Incremental gains but gains all the same for Giant’s all-rounder
Words James Spender Photography Joseph Branston
They say you’re never more than six feet away from a Giant employee in Taiwan.
Certainly, when I visited a few years ago for this very magazine, my first interaction after immigration was with a guy in a Giant embroidered polo, who told he was moonlighting with Uber in between assembly line shifts.
They also say you’re never more than six feet away from a Giant-made bicycle, such is the scale of its manufacturing empire; and if that weren’t enough, the bike you’re riding now is probably Giant-influenced.
Is that top tube sloping, that main triangle quite small? Yep, that’ll be ‘compact’ geometry, dreamt up in the mid-90s by British visionary Mike Burrows, and made famous in the bumblebee colours of Spanish team ONCE.
The bike ONCE rode was the Giant TCR, and several decades on few other bikes have changed the sport as much as the 1997 original.
Almost overnight, horizontal top tubes were out, Total Compact Racing geometry was in.
Manufacturers loved it, as the compact shape meant they needed to make fewer frame sizes (add a longer stem and seatpost and that medium is now a medium/large); riders loved it for its low weight (less material) and increased stiffness (smaller triangles are stiffer).
For a superb exposition on the TCR, head over to cyclist.com.au/giant-tcr (stop pressing those words with your finger, this isn’t the internet).
But for now, on with the review.
Family dynamics
‘This time around, we wanted to create a bigger gap between the TCR and the Propel [Giant’s aero bike],’ explains Giant product manager David Ward.
‘To do that we reduced the weight by 10%, increased tyre clearance to 33mm and increased compliance to redefine – again – the TCR as the lightest, most comfortable race bike option.
We also went for internal cable routing, which is expected now.’ As before, the TCR stable is split into three tiers: the top-tier Advanced SL, with builds up to $14,199; the Advanced Pro, tested here, starting from $6,799 (with 105 Di2); and the entry-level TCR Advanced, starting at $3,799 (with 105 mechanical).
Giant being giant, all parts bar the groupset are made in-house, and there are 13 different builds whose specs are so nuanced – a saddle here, a stem there – I won’t list them all.
More relevant is the fact that materials and construction methods vary across the range.
All bikes get hidden cables and hoses, neatly rooted in a recess under the stem, meaning stem swaps and bike transportation is a cinch, and all frames are the same shape.
But under the paint, the Advanced SL uses the highest-grade carbon composite and, unlike the lower two tiers whose front triangles are made in three pieces bonded together, the SL’s is made in one piece.
This means less material, lower weight and higher stiffness.
It also means an integrated seatpost (the other TCRs have traditional setups), which Giant says saves 40g, but I say just makes it harder to pack a bike for travel and lowers the resale value.
I know, the seatpost has a topper and shims so it’s not that tall and it needn’t be cut quite so specifically, but I’m happy to die on this hill so leave me alone.
Giant says an SL frame weighs 690g and the frameset has a ‘lateral fork and frame pedalling stiffness’ of 151N/mm.
By contrast, the Advanced Pro and Advanced frames weigh 800g apiece and are 6% less stiff and 10% less stiff respectively.
These are tiny margins, but it does illustrate a certain point: these are stiff frames, designed to be raced, and that’s exactly how the TCR feels.
The stiffness is felt most – and is most beneficial – out of the saddle and heading up sharp climbs, whereupon the TCR swings side-to-side with a rewarding snap.
At 7.3kg (size M/L), weight also helps, but more than this it’s how the TCR wears its weight that makes it ascend with such explosive pop.
It feels lighter up top, heavier lower down, such that side-to-side bike throwing is that much easier.
This sort of weight concentration also helps the TCR in descents, providing a lower centre of gravity and hence a greater feeling of stability, especially when leaning through corners.
Those corners come and go like rollercoaster tracks, thanks in part to the bike’s blend of 991mm wheelbase, 59mm trail and very short 405mm chainstays. That is, a stable wheelbase, a sharp front end and a whippy rear. Still, I do think this bike could corner even better and feel even more stable.
And while I hear Ward’s assessment that they made the TCR more comfortable, I contend this is a bike designed for smooth Alpine tarmac.
But a simple spec change can sort that out.
Same old record
Before I go into what that change is (OK, it’s tyres – it’s always tyres), it’s only fair to Giant’s engineers to praise them for the job they’ve done in both form and function.
The TCR looks superb – elegant, assertive – but more than that, they managed to make it fast. In context. Tube profiles are borrowed from the Giant Propel, with every wind-facing tube truncated in profile, as if a teardrop had its back third sliced off.
Such kamm-tail shapes are thought most drag reducing in real world conditions, since less surface area is presented to crosswinds than with a full teardrop shape.
Ward says this, plus slimmed down seatstays, created a 2-watt saving for the frameset and a 4-watt saving overall versus the outgoing TCR.
The ‘context’ is this is a lightweight all-rounder, so it’s never going to be that aero – you’ll need to look to the Giant Propel for that.
However, I found a swap to some deeper Hunt Sub50 wheels made it possible to carry the same speed for less energy – something I could see in real time thanks to the TCR’s Quarq power meter.
This isn’t to say the Giant SLR 0 wheels here aren’t good – they are.
They are just different: more conservative in one sense at 40mm deep, 28mm wide and 22.4mm internal width; more of an all-rounder in another sense at a claimed 1,339g.
Light, agile, super aero… pick two.
Perhaps more usefully, though, was the change in tyre width that came from the Sub50’s tyres – 28mm Vittoria Corsa N.exts, which measured up at 30mm compared to the Cadex’s measured width of 27mm.
With these pseudo-30mm tyres, the TCR was better able to filter out high frequency road buzz and round off the edges of low frequency thuds, and felt that much more confident in turns.
Placebo, perhaps? But if it makes you faster, does it matter? And there is real physics behind it.
Consider that a bike’s suspension is its tyres, and if said tyres go from 27mm to 30mm that’s an extra 11% diameter, or ‘suspension travel’.
Then factor in lower pressures such that this travel is more squishable – i.e., more reactive to surface changes – and you now have a incrementally smoother and more comfortable bike.
By the same token, the bike tracks surface undulations better as tyres deform around irregularities as opposed to bounce off them, and that increases grip.
Splitting heirs
I can’t fault the rest of the components here, and it’s their value versus performance that makes me favour this model TCR even more.
The top-tier TCR Advanced SL gets the same wheels in terms of dimensions, they just say ‘Cadex’ on them (Giant’s in-house brand) and weigh 90g less.
Its stem, meanwhile, is carbon and weighs 123g, but when this TCR’s alloy stem weighs 161g, who cares? Of course the Advanced SL tier has a ‘better’ frameset, but again, is it worth the extra money?
I say not necessarily, because a few short years ago this TCR Advanced Pro would have passed for a superbike, and today it almost still does – only it’s thousands of dollars cheaper than its superbike sibling.
THE SPEC
Model Giant TCR Advanced Pro
Price $8,199 (with Ultegra Di2)
Weight 7.3kg (M/L)
Wheels Giant SLR 0 40 Carbon Spoke
Finishing kit Giant Contact SLR bars, Contact SL Aerolight stem, Giant Variant Composite seatpost, Giant Fleet SL SST rail saddle, Cadex Race GC Tubeless 28mm tyres
Contact giant-bicycles.com/au
