Walking the floors of Interbike, it is not uncommon to see manufacturers rebrand frames with their own logos for use in helping show off their products. So when we first walked by the Louis Garneau booth and saw a tri bike sitting out we barely gave it a second look. But after our second or third time walking by the booth we started to recognize that we couldn’t quite figure out whose frame was under the LG paint job. Turns out there was a good reason for that.

LG has been building bikes for the Canadian market for 13 years but is just now looking to enter the US market. The Gennix TR1 is one of two tri oriented frames they are going to be bringing across the border (the other being the T1 which they didn’t have at IB). The TR1 is going to be available in bother a UCI and non-UCI compliant frame. The difference between the two frames being an oversized, non 3:1 ratio fork on the non-compliant (tri specific) version. Lucky for us this was the bike they brought to Interbike.

The TR1 comes with many of the features we have come to expect from top level tri bikes. The brakes are integrated both front and rear, thought the front brake (which was designed by LG) is somewhat exposed to the wind and will hopefully get a fairing in a future model. The top tube has mounting points integrated for a bento box, and has a small cable junction box that bridges the gap from the stem to your fuel storage.

LG however did not go the fully integrated stem route, instead believing that a standard stem and bar provides a larger degree of adjustability. In another departure from where we have seen much of the industry go, the TR1 also uses standard vertical dropouts instead of the horizontal dropouts we have been seeing. The advantage to this is that changing a flat is a bit easier, but you no longer can fit your rear wheel in as close to the seat tube as you can with horizontal dropouts. Regarding fit, the TR1 will be available in 4 sizes.

While only a single paint color is offered for the factory frame, LG does offer its Dream Factory program that allows you to customize the paint job in one of 20 colors (and create a matching LG helmet). While not as customizable as Trek’s One program, it does allow you to create a bike that is truly yours.

The Gennix TR1 provides an interesting mix of the features we have come to expect in today’s modern tri bikes, while making some concessions in the name of both usability and adjustability. We are going to leave our final verdict until after we get to spend some time with the bike, but we are certainly intrigued with the TR1 and look forward to what lies ahead with LG frames in the US market.

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