Kinesis G2 First Look - An Affordable Aluminium Adventure Bike

Last year Kinesis launched its brand new G2, an aluminium adventure bike available as a complete bike with SRAM Apex for £1,500, making it a pretty affordable entry into the world of mixed terrain riding.

It follows in the tyre tracks of the company’s successful and popular Tripster AT and ATR, but the big difference is a focus on affordability, making an adventure bike that is accessible to more people.

"Building on the huge success of our Tripster AT and ATR models, the G2 offers a well thought out complete bike", says Kinesis. "Sitting as the third model in our Adventure category, the G2 is a bike that delivers versatility in spades coupled with the same DNA of the even more adventurous Tripster models."

At its heart is a smart looking aluminium frame with a carbon fork, disc brakes, internal cable routing and space for up to 40mm tyres. It inherits the geometry from the Tripster with two small changes, shorter chainstays and head tube to give it a slightly more road-focused stance.

Other details that point to that road focus is the omission of the third bottle cage mount we’re used to seeing on adventure bikes, and neither are there any lowrider mounts on the fork, but there are rear rack mounts. We reckon most potential customers would be looking at using some arrangement of bikepacking packs anyway. 

One detail that will go down well is the threaded bottom bracket, no creaking press-fit issues to worry about here. There’s a cable stop for a front mech because you could fit a conventional 2x if you preferred but we reckon 1x is spot on for the sort of riding the G2 is designed for.

Clearance is ample around the 40mm wide Schwalbe G-One Allround tyres and if you use the provided mudguard eyelets you’ve still got space for a 38mm tyre. The G-One is a really good tyre for riding everything from road to dirt and gravel and copes with pretty much everything short of deep sloppy mud.

Kinesis has chosen some solid equipment to spec the frame with. You get SRAM's excellent Apex 1x11 groupset, using a 40T chainring and an 11-42 cassette. That's a good setup for adventure and touring; if you're planning to use the bike more as a road-based commuter then you could swap out the front ring for something bigger. It also includes hydraulic disc brakes with a 160/140mm rotor setup.

Kinesis has produced its own flared drop handlebar paired with a dinky stem and inline seatpost to provide the desired reach, and a Selle Italia completes the build.

Kinesis says the G2 is more capable than a road bike, more comfortable than a cyclocross bike and more versatile than an out-and-out gravel bike. We’ll be finding out if that is the case when we start riding this bike, so stay tuned for a full review soon.

More at www.kinesisbikes.co.uk/