Kinesis R2 2021

The Kinesis R2 is a no-nonsense aluminium road bike that'll take fairly large tyres and comes with eyelets for fitting mudguards and a rack, so it's a practical choice as an all-rounder for typical UK conditions.

The R2 sits alongside the R1 in Kinesis' range. The two bikes use essentially the same frame but the R1 is 1x (it's designed for bikes with single chainrings) while the new R2 – and there's just a chance that you're one step ahead here – is for double chainsets.

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Traditionally, Kinesis has sold framesets with 'serving suggestions' for builds you might like to follow, but the G2 gravel bike and the R2 road bike are available as complete bikes. You can still buy the R2 as a frameset for £650 if you like, but the complete bike in this Shimano Tiagra build is £1,680.

If you want a higher-end road bike, Kinesis offers the £950 RTD Scandium alloy frameset, and the £800 Aithein Disc frameset which is built to a race geometry.

Ride

The R2 offers a quick yet comfortable ride. That comfort comes courtesy of a geometry that's fairly relaxed by road bike standards (I'll give you details on that later), a slim 27.2mm seatpost, and 32mm Continental Grand Sport Race tyres that actually measure 34mm on Alex Draw 1.9 rims. Run the tyres with a bit of squishiness left in and you get quite a cosseted ride here, especially by traditional skinny-tyred road bike standards. It's the sort of bike you can ride for hours without feeling you need to book a visit to the chiropractor.

The R2 isn't breaking any records on the scales, our XL model coming in at 10.2kg (Kinesis claims 10.1kg for the 57cm model which is perfectly feasible), but it's a reasonable weight for a bike of this price, build and size. Out on the road, the R2 feels pretty swift when you put the hammer down, responding willingly to extra input without any reluctance whatsoever.

Made from 6061 alloy rather than Kinesis' lighter, stronger, and more expensive Kinesium, the R2 isn't mega-stiff like a crit bike, say, but it's certainly stiff enough when you put the power down. It's designed to be pacy not racy, and that's exactly how it feels. It's quick and fun with plenty of life, not at all slow or sluggish.

It climbs well too, with small enough ratios to keep you moving skyward on the steep stuff thanks to a 50/34T chainset and an 11-34T cassette. You might not use that largest 34T sprocket much but it's reassuring to know it's there and it'll definitely come in handy if you make use of the rack mounts and carry some luggage.

Cornering hard is a controlled experience, the tapered head tube (taking a 1 1/8in upper bearing and a 1 1/2in lower bearing) and Kinesis' own R2 full unidirectional carbon fibre fork providing plenty of accuracy, and descending follows the same pattern thanks to a wide alloy handlebar.

That bar is billed as 46cm (on the XL version of this bike), but that's measured at the top of the drop section, so it's the distance between the STI levers (measured centre to centre). You need to consider, though, that the bar has 10 degrees of flare so the distance between the ends is more like 51cm. That wide stance provides a ton of stability that makes you feel a whole lot more in control than usual when the road surface gets sketchy.

One of the R2's biggest strengths is its practicality. Several little features really make a big difference to this bike's appeal.

For a start, you get proper mounting for mudguards. Up front, there's a threaded hole in the fork crown and others about a third of the way up each fork blade. Out back, you get eyelets in the chainstay and seatstay bridges, and also at the dropouts.

Kinesis reckons that you can fit full mudguards with 30mm wide tyres or go up to 34mm without guards. As mentioned above, the 32s fitted here actually measure 34mm across and I wouldn't be keen to go any wider. There's still acres of space around the rear tyre, but the fork is the limiting factor as far as tyre size is concerned. These tyres have about 5mm of clearance all around. Anything that measures wider than 34mm when fitted – even if the nominal size is lower – isn't going to leave you much room to play with.

Kinesis gives you eyelets for a rear rack high up on the seatstays, and the bottle cage mounts are positioned low. The seat tube mounts are particularly low and turning a hex key down there is a bit of a faff, to be honest (a socket wrench is your friend here), but that's not the sort of job you have to do all that often.

One other practical feature worth mentioning is the full external cabling through the down tube. The cables enter the underside of the down tube just behind the fork crown before emerging in front of the bottom bracket and then run externally.

There's a stop for the front derailleur cable just behind the bottom bracket, and two stops for the rear derailleur cable on the drive-side chainstay. The 20cm between these stops is the only section where the cable runs without an outer.

Running the outers right the way through the down tube makes maintenance a whole lot easier. For some reason, the right-hand shifter jammed during one ride; I never did work out why. I couldn't move up or down the cassette, but I could undo the bolt on the rear derailleur and slide the cable all the way out of the shifter.

That freed up the shifter, so I replaced the cable and everything has been fine since. It was a pretty straightforward job because of the cable outers going all the way through the down tube.

There are various tricks for threading bare cables internally – using a magnet works really well in most circumstances, for example, as does tying a long piece of cotton to the end of the old cable before you take it out to use later as a lead for the new one – but full-length outers really make life much simpler.

The frameset

I've already told you about various aspects of the frame but not much about the frame as a whole. It's made from what Kinesis describes as a 'lightweight double-butted 6061 alloy tube blend'. The mostly round tubes make it look pretty old school in many ways, although the down tube is bi-ovalised – upright at the top end for the junction with the head tube, and horizontal down below to reach across the bottom bracket shell.

Speaking of the bottom bracket, it's of the 68mm threaded variety which is good to see. Mankind will eventually look back on press-fit BBs as cruel and unnecessary. You know, like bear baiting.

As mentioned above, the head tube is tapered, the full carbon fork that slots in there spinning on an integrated FSA headset with sealed bearings.

All of the welds look smooth and unobtrusive, and the paint job is impeccable throughout. Kinesis claims a frame weight of 1,840g (57cm) and 480g for the fork.

I said I'd tell you about the geometry, which Kinesis calls its Rider Fit Geometry and says has been 'developed for comfortable all-day rides'. The R2 comes in four sizes, and I've been riding the XL. This one has a 580mm effective top tube, a 600mm seat tube, and a mighty 204mm head tube. The seat tube angle is a pretty steep 74 degrees while the head tube angle is 72 degrees.

All of this adds up to a stack height of 612mm and a reach of 404mm, giving a stack/reach of 1.51. Bear in mind that stack/reach figures usually get larger as bike sizes go up; you're looking at 1.45 for the medium size, which isn't unusual for a road bike designed with endurance in mind. While we're talking stats, the wheelbase is a lengthy 1,042mm and I had no toe overlap with the front wheel here.

Overall, the riding position is a lot more upright than you'll find on a road race bike, and that's very much the idea. It's a position you'll probably be able to hold for long periods without too much trouble. After a couple of rides, I fitted the stem as low as possible and found myself using the drops far more often than normal, neither of which is a bad thing.

The build

I mentioned earlier that you can buy the R2 as a frameset (£650, including fork, headset, seat clamp, front and rear thru-axles, and cable guides) or as this complete bike built up with a Shimano Tiagra groupset.

Tiagra is Shimano's fourth tier but it's way, way better than you've a right to expect. Granted, it's 10-speed rather than the 11-speed that you get with next-level-up Shimano 105, but the difference out on the road is small.

The hydraulic braking on the 160mm rotors is a real highlight; far better than anything you'd find on a bike of this price a few years ago. The performance is superbly reliable; it's hard to pick fault here.

Apart from that one unexplained blip mentioned above, the drivetrain and shifters have performed faultlessly too. Okay, the two four-tooth jumps on the 11-34T cassette can knock you off your rhythm a little, but that's the price you pay for having that large sprocket as an insurance policy for when the hills are tough and/or you feel rough.

The wheels are Alex Draw 1.9P tubeless compatible rims and Novatec hubs with decent sealed cartridge bearings, laced together by 28 three-cross spokes. They're not glitzy or glamorous but, fitting with the character of the bike as a whole, they're strong and practical and should prove durable. The wheels have certainly performed without incident throughout the test period.

The R2 might be a little more desirable if it had big-name wheels, but that would also increase the price. As far as the tyres go, Continental's Grand Sport Races are solid enough performers although you could certainly get a livelier feel by upgrading when they wear out.

The stem, handlebar and seatpost are Kinesis' own, all made from 6061 alloy and doing their jobs just fine, while the gel feel of Selle Italia's X3 saddle damps vibration well and the flat and reasonably wide nose helps to distribute pressure.

The money bit

Of the bikes that we've reviewed on road.cc recently, the closest to the Kinesis R2 in terms of price is the Giant Contend SL 1 Disc at £1,649. This aluminium-framed bike has a geometry that's slightly more relaxed than that of the R2, and you can run fairly wide tyres – up to 32mm. You get mudguard mounts here but none for attaching a rear rack.

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The Contend SL 1 Disc has a Shimano 105 groupset – a level higher than the R2's Tiagra –although the chainset is a non-series RS510 to save a few quid. The gear ratios are the same.

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Trek's Emonda ALR 4 – which we haven't reviewed, although we have taken a look at the ALR 5 – is £1,700. It has an aluminium frame and puts you into a riding position that's vaguely similar to the R2's. It comes built up with a Shimano Tiagra groupset, like the R2, although the widest tyres you can run here are 28mm and there are no mudguard or rack mounts, so it's a very different bike.

Conclusion

The R2 doesn't pretend to be anything it isn't. A lot of aluminium models at this price are race bike wannabes, trying to look as much like something you might see in the Tour de France as is possible for the money. The R2 just isn't like that. It's quick, sure, but it's also designed to be functional and easy to live with, and you'll really appreciate that in the long term. The ability to take wider tyres for grip and comfort, mudguards for winter riding, and a rack for lugging stuff about... these are all real-world benefits for a whole load of riders. Overall, it's a strong option as an all-round road bike for typical UK conditions.

Verdict

Very good all-round road bike that's a practical choice for year-round UK conditions