Brendan Fairclough is best known as a downhill racer so you maybe surprised to see us taking a look at his Genius and not his Gambler, but there’s a good reason for this. Modern enduro bikes are so advanced that they descend as capably as downhill bikes and aren’t half too bad on the climbs either. So why waste all that travel and effort on a downhill bike when the Genius does just fine?

In fact, Brendan does most of his riding on his Genius, so it wouldn’t make much sense for us to look at anything else.

He could have at least fixed the puncture for us!

Brendan runs full Fox suspension on his Genius with a 36 fork up front and a Float X shock at the back. He runs high pressures on his fork, so much so that the tame hills of Surrey rarely force him to use more than half his travel.

The Genius would normally come with a Twinloc remote that allows you to control your shock’s damping from the handlebar, however Brendan gets rid of this as he prefers a clean look. We agree, in our review we called the remote “an eyesore that looked like it had been knocked up in the garden shed”

The Float X without the Twinloc hardware

Brendan has a full Shimano XTR groupset that provides more than enough gears for the Surrey Hills. Brendan also runs XTR brakes and although they don’t provide the power of the Saints on his downhill bike, they are more than ample for trail riding.

Brendan finishes off his ride with his own signature grips and pedals. The grips were developed with Olly Wilkins and feature a waffle and traditional grip pattern. The idea is to stop you getting callouses while still providing decent grip.

“A grip for the brave” describes Brendan perfectly

Brendan’s pedals are the evolution of the DMR Vault – our favourite flat pedal.