genius LT 10 optimizes both  materials to produce a chassis with a published weight of 2.6 kilos  (5.72 pounds), including its 535-gram Equalizer shock – a figure that  pencils out against the complete bike’s verified weight of 30.35 pounds  without pedals (13.795 kilos). In theory, the Genius’ carbon front  section is protected by its wide-stance fork and rear suspension, so the  chassis should survive the relentless beating and scraping that an  aggressively ridden AM/trailbike must endure.   






Scott Genius LT 10 Details• Purpose: All/Mountain
• HMX Carbon fiber front section, aluminum rear suspension.
• Remote control rear-wheel travel: 185mm/110mm 
• Adjustable geometry
• Tapered head tube
• ISCG-05 chain guide tabs
• Thru-axle - 142/12mm, 135/12mm or 135/10mm options
• Remote lockout Fox 36 TALAS fork (140mm/180mm)
• Twinloc Handlebar Remote: simultaneous fork and shock lockout, 110mm or full travel
• DT Swiss-Made Equalizer 3 pull shock
• Weight: 30.35 pounds (13,795g)
• MSRP: $6499 USD

HMX - NET carbon:  Scott is one of those brands that manufactures as many catchy names as  it does products. (Something to do with companies starting with ‘S’?)  HMX refers to a special high-modulus carbon with a custom resin system  that Scott uses to reinforce key areas of the LT 10’s front section. The  NET part (Naked External Tube) reminds us that Scott was among the  first carbon fiber bike makers to abandon the cute looking woven  cosmetic outer layer and to leave the frame’s unidirectional carbon  construction exposed – a strategy that saves weight and remains honest  to the material. HMX material is said to be 20-percent stiffer, and thus  adds rigidity and can reduce weight in the areas where it is employed.      

One-piece molded front section:  There are many strategies used to make carbon parts, the best method to  make a strong hollow shape, like a front triangle, is to lay up the many  layers of carbon material and the various bearing and shock mounts into  one complete piece and then use internal pressure, evenly distributed,  to compress the carbon within the mold as the part is heated to set the  resin. A one-time cure produces the strongest bond between the carbon  layers. This is the method used to produce the best of the best carbon  frames, including the Genius LT 10.





 
The  LT 10’s composite front section is intelligently designed to optimize  the material’s unique properties, which explains why it doesn’t look  like a slightly sculpted rendition of a generic welded-aluminum-tube  frame. Its tri-oval top and down tubes bear a hint of convention, but  its tapered head tube area, its massively oversized seat tube and the  rear-set bottom bracket are voluminous monocoque constructions  integrated into the design to double as suspension pick up points and to  encircle its three-chambered pull-shock.

All-mountain frame features:  Scott took advantage of Shimano’s PressFit bottom bracket system to  boost strength and stiffness by widening the bottom bracket/seat tube as  far as possible. An ISCG chain guide mount is built into the left side  of the monocoque and Scott attaches a red-anodized inner guide plate to  keep the chain in control and to protect the carbon from injury should  the chain be forced off the inside sprocket. In the rear, the post-mount  brake caliper boss is tucked inside the frame to keep the caliper out  of harm’s way. A Scott and Trek exclusive for 2012 is an internal hose  routing for its RockShox Reverb seat post remote-control. Scott also  attaches its direct-mount front derailleur to the swingarm instead of  the seat tube so the derailleur cage tracks the chain perfectly as the  rear suspension compresses through its full travel. Finally, the Genius  LT 10’s seat tube mast is angled back to lengthen the cockpit as the  post is raised in order to accommodate taller riders and to move the  rider forward in a more downhill position when the saddle is slammed  low.  



&nbsp;&nbsp;The  Genius LT 10 makes use of the best qualities of carbon and aluminum.  Massive-diameter carbon main tubes and wide-stance suspension pivot  placements keep the chassis laterally stiff. The pull-shock  configuration is novel, but performs quite well.

Rear-section:  Peruse the most respected long-travel bikes from Scott, Specialized,  Trek and you’ll find that an aluminum rear section paired with a carbon  front is the theme that unites them all. Details are the key to  successful aluminum construction, and Scott’s designers covered every  trick in the welded aluminum handbook to pen the LT 10’s rear mech. The  rocker link is forged in thin-wall halves and then welded into a single  piece to ward off flexing. Forged bearing-journals, caliper mounts and  dropouts provide rigidity while making the many contortions required to  weave around key components, and also to provide ample clearance for  tires up to 2.5-inches wide. Scott sells the LT 10 with a 142 x  12-millimeter through-axle system, but its interchangeable dropouts can  also be configured to accept 135 x 12 and 135 x 10-millimeter  through-axles.

Key numbers: A  reversible ‘chip’ in the rocker link’s shock mount allows Genius LT 10  riders to alter the head angle by slightly less than one degree, which  also changes the bottom bracket height. LT 10s roll out of the box with  the head angle at 67-degrees – in the steeper of the two positions –  which results in a BB height of 14.4 inches according to the charts.  Switching the chip slackens the head angle to 66.3 degrees, with a  corresponding shift to a 14.1 inch BB height. When one considers that  the Fox 36 TALAS fork offers 40-millimeters of travel adjustment, you  can then add another degree of angular adjustment to the settings that  the chip offers (67 degrees becomes 68 with the fork compressed in the  short TALAS option).

Scott’s seat angle is deliberately rear-set  to lengthen the distance between the handlebar and saddle as the seat  post is raised, so its quoted seat angles of 74.2 or 73.5 degrees are  theoretical measurements taken at average saddle heights. The  medium-size frame’s 23-inch top tube and 16.9-inch chain stays are  pretty much standard fare for the all-mountain genre. Scott offers the  Genius LT 10 in small, medium (tested) and large sizes.

Genius LT 10 Component Check

SRAM  X.0 drivetrain components are the highlight of the LT 10, beginning  with the nicely geared, 24 x 38-tooth crankset and its carbon bash ring.  and ending with a mention of its crisp-feeling shift paddles. Extra  credit goes to Scott’s choice of a RockShox Reverb Stealth Seat post –  arguably the most reliable and useful of its kind. The LT 10 rolls on DT  Swiss AM 10 tubeless wheels and aggressive 2.35-inch Schwalbe Hans  Damph tires. Brakes were Avid Elixir 9RS with carbon levers and a  200-millimeter front and a 180-millimeter rotor in the rear. Cockpits  items were all Syncros, including a 700-millimeter-width (27.5 inches)  Carbon AM handlebar.



&nbsp;&nbsp;The  Fox 36 TALAS fork is custom made for Scott. The blue dial on the left  side reduces the stroke by 40mm while the Twinloc remote cable that runs  to the right stanchion locks out the fork in conjunction with the  shock.

 LT 10 Suspension 

Fork:  There is probably no need to explain the benefits of the LT 10’s  180/140-millimeter-travel Fox 36 TALAS fork, as it has become an  all-mountain standard. An exclusive for Scott, Fox adds a remote lockout  mech to the top of the right stanchion tube that is paired with a  remote shock lockout cable at the Twinloc handlebar lever. The lockout  precludes the use of a low-speed compression adjustment which can be a  sore spot for fastidious suspension tuners (more about that later). 

Shock:  The firework show begins with one look at Scott’s DT Swiss-made  Equalizer 3 shock – a massive looking device that appears to be modeled  after an oil refinery. Equalizer 3 offers three remote-controlled  suspension modes: Lockout, limited-travel ‘traction’ mode and full  travel. To get your head around the Equalizer, one must abandon all  preconceived notions about how a standard shock operates. 



&nbsp;&nbsp;The  left side of the Equalizer 3 shock houses the cable-actuated valve body  (thin tube in center) flanked by the two damper chambers. Negative and  positive spring pressure is set with a pair of Schrader valves (bottom  center). A detailed list of rider weight and spring pressures can be  found printed on the left shock can. Red dials on each can are the  rebound adjustments. The drive side of the Equalizer exposes the central  pull shock that pumps oil to the two dampers. It has a sliding gauge  near the top of the can that indicates suspension sag. The Equalizer  appears complicated, but it is quite easy to get right. 

To  begin with, it’s a pull-shock, so compressing the suspension draws the  shock shaft out of the body. The main chamber is basically an oil pump  that shoves fluid into one or both chambers. The bike is suspended by  two air springs, one in each of the adjoining reservoirs. When the  suspension is wide open, the shock pumps oil into both reservoirs, which  maximizes air volume and gives the spring a very linear compression  rate. When the Twinloc lever is in traction mode, the larger of the two  reservoirs is switched off so oil can only travel into the small air can  – which limits the suspension travel from 185 to 110 millimeters, and  the corresponding reduction in air volume also causes the spring rate to  be very progressive. In lockout mode, the valve between the shock and  both reservoirs is switched off and the damper simply can’t move.  Because the Equalizer 3 is basically one pump that drives two separate  shocks, it has two low-speed rebound dials, one for full travel and  another for the Traction mode. Compression damping is preset internally.


Riding the Genius LT 10



&nbsp;&nbsp;The  LT 10's balanced feel and deep suspension made Southern California's  hour-plus descents feel effortless. Avid's 9RS brakes, while not as  powerful as we would like, were easy to modulate on the often rock-hard  clay surface.

Measured by its  wow-factor, Scott’s Genius LT 10 sets a high bar. Buttons, levers,  paddles, hoses and housings bristle from the handlebars like a cell  phone tower. The fact that all-mountain bikes must do a bang-up job as  technical climbers and descenders is an invitation for mediocre  compromise, though, and Scott’s handlebar array keeps the Genius LT 10’s  performance sharp in both theaters of operation. After an adequate  orientation period, the LT 10 rider will discover that using the  Twinloc’s shock and TALAS fork modes is nearly a requisite to riding the  bike. 

One example that stands out happened when a test rider  was lagging behind the group on a long climb. He pulled over to make an  adjustment and soon passed us like we were pulling trailers. At the  summit, he mentioned that although he was in short-travel traction mode  on the steep climb, the 180-millimeter-stroke fork made the seat angle  too slack and it was cramping his cockpit position. He said lowered the  TALAS fork 40mm and the Scott climbed like a different bike. Every test  rider reported a similar epiphany. 

Setup:  Suspension setup is critical with the LT 10. The tendency is to use too  much pressure in both the fork and shock. The Equalizer 3 shock has  printed recommendations for negative and positive spring pressures  versus rider weight on the left-side damper body, and there is a sag  meter on opposite side. Choose the spring pressure settings that result  between 25 and 30-percent sag. Set the fork pressure to the same  percentages. A parking lot test will feel too soft, but on the trail, it  will be perfect. Commit to the remotes. Use the Twinloc lever for pedal  time and run the suspension downhill soft. The Genius has seven inches  of travel, so running the suspension high simply trashes its small-bump  sensitivity and creates a high center of gravity.

Shock tip:  Take the time to dial in the rebound separately for both the long and  short-travel shock barrels on the Equalizer shock because you’ll be  spending a lot of riding time in both modes.

Tire pressure:  On another side of the setup, Scott chose Schwalbe Hans Dampf tires,  which are excellent candidates for tubeless. We ran the tires stock with  tubes for the first half of the test, and then yanked the tubes and  remounted them with Stan’s sealant and the rigorous use of a floor pump.  The performance increase was noticeable, with the high-volume,  2.35-inch knobbies rolling faster on the flats and sticking better  around corners. Tire pressure settings are important with Hans Dampf  tires. We found 22psi front and 25psi rear was about perfect for a  165-pound rider. 



&nbsp;&nbsp;Scott's  Twinloc lever (top) operates with a push-push action that mimics SRAM  shift paddles. The black lever tensions the cables - one click for  Traction mode and a second push for full lockout. Pushing the blue  Twinloc lever beneath it reverses the steps. New riders tended to  'shift' with the Twinloc, a mistake that sent a couple of us down steeps  fully locked out. It only takes one of those events to remember which  is which.

First impressions:  Rolling out on the long-legged Scott felt more like we were riding a  trailbike. It seemed too lightweight to handle the beating that an  all-mountain bike is intended to take. The tendency was to baby the bike  through rough sections and steep descents instead of straight-lining  the rocks and simply pounding through parts of the trail that presented  no clear option. For the first few rides we exited technical sections  thinking we could have hit them faster and harder. Once we committed,  the more we pushed the LT 10, the more it impressed us.

Learn the levers:  The tendency for test riders was to avoid the myriad of handlebar  remote options unless presented with a long stretch of terrain that  forced the issue. To get the most from the LT 10, though, one must  become as fluid with the Twinloc lever as dropper devotees are with the  remote seatpost controls. With the shock and fork wide open at full  travel, the LT 10 sits slightly low in the rear and its head angle  slackens a degree or so – perfect for steeps or (as was the case for  much of our testing) pounding down rock gardens that offer no  intelligent line choices. 

Climbing in the open configuration is  not all that bad, but a switch to traction mode raises the tail a bit  and makes the steering feel a degree sharper – a sweet setup for short  climbs and ridge running. For extended climbs, reach down and drop the  Fox fork 40-millimeters with the TALAS dial to brighten up the Scott’s  climbing efficiency even more. Same goes for cornering. Switching on  traction mode makes the LT 10 feel more nimble around tight singletrack  turns, where carving quick right-left-right combinations is a useful  trait, while leaving the Twinloc lever wide open is the preferred option  for shoveling dirt around high-speed corners. The bottom line is that  Scott’s adaptive technology defines the Genius LT 10’s performance. Use  it and the bike shines in nearly every corner of the all-mountain/trail  envelope. Ignore the Twinloc lever and the LT 10 rides like an elite  version of the one-trick ponies that crowd the base line of the AM  genre.



&nbsp;&nbsp;Scott  chose moderately wide Syncros handlebars for the Genius LT 10. Not many  bikes have seven housings sprouting from the bars. Ugly perhaps, but  without the remotes, the LT 10 would lose much of its fun factor. 

Suspension:  Scott’s Genius LT 10 is hard-wired to its Equalizer 3 pull shock and  modified Fox 36 TALAS fork, so you’ll have to live with any  idiosyncrasies in its suspension. Riders used to a pro-level shock with a  full compliment of  high and low-speed damping controls and end-stroke  adjustments will find the Scott Equalizer’s options to be inadequate,  and its remote fork lockout eliminates the low-speed compression dial up  front. That said, the Scott feels very smooth over a gamut of terrain  features, from that’s-gonna’-hurt maximum impacts to annoying bike park  braking bumps. Like with most good gravity bikes, the rear wheel stays  glued the ground in the long-travel setting to the point where it needs  to be popped over smaller features to get it airborne. In traction mode,  the Scott’s rear end feels much like a five-inch trailbike. The tail  can be lifted with a flick of the ankles and it pops off of any kicker,  but the firmer shock setting means that the rear end will skip a bit  over chatter bumps under hard braking.

We struggled initially  with the Fox 36 TALAS fork. Its small-bump sensitivity was a  disappointment. There were two issues involved: the first was that  setting the fork’s spring pressure low enough to get the fork to feel  supple caused a good deal of brake dive when we were descending steeps.  The second issue was a lot of friction in the fork that could be only be  mitigated by lubricating the wiper seals every other ride. To be sure,  there is a learning curve involved with a 180-millimeter-travel  dual-purpose bike. There is no way one can set the fork to feel XC firm  in the pedaling department and still achieve full travel. We discovered  that the best setup was to tune the fork and shock soft and supple for  full-travel descending and then depend upon the Twinloc’s traction mode  for all pedaling sections. As a bonus, the fork performed better when it  was sagged lower into its travel. 

Handling notes:  Looking at the big picture, Scott did a good job on the LT 10’s  numbers. The kicked-out front end is slack enough to descend with  conviction and it doesn’t feel too floppy when pedaling on the flats or  up rollers. The 16.9-inch (428mm) chainstay length is tight enough to  make the Scott an easy climber and yet the bike feels balanced in the  corners as if it had a tad longer wheelbase. On the subject of steering,  the bike is nimble enough in the long-travel settings to make quick  lane changes when necessary. We found that it could weave through  boulders with surprising dexterity. The Scott’s handling and steering  reflects that the carbon/aluminum chassis is quite rigid in the lateral  sense, which was a pleasant surprise for a 180-millimeter-travel bike  that only weighed 30 pounds.

As a side note on handling, we  wouldn’t recommend the low bottom bracket suspension option unless you  were planning on riding park all day or shuttling downhill runs with  your big-bike friends. We banged the crankarms often enough in the  higher setting to question why the option was there. The Scott’s  laid-back seat angle, designed to stretch the cockpit for taller riders,  becomes much too set back when riding with the seatpost extended. On  level ground, or when climbing, the suspension compresses and pushes the  pedaling ergonomics from marginally bad to just plain bad. With the  saddle lowered and the bike pointed down hill, however, the low BB  option comes into its own.  



&nbsp;&nbsp;Scott  is one of only two brands to feature the new RockShox Reverb dropper  post with the internal hose routing. It really cleans up the bike's  appearance. Other Star players were its 2.35 inch Hans Dampf tubeless  tires, Avid HRS Carbon brakes and low-geared SRAM X.0 crankset. The LT  10 frame has ISCG-05 chainguide mounts
.      
Technical report

•  Avid’s 9RS Carbon brakes do not stop as hard as we would expect from a  top-drawer AM brake paired with a 185-millimeter rear and 200-millimeter  front rotor. That said, the big rotors ensured that there was ample  braking power at hand when needed, and the exchange for the lack of  authority at first squeeze was a more moderate feel that was easy to  modulate when traction was sketchy. 

• Cornering on Schwalbe’s  Hans Dampf tires was a treat. Without the pronounced edging blocks of  downhill-type tread patterns, there are times when the meaty Schwalbe  knobbies will slide a bit before finding their groove, but the slide  feels firm and grippy and does not throw the LT 10 off its line. Braking  performance is also wonderful and because the Hans Dampf is an  Omni-directional tire, the same straight-line grip makes for invincible  climbing traction. Considering that the Hans Dampf is an expensive tire,  we figured that Scott must have liked it as much as we did to spec it. 

•  Scott chose a 700-millimeter Syncros AM Carbon handlebar, which was a  bit narrow for some test riders. The feel of its bend and its  20-millimeter rise were judged unanimously to be just right for the  bike. 

• Cheers for SRAM’s low-geared two-by crankset and its  bash guard. Paired with a 36-tooth cog in the rear, the 24-tooth granny  offers up a low enough climbing gear to put the bike’s grippy knobbies  to task. We would even go so far as to ask for a 22-tooth granny so we  could top the big hero climbs. 

What We Would Change

Two  items stand out as potential improvements for the LT 10. For riders  who's stature fits within the design's sweet spot, the slack seat angle  serves its intended purpose of adjusting the effective top tube length  for taller or shorter riders. Once the post is elevated beyond a certain  point, though, it destroys the bike’s front/rear weight balance. A  shorter-travel bike can handle such an arrangement because its rear  suspension doesn’t settle as much when the weight shifts back for  climbing or when G-forces build up in a turn, but for a long-travel bike  like the Scott LT 10, moving the rider back a couple of inches  un-weights the fork and sags the rear end too far into its stroke. Put a  six-footer on the medium frame and, unless the fork is set to minimum  travel, the front wheel skips off the ground going uphill and the rear  end sags with every pedal stroke on the flats. Scott might do better to  add a fourth size and use a more conventional seat tube angle. Consider  this when you size your LT 10. 

The second item is less of a  complaint and more of a suggestion for future Twinloc technology. We  found that the Fork’s TALAS setting was far more important to maximizing  the LT 10’s performance than its lockout feature. We would happily  sacrifice the lockout option completely if the Twinloc lever  automatically reduced the fork travel as it does the shock. It is almost  funny that we had to reach down while riding to turn the fork’s TALAS  knob before a climb on a bike that has seven remote control cables and  hoses sprouting from its handlebar. In fact, eliminating the fork  lockout in favor of a remote TALAS option would return the more-valuable  low-speed compression adjustment which we needed to keep the fork from  diving under braking.



&nbsp;&nbsp;Setting  the LT 10's rear suspension to ride softer and lower in its travel  moderated the brake dive of the Fox 36 TALAS fork. The new downhill tune  improved cornering as well.

Pinkbike's take:
Many  All-Mountain designs serve up intelligent compromise in an effort to  provide a balance between DH quality descending and XC pedaling, but the  Scott Genius LT 10 manages to avoid the compromise part of that  equation. Want just-right climbing geometry? Pop the saddle up, push the  Twinloc lever, twist the TALAS dial and hear the angels sing. Big  trouble ahead? Drop the post, open up the suspension and descend with  conviction. Big road climb to the trailhead? No worries, set the seat to  full height, shove the Twinloc lever to lull lockout and the LT 10 will  roll happily up the highway for an hour or more. The LT 10 is not for  everyone - it is a thinker's machine and by that, we mean that its  performance must be managed by a rider who stays ahead of the bike as  well as the terrain. A flow-type rider might find that switching ten  gears and a bunch of handlebar levers all day is too much trouble. The  Genius LT 10 suits a hard-driving style and a rider who wants to own the  entire mountain. If that sounds like you, it would be a tough bike to  beat.  -RC