Scott Genius LT 700 Tuned Plus - Review (Borrowed from Pinkbike)

It came as a surprise to us that the folks at Scott Sports - one of the industry's more conservative, race-oriented think tanks - would launch one of the first elite-level trail bikes to be designed around high-volume, plus-width tires. Scott's motivation to build the Genius LT 700 Plus was to blend the wall-climbing traction and mistake-proof technical steering of plus with the attributes of a modern, slack-geometry all-mountain trailbike chassis and, as PB's Paul Aston reported in his First Ride feature from Scott Camp this year, the Genius LT 700 Plus manages to hit the mark in all of those categories.

Meet the Genius LT 700 Tuned Plus

Scott's Genius range is targeted at the advanced all-mountain and trail rider crowd, and is divided into "700" models, which have 27.5-inch wheels and "900" models, which use 29-inch wheels. LT stands for "long-travel" and in the case of the LT 700 Plus, that means 160 millimeters on both ends of the bike. To create the top-range LT 700 Plus "Tuned" chassis, Scott borrowed the high-modulus carbon fiber front section of the 900, then mated that with an all-new Boost-width swingarm and suspension. The wider, 148-millimeter Boost hub format helps frame designers reshuffle all the rear suspension bits to make room for 27.5-inch tires as wide as three inches, while only adding three millimeters to the chainstay length. Scott's intention is to maintain the handling qualities of its conventional wheeled Genius bikes, which is a good thing.

Scott's Twinloc cable-remote simultaneously controls both the "Nude" Fox Float EVOL shock and the 36 Float FIT4 fork.

Damping control is all Fox, with a remote-actuated 36 fork and a Scott-developed Float "Nude" shock. Both fork and shock can be switched simultaneously from "Locked," to "Traction," or "Open" modes using Scott's Twinloc lever which now sits underneath the handlebar and below the dropper post control on the left side of the handlebar. Scott mixes two favorite PB staples: a SRAM X01 drivetrain, with Shimano XTR brakes to take care of business, and fills out the rest of the bike with Syncros wheels and cockpit items. The end result is a wicked looking 160-millimeter-travel trail bike that weighs in at only 27.8 pounds (12.6kg) and retails for $7999 USD.

Plus Geometry

Adjustable numbers: Frame numbers are on the conservative side of post-modern all-mountain, and can be adjusted by a half a degree using a two-way "chip" on the rocker link that drives the shock. Reversing the chip toggles the head angle between 67.5 and 68 degrees, lowers the bottom bracket by five millimeters and alters the bike's reach by four millimeters. While that head angle may seem at least one degree too steep by enduro-maniacs, it is needed to balance the slower steering response of the larger wheel. The LT 700 Plus's seat angle is intentionally steep (73.9 or 74.4 degrees) to better position the rider for steep climbing and to create more reach without an excessively long top tube.

Short chainstays: Conventional 27.5-inch-wheel Genius 700 chainstays measure 445 millimeters. The chainstays of the Genius LT 700 Plus are only slightly longer, at 448 millimeters, so the difference in weight transfer while climbing or cornering should be negligible between the two models - no small feat, considering the additional girth and height of 2.8-inch tires mounted to 40-millimeter inside-width rims.

Suspension

Scott's "Tuned" suspension is about as straight up as suspension gets: a single-pivot swingarm that hinges about 80 millimeters above the bottom bracket center that drives the shock through a top-tube-mounted rocker linkage. Scott cleverly positions the seatstay pivot so near to the rear axle that it (we suspect) causes the LT 700's rear suspension to emulate some of the uncoupled braking qualities of a concentric axle pivot like Trek's ABP and Dave Weagle's Split Pivot. As mentioned, the LT 700 Plus uses a welded-aluminum rear end, but we are sure that, should the Plus genre take root, future LT 700's will soon sport a carbon rear suspension, just like their conventional-wheeled siblings.

Nude shock upgrades: Fox makes the LT 700's Nude shock (which probably stands for Never Underestimate Deranged Engineers) based upon its Factory Float Kashima platform, and this year the dual-travel damper get the EVOL air spring system, which doubles the throw of its negative spring and produces a seamless transition from its initial travel, through the mid-stroke. Commanded by Scott's Twinloc lever, the middle "Traction" option reduces the shock stroke by 38 percent while dramatically increasing its spring rate. From the rider's perspective, pedaling feels much more firm, and the rear of the bike rides noticeably higher. Fox set the blow-off threshold conservatively low for the shock's lock-out option, presumably to protect its internals, because many LT 700 owners will be accidentally smashing features with their Twinloc levers in Locked mode. As a result, the suspension feels firm, but never immobile when "locked" and there is always a small degree of suspension movement under power.

Improved Twinloc

Look no further than the 700 Plus's Twinloc lever to see how deeply Scott's racing heritage overlaps its all-mountain range. Twinloc offers three suspension options: "Open" with full travel for both fork and shock; "Traction" mode, which improves pedaling efficiency by reducing the rear suspension travel to 100 millimeters and increasing the shock's spring rate, while simultaneously boosting the fork's low-speed compression damping; and "Lockout" mode which, in the case of the LT, increases low-speed compression to the degree that both the fork and shock feel locked out, while still allowing the suspension to react to big hits on the trail.

As mentioned, Twinloc has been moved below the handlebar (named the "Downside Remote"), which is hugely better than up top, where the dual-lever apparatus, with its splay of cables, clamps and hardware was unnatural to manipulate and offensive to the eyes. Of course that means the remote button for the RockShox dropper post must be located on top of the handlebar, but it action the new configuration is worlds better.


Smart Build

Eight thousand dollars is outside most bike buyers' definition of an affordable trail bike, but Scott shamelessly broke the $10,000 barrier for mountain bikes a long time ago. Considering that the Genius LT 700 Tuned is Scott's most elite plus bike, their product managers showed some restraint when they fleshed out its parts. No-doubt, choosing a second-tier SRAM X01 transmission and relying upon Syncros (owned by Scott Sports) to fill out the running gear and cockpit items saved enough cash to foot the bill for its carbon front section and Kashima-coated Fox factory suspension bits. The soul of the LT 700 Plus literally revolves around its wheels, where Scott chose the best performing tire of the moment: Schwalbe's 2.8-inch Nobby Nic EVO, and then mounted them to ultra-wide rims so they could handle lateral cornering stress without rolling or tucking. In short, Scott spent its cash-roll on the right components.

Scott's Long-travel, plus-wheeled Genius was easy to make friends with. It rolled with remarkable efficiency over the fist-sized gravel that carpeted many of the trail access roads. Hook-and-loop grip and predictable steering. Its steering is sure and predictable feel is only slightly heavier than an all-mountain 29er sporting 2.3-inch tires. And, like that AM 29er, the Genius Plus lags for the first one and a half pedal strokes when accelerating from nearly a dead stop. Beyond those minor negatives, the Genius LT 700 Tuned Plus (to use it proper name), is hard to fault. In spite of my skepticism, it proved to be one of the more enjoyable trailbikes I have ridden in the Pacific Northwest.

Pedaling: Those who have been pushing an all-mountain/enduro bike around the mountains, shod with aggressive, 2.3-inch (or larger) tires, will either ignore or fail to notice the small drag penalty of the LT 700's 2.8-inch Schwalbe tires. The tires look huge, the growl on paved surfaces, and certainly give the impression that they would be energy suckers, but they roll on hard pack with surprising efficiency. I put some good mileage in on paved highways and gravel logging roads, and after one or two rides, the only time I became acutely aware that I was on a plus bike, was when the rubber hit the dirt and the fun began. In their natural environment, the big Schwalbes roll faster than 29ers when the trail surface is rough or irregular and they maintain momentum like nobody's business.

The Genius LT 700 is lightweight when compared to any elite machine in the 160-millimeter class, so it has no problems punching up steep climbing pitches. Add the grip afforded by its monster knobbies and the nimble Scott pretty much invalidates any excuses for not topping a technical climb. Low-pressure, pliable tires wrap themselves around roots and catch multiple edges in rocky situations, so climbing traction is almost always assured - which reduces the climber's workload to pedaling and steering.

Energy Management: The chassis has a reasonably long reach and a steep seat angle, which make the transition from seated, to out-of-the-saddle pedaling an effortless movement. Riders who spend a good deal of time standing on the pedals will discover quickly that the Twinloc remote lever is an essential component of the Scott Genius LT experience. Pedaling forces will always activate the rear suspension to some degree, so the Genius rider quickly learns to manage pedaling firmness with the Twinloc remote control. I often locked out the suspension for logging roads, relying upon the big tires to smooth out the chatter. On trail, I almost always climbed in "Traction" mode, although I found that the Scott pedaled firmly enough in "open" mode to ignore the Twinloc lever altogether for long periods and enjoy the flow.

Turning and steering: Plus 27.5-inch wheels are within a finger's width of the diameter of a 29er's, and the Genius Plus shares the same front section, fork offset and most of the numbers of its 29er cousin - so it should come as no surprise that the Genius plus gets around the bends like a 29er. That said, the Genius 700 Plus turns in and sets up for corners more quickly than a 29er with a similar head angle, bars and stem. I attribute this to the possibility that the tire is riding farther down on its side blocks and thus turns a tighter arc at the same lean angles. However the science may work, when leaned over, the Plus bike carves a tighter apex than an equivalent 29er and about the same as that of a 27.5 bike.

Steering feels slightly heavy in tight, techy situations, because the front wheel is heavier than most, and also because there is more grip available. You can often feel the tire grinding into the trail surface when sawing back and forth on the handlebar. A soft, wide contact patch up front makes it possible to feed in a lot of front brake while descending steeps, and the added control is almost laughable. Once I learned to trust the grip, I could handily steer around and between nasty roots and rocks while dropping down chutes that would have most likely been brakes-off, straight-line, Hail Mary descents on my go-to trail bike.


Tire stability: When the concept first debuted, plus-width tires were most often mounted to all-mountain width rims with internal widths that measured 28 to 24 millimeters. Not surprising, that combination produced a hailstorm of complaints from hard-core riders that flexible plus tires rolled over on the rims when pressed hard in corners. Scott's pairing of its 40-millimeter ID Syncros TR1.5 rims with Schwalbe's slightly smaller 2.8-inch tire casings seems to have put those issues to rest. I experienced the opposite - surprising stability and very predictable cornering, as did PB reviewer Paul Aston at Scott's Plus launch.

Technical riding: The Genius LT 700 Plus thrives in a technical singletrack environment like Squamish offers, where its oversized knobbies, well-balanced chassis and ample suspension travel work together to take some of the edge off of the terrain and, in most cases, reduce the difficulty of features, natural or manmade. Its 67.5-degree head angle (we left the suspension chip in the slack and low position) is super stable when paired with the predictable steering of its plus-sized wheels. The bottom bracket is acceptably low, but not so much so that I was re-sculpting my aluminum pedals through the rock gardens.

Braking is impressive on wet roots and loam, especially if the rear tire's air pressure is reduced to around 12 psi. There is always the greased one that sends the tail end into a wild swap, but if you drop your heels and feed in a handful of rear brake, the rear end will find traction somewhere, often with a popping sound as the tire deforms around a root and then snaps free. Down steep rock rolls, there is a massive amount of stopping available from the font brake, but less than expected from the rear wheel, which requires more delicate modulation than a conventional-wheeled bike does. My opinion is that the narrower tire concentrates pressure on a smaller contact patch, which creates more grip than spreading that same pressure over more tread blocks and the plus tire's larger contact patch.

High speed corners define the dividing line between Plus and Enduro. Plus's confidence-building super-grip and steering work wonders in the deep woods when speeds are low and features are high, but with speeds and cornering forces pushed near the limits, the awesomely predictable grip of the LT 700's Schwalbe plus tires fade away and the once-confident rider is left to deal with an ambiguous drift. When push comes to shove in a high-G corner, there is no substitute for a stiff tire casing and a reinforced row of edging blocks.

Technical Report

Fox suspension: Scott's Twinloc remote system makes Fox a partner in the Genius' suspension, so it was serendipitous that Fox rolled out its best-ever trailbike suspension concurrently with the introduction of Scott's long-travel plus bikes. Once set up, the 36 factory FIT4 fork and Float EVOL shock quietly pumped out miles of silky smooth suspension action and spot-on ride height support. Welcome back.

Lucky engineering Patching a carbon front section from Scott's Genius 29er onto a newly designed plus-sized aluminum rear section seems more like a sci-fi plot than a recipe for a winning trailbike, but it worked. The Genius 700 Tuned Plus is one of the rare bikes that almost any rider can hop on and shred from the first pedal stroke.

Twinloc Downside remote: I would much rather ride a trailbike that did not require lever, nor my attention to optimize its suspension for climbing and descending. I'd rather opt for a battery powered system, like Lapierre's E.i. suspension before I'd embrace cable-operated forks and shocks. That said, Twinloc is key to the versatility of the Scott Genius - and it has proven to be both reliable and effective.

Tubeless dilemma: Inner tubes for three-inch plus tires are heavy, so to manage weight, plus tires must be tubeless. Which means that damage too great for latex sealant to repair is "game over" and that angry customers will be faced with having to throw away otherwise fresh tires - or figuring out a way to repair the holes. Tire and accessory makers need to get on this one, fast.


Pinkbike's Take: