Salomon Genesis 2
Salomon Genesis 2: Good tier, Consider, medium confidence — synthesized from 10 reviews across 5 creators, freshest review Sep 7, 2026.
TL;DR
The Salomon Genesis 2 is a proven, popular all-around trail shoe that excels on technical and mountainous terrain, with a smooth ride and notable stability. It's not ideal for deep mud or weight-weenie runners, but for daily trail training on varied ground, reviewers across the board recommend it.
Verdict
Score
86/100
Good tier
Verdict
Consider
Medium confidence
freshest review · Sep 7, 2026
Lowest price
$149.95
at Backcountry.com · 8 retailers
as of Oct 9, 2026
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Best for
The Salomon Genesis 2 is built for technical mountain running on rocky, uneven terrain where precision and stability matter most. Reviewers praise its confidence-inspiring grip, stable midfoot platform, and independent heel/forefoot feel that acts like "independent suspension" on jagged ground. It leans heavy (11 oz / 312g) and is less lively on smooth trails, so it's best used as a go-to training and racing shoe for technical ultras and mountain runs (e.g., TDS, Trail des Aiguilles Rouges), ideally paired with a custom insole for those who want better arch transition. Not recommended for smooth, fast sections or pure road running.
Facts & figures
How we read the reviews
The verdict engine computes the grade. This section explains it — it never recomputes it.
01 · The score
86 out of 100
Built from 11 attributed opinions, weighted by creator consensus, reviewer authority, and agreement between reviewers. Recency, reach, and buzz are not score inputs. What you see here is the engine’s output, unpacked — not a second calculator. This page does not infer a score from views, recency, or the editorial stages.
- Creator consensus (evidence-weighted)86.7% weightContribution: 0.762
- Reviewer authority6.7% weightContribution: 0.033
- Agreement between reviewers6.7% weightContribution: 0.065
Excluded from score. Freshness and attention are deliberately excluded from the score so the tier means quality, not recency or buzz. They are surfaced separately as the trending signal.
86
the engine returns 86 / 100 — these inputs explain the shape, they don’t produce it.
02 · The tier
Lands in the Good band
The matching engine trace assigns the score to Good at its 81.0-point cutoff.
DCBAS
floor≥ 76.0≥ 81.0≥ 86.3≥ 89.3
86 · here — inside the B band (Good).
03 · The recommendation
Why “Consider”
The trace evaluates raw consensus and confidence, not the score. The real BUY_NOW condition and returned values are shown here. Price is a value note, never a gate— a strong shoe keeps its recommendation even when it isn’t on sale.
BUY_NOW: consensus_numeric >= 0.8 AND confidence == HIGHraw 0.929 · MED— not met
Returned confidence is HighMED— not met
The verdict reads the RAW consensus (share of creators recommending), not the score. A shoe can therefore be tier A yet CONSIDER rather than BUY_NOW when confidence is below HIGH.
Engine recommendationConsider
Price & availability
Where to buy it
The cheapest of 8 live retailer prices. (No price-history chart — we don’t track that series yet, so we won’t draw one.)
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- Backcountry.comlowest$149.95Shop
- Holabird Sportslowest$149.95Shop
- Running Warehouse USlowest$149.95Shop
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Live prices from 8 retailers · last checked
What reviewers said
- Reviewers agree the shoe has a distinctive, recognizable identity and strong DNA (mention 1, 2), and it's considered one of Salomon's most popular trail shoes in the US (mention 2).
- It handles technical terrain very well (mention 1) and offers a smooth, runnable ride that reviewers love (mention 8).
- The forefoot flex is praised for making it a capable climbing shoe (mention 9), and it provides medial stability via a large sidewall (mention 12).
- The shoe has limits in muddy or slippery conditions (mention 3), so deep mud may exceed its capabilities.
- The feel may require a half-size-up from your typical Salomon size (mention 7).
The reviews behind this verdict
The cited creator reviews, watchable — press play to jump to the moment each one informed the verdict.
RoadTrailRun
“je crois qu'on est sur une chaussure qui est plus légère que la Genesis aujourd'hui”
cited at 6:28
Humble Running
“As you can see, I've got the new Solomon Genesis 2 on my feet here. I definitely wanted to do an actual review type video on this one. You've seen it in action. Certainly seen it in the mud, although there's limits to every shoe, certainly in mud slide type of situations.”
cited at 18:53
RoadTrailRun
“one of our uh if not iconic product into the range which is the the Genesis. >> Yeah. >> So you know the Genesis and uh as as you told me earlier uh it's rec recognizable from very far. Uh it has a unique identity and DNA and it's been proven to be very good on technical terrains.”
cited at 3:41
Believe in the Run
“So, Genesis 2 very recognizable. You probably notice it went from very far. In in the US at least, the Genesis was one of the more popular Salomon maybe the most popular Salomon shoe over the last couple years.”
cited at 13:45
TF XC Running Shoe Reviews (TF XC)
“So, I've done a couple of runs so far in the Genesis 2. So, I'm ready to give you just my casual first impressions of the shoe.”
cited at 0:00
Humble Running
“It's making it beautifully runnable. Love the feel coming up here. Love the ride.”
cited at 9:00
Humble Running
“I do like the way this Genesis 2 is handling so far. Lot to talk about in this one. I have a few test runs including that muddy run this morning. Definite thoughts on what makes this shoe quite distinctive.”
cited at 0:08
Believe in the Run
“A lot of the updates in the traditional Genesis 2, which we also have a review for, are oriented toward that as well.”
cited at 0:00
Ryan's Running Reviews
“The Genesis 2 is their go-to all around a trail option. It does feature an active support chassis system for added guidance.”
cited at 0:00
Running Warehouse
“even though it just launched, it's just picking right up where it left off. Uh it's just royalty. It has ruled this category before. just giving you everything you could possibly need in your go-to daily trainer trail running shoe.”
cited at 0:03
Doctors of Running
“The Salomon Genesis 2, which is probably one of the few technically stability, even though it's not fully qualified as that, trail shoes, the large medial sidewall here, it's been really nice.”
cited at 0:00
Attention consensusa separate axis
How much the creator economy weighed this — distinct from the verdict, never folded into it.
96Ktotal review views
358Kcombined reachadditive across channels · may overlap
11creator reviews
attention vs the catalogtop 70% in class
attention over the product’s life
How the score was calculated
Calculated by Yeah’s verdict engine from weighted review evidence.
11 mentionsMED confidence
How creator opinions explain it
A theme-by-theme synthesis of creator opinions has not been published for this shoe yet.
Under the hoodengine v1
Score
86.01shown as 86
score = 100 × weighted mean of the signals below (weights renormalized). Freshness & attention are excluded on purpose.
- Creator consensus (evidence-weighted)0.867×0.879=0.762
- Reviewer authority0.067×0.500=0.033
- Agreement between reviewers0.067×0.969=0.065
Consensus shrinkage raw consensus 0.929 is pulled toward the catalog prior 0.83 (strength 10) over 10 reviews → 0.879. That shrinkage is why a thinly-unanimous shoe doesn’t outrank a deeply-loved one.
Excluded Freshness and attention are deliberately excluded from the score so the tier means quality, not recency or buzz. They are surfaced separately as the trending signal.
Tier
B
The highest rung whose cutoff the score clears.
- S≥ 89.3
- A≥ 86.3
- B≥ 81.0
- C≥ 76.0
- Dfloor
0.29 points from the next rung up.
Verdict
CONSIDER
Evaluated in order on the raw consensus (0.929) and the MED confidence band; first match wins.
- SKIPconsensus_numeric < 0.6
- BUY NOWconsensus_numeric >= 0.8 AND confidence == HIGH
- CONSIDERotherwise
The verdict reads the RAW consensus (share of creators recommending), not the score. A shoe can therefore be tier A yet CONSIDER rather than BUY_NOW when confidence is below HIGH.
Confidence
MED0.575
A weighted mix of how the evidence stacks up:
- How many independent creators0.450×0.500=0.225
- Depth of each mention0.250×0.910=0.227
- Evidence recency0.200×0.363=0.073
- Reviewer authority0.100×0.500=0.050
- HIGH≥ 0.75
- MED≥ 0.45
- LOWfloor
Publishable?
Published
A grade publishes only with enough independent creators AND at least one volume bar met.
- Independent creators5 / 3 needed
- Reviews where this shoe is the primary subject10 / 10 needed
- Total mentions11 / 30 needed
Behind it: 11 mentions (10 primary-subject) from 5 creators, 2 dedicated reviews.
Stages A/B/C (extract, synthesize, write) produce the editorial narrative only. No stage A/B/C value is an input to score, tier, verdict or confidence — those come solely from the consensus engine over stored mentions. Per-stage counts live on the `reasoning` block.
Verdicts synthesize public creator reviews — not personalized. The reasoning explains the grade; it never computes it.