Genesis Tour de Fer 20 review: a comfortable commuter that could take you round the world

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The chromoly steel Tour de Fer 20 is the latest addition to Genesis' well-respected TdF touring range, which spun off from the cyclocross-inspired Croix de Fer bikes in 2016.

The Tour de Fer has proved very popular with us too, with the Tour de Fer 30 getting a rare five stars in 2021.

The Tour de Fer 20 is a little further down the range, but comes with loads more extras than you’d expect for £1,499 – including racks, mudguards, a kickstand and a trio of bottle cages.

That price has been unchanged since 2017 and while there have been some compromises, I think we can forgive Genesis for that.

Genesis Tour de Fer 20 frame

While earlier Tour de Fer 20 models were made from Reynolds 725 steel, this one is built using Genesis’ own Mjolnir steel – named after Thor’s hammer – so it should be tough enough.

This is a standard 4130 chromoly steel, the sort of alloy used for bikes since time immemorial.

While 725 may have an ultimate tensile strength of 1080-1280 MPa (megapascals) and 4130 much less, it isn’t something you’re likely to notice when you’re riding.

Steel such as this has been used in bike manufacturing for so long because it’s tough, comfortable, repairable and easy to work with. What’s not to like?

It’s neatly welded by hand with a lot of very nice touches, especially considering its pretty modest price.

Slightly unusually for a bike with disc brakes, it has dropouts for quick-releases rather than being constructed for thru-axles.

The plate for the kickstand means the rear end may not be as elegant as some, but it’s a very practical addition – and not the only one.

There are three pairs of bottle bosses – the extra one is under the down tube – and bento box bosses on the top tube. But that’s not all.

There’s a pump peg on the head tube, so you can accommodate a frame-fitting pump, while the non-driveside seatstay has fittings for three spare spokes.

The external rear rack bosses will adapt to the arms of all sorts of racks, while the chromoly steel front fork has Anything Cage mounts, which will cope with, well, just about anything. Bikepacking, here we come…

Genesis Tour de Fer 20 spec

For a lot of the Tour de Fer 20’s life, it had old-school gearing based around a triple crankset; cycle touring is one of the few areas of cycling where these are still popular, having disappeared from the off-road world years ago.

Even as late as 2023, the Tour de Fer 20 came with a triple crankset.

The 2025 model may have only a double crankset, but the gear range is pretty much what a triple would have offered – most importantly, it has a suitably low bottom gear for laden touring or commuting.

The Genesis-branded crankset is a sub-compact (very sub-compact) with 46/30 chainrings, and it’s paired with an eight-speed Shimano cassette.

Crucially, this comes with a large 40t sprocket that gives you a 21in bottom gear.

But you won’t run out of gears at the other end of the spectrum either, because the 46x11 top is a more-than-decent 116in.

You’re not likely to spin out on this, and given how heavy the bike is without touring or commuting kit, you're probably not going to be sprinting.

While with only eight ratios there are some big gaps, especially from the 27-33t sprocket and the 33-40t, the jumps are less noticeable than I expected, and worth it for the wall-climbing bottom gear the 40t sprocket delivers.

I’m also happy with Genesis speccing Shimano STI gearing, which I’ve toured with extensively in Asia and Australasia in the past.

You may not be able to change it to non-indexed friction shifting, which you can do with bar-end shifters, but it’s tremendously reliable and, unless you’re somewhere really remote, getting spares or repairs won’t be an issue.

If you’re buying it for commuting in the UK, you’ll get years of service out of it.

As with the two bikes I tested it alongside – the Cinelli Zydeco Bootleg and All-City Super Professional – it comes with cable-actuated disc brakes.

And while I feel for around £2,000 the All-City should have hydraulic brakes, at the Tour de Fer 20’s much cheaper price, the mechanical option is acceptable.

I also think cable discs are a sensible call for touring, where I’d be more confident of spannering a mechanical rather than a hydraulic setup.

That said, I think the Genesis’ Promax brakes are the least convincing of the three bikes’ braking setups.

They improved over time as they bedded in, but they required more effort than the other two bikes.

In addition to the bottle cages, the Genesis comes with tough front and rear racks – the latter with a mighty 27kg capacity – and full-length mudguards. Both the racks and 'guards came in very handy.

I’m a big fan of carrying as much as possible on the bike rather than in a backpack or courier bag, because it’s much kinder to your back and shoulders.

Small loads, yes, but as soon as you’ve got a bike lock, spares and a change of clothing in a backpack, you have to be careful.

Even a single pannier bag has enough capacity for commuting.

The rack also has a sprung clip on top so you can strap stuff to it that you need easy access to, such as a waterproof jacket.

The final extra is one I would have appreciated on the Cinelli Zydeco in particular: a kickstand.

I used this a lot when I was testing the Genesis – and even when pretty heavily loaded, the kickstand was effective at keeping the bike stable.

I could have done with one on my Cannondale when touring Australia decades ago. I leant the bike by its pannier against a pillar on a railway station platform and when I was a short distance away, I saw the bike roll slowly onto the railway tracks.

Luckily, it was an outback station with two trains a day. Even more luckily, bar a scratch on the frame, the bike was fine.

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Genesis Tour de Fer 20 ride impressions

A skinny steel frame, steel fork and 40mm tyres promise a comfortable ride – and it’s a promise this Tour de Fer delivers on.

The only real downside when it comes to the ride is the weight – it's a behemoth, which you notice when you start riding, although much less so when you get into your rhythm.

For fully laden touring, it's not much of an issue, and even on commutes you rarely notice it.

You will notice the extra mass on the hills, when gravity isn’t your friend, but that’s where the near-20in bottom gear comes into play.

This is a bike built for a leisurely pace, certainly more so than the All-City Professional Sora.

However, on surfaced roads, rough tracks, unsurfaced grit and towpaths, the Genesis excels with an impeccable, well-behaved smoothness.

Steel tourers with 28mm tyres are comfortable, so with 40mm rubber underneath you, you’re going to get a ride that adds plushness upon plushness.

The wide tyres are there to enable you to carry kit more comfortably – and they work, because the Genesis carries loads very well indeed.

The Genesis has inherited its handlebar from the world of gravel bikes. While it measures 42cm (centre to centre) from lever to lever, it flares out to 50cm across the drops.

This combines with the stretched-out wheelbase for great control, especially over poorer surfaces.

It’s a sedate climber, but so am I. And while it’s controlled on descents, the brakes are less powerful than those on the Cinelli and All-City, so you don’t want to be blasting downhill like a pro, particularly when fully laden.

It’s a shame, because that’s one of the Tour de Fer 20’s very few downsides.

Genesis Tour de Fer 20 bottom line

This Genesis has pretty much everything you need for a commuter/touring bike straight out of the box: racks, mudguards, a kickstand and three bottle cages (even spare spokes).

It’s comfortable, shrugs off poor surfaces and you could ride it day after day without issue.

Yes, it’s weighty (although you could shed a little of that extra mass) and the brakes could offer more bite, but you’re getting loads of bike for your money. The Tour de Fer is suitable for city streets, rough roads and full-on touring.

This is an ideal year-round commuter bike for short or long rides regardless of the surface. It'll carry your shopping without complaint and, come the weekend or the summer holiday, you can unleash your inner adventurer.

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