By popular demand, the new Fugio 1x gravel adventure bike is the first single ring SRAM groupset to grace a Genesis. And it’s set to head out on some Gravelventures with Polish bike tour company Podia. Readers who know the British bike brand have seen them develop a wide range of fun, affordable bikes over the years from steel, ti & even recently carbon.
With a focus on practical bikes to ride any kind of road or trail surface, all of their complete bikes have always opted for Shimano drivetrains. That’s no accident – Genesis’ parent company just so happens to also own Madison, the UK’s Shimano distributor. But customers have kept asking for a simple 1x solution, especially for this new gravel bike, and Genesis is getting ready to deliver it.
Genesis Fugio 1x steel SRAM Apex adventure gravel bike
The Fugio 1x shares the exact same Road Plus double-butted Mjölnir chromoly steel frame that we saw introduced last fall as a £2000 complete bike with Shimano 105 or £800 frameset with its alloy steerer carbon fork and plenty of bottle, rack & fender mounting points. But now you won’t have to build your own frameset up to get a single ring solution, but will be able to get a complete bike with a full SRAM Apex 1x 11 groupset on the 12mm thru-axle equipped 650b bikes.
The complete spec gets an alloy Apex 1 drivetrain with a 42 tooth X-sync chainring and its 11-42 cassette. Braking is mechanical, handled by flat mount TRP Spyre discs.
Cockpit and finishing kit remains Genesis’ house brand alloy components, plus a set of 50mm wide Donnelly (formerly Clement) X’Plor MSO tires. Interestingly enough, without a front derailleur, it looks likely that the Apex complete bike will be both lighter and a bit cheaper than the other 105 double build which will carry over.
We got a sneak peek at the upcoming SRAM build and its new dark red paint scheme at the Berlin Bike Show, thanks to bike tour company Podia who have done some colorful collaboration projects with Genesis in the past. Podia will use the new Fugio 1x as their off-road rental fleet for the new Gravelventure trips that they introduced at the end of 2017 to take in the gravel & back roads of southern Poland this spring.
