I’m looking at their top end road bikes. I’m not very familiar with the brand, despite their huge global footprint. How do people feel about their TCR series? How about their house brand wheels?
There isn’t a lot of talk about Giant around here.
I’m looking at their top end road bikes. I’m not very familiar with the brand, despite their huge global footprint. How do people feel about their TCR series? How about their house brand wheels?
There isn’t a lot of talk about Giant around here.
I rode a TCR2 CF bike with Ultegra for 10+ years. Loved that bike, coming from a Trek. Bought a Cervelo C3 last summer, in line with my P2C. Wish I had bought another Giant. Love my Cervelo, but the Giant was a great high quality bike for a great price and fit like a glove. Ultimately, if it fits and you like it, get it…
Seems all my mates here are on the ambassador program and have ridden them for years and my brother owns a Giant shop. The TCR is the bike you want if you want a road bike and everyone I know who rides one loves them. Decent bike and great value here in Australia. The UCI teams that ride Giants are using their wheels to my mates and brother have only talked up that they are a good wheel.
If you want to have the same bike as 100,000 other people, go for it.
There isn’t a lot of talk about Giant around here.
I went for the TCR Advanced Pro 0 Disc a just before Christmas. Ultegra Di2, hydro discs, and the Giant power meter on the bike = best deal I could find. So it came down to price and a brand I knew. I’ve posted a few videos over on YouTube with an initial run-down, a few Di2 upgrades, and a six-week 1500km update posted yesterday.
tldw; It’s fine. I’m happy with it.
If you want to have the same bike as 100,000 other people, go for it.
Why doesn’t this apply to cars too? It’s a bike, not a fingerprint.
Is that the only reason he should (or should not assuming you are being sarcastic) go for it? Any else to add?
I bought an aluminium TCR 15 years ago. Great bike, no problems. I used it for 10+ years, including 10 IM’s.
I replaced it with a Giant Propel, as an upgrade to a carbon frame. The Defy was reliable, though I found it a little uncomfortable on long rides.
My Propel was stolen so I replaced it with a Defy with disk brakes. The Defy is great to ride, very comfortable.
I have never had any major problems with my Giants. Components wear out (cassettes, brake cables, etc) but are easy to replace.
As someone else pointed out Giants are good value bikes in Australia.
BTW my TT bike is a P2 as the Giant Trinity did not fit me as well as a P2.
The integrated seat post kills me. I want no part of an ISP. Otherwise I’d probably ride one…heck they sponsor my team (but that only means discounts).
I think a lot of people just want a premium brand and they’re not necessarily seen as that—even though they actually do the manufacturing for many of the “premium†brands out there…
The integrated seat post kills me. I want no part of an ISP. Otherwise I’d probably ride one…heck they sponsor my team (but that only means discounts).
I think a lot of people just want a premium brand and they’re not necessarily seen as that—even though they actually do the manufacturing for many of the “premium†brands out there…
So why not just get one step down from the top models so that you don’t have the ISP?
Great bikes, great value IMHO compared to other brands.
I have a 2017 TCR and I love it. I find it fast and responsive, but comfortable enough for long rides. Great quality, great warranty on the frame, and hard to beat the price. I’d buy another one in a heartbeat. Not the flashiest bike around but a solid value.
I’m no wheel expert but from what I’ve ready their house brand wheels are pretty decent. I have no complaints with the wheels that came on my bike but at some point I’ll replace them with something a little deeper.
If you want to have the same bike as 100,000 other people, go for it.
Yeah, he should show his uniqueness by buying a Cervelo, Felt, Specialized, Trek, or Cannondale.
To the OP, Giant makes great bikes. Some of their paint schemes leave something to be desired… as is true of all the others. If it fits and you like it, buy it.
I have a TCR and am very happy with it. I believe Giant manufactures their own carbon which allows them to put together a nice package for a good price. I ended up ordering a set of HED wheels when I got the bike and sold the stock wheels unused so I can’t report on them. I have no reservation recommending a TCR.
How about a Parlee?
Life is too short to ride non-top shelf bikes 
.
I’ve been on Giants for years and have nothing bad to say. Currently ride a TCR road bike and their Toughroad GX gravel bike. Hard to beat the bike you get for the money. I raced a Trinity tri bike for years also and it fit me perfect and was plenty fast.
Life is too short to ride non-top shelf bikes
Lol, you can always ‘re-dress’ it with top shelf gear/wheels, and still have a normal seat post!!
Was at my local Giant store recently, the top of line disc propel’s were beautiful.
As a long time ‘industry guy’ I look at this rather differently…
The reality is that there are probably 4 top end Taiwanese manufacturers and another 6 mainland China manufacturers of ‘commercial’ carbon frames. Outside of that there are probably another dozen or so very high end custom or near custom US and European companies in this game…
Of the Asian manufacturers, Giant is without a doubt the best or at worst second best player… this is why they openly produce for Trek and Colnago and quietly produce for a handful of other high level brands. From my experience when we were developing the first fully automated bicycle CFD programming at Zipp, we laser scanned hundreds of frames to create CFD models and the Giant built frames stood out as being straighter and better aligned than most. By the end of that project we had modeled a few hundred frames and the engineers who cleaned up the scan data to make CFD models could quite literally tell which of the frames were made by Giant by their overall accuracy and alignment.
Having said that, there are true handmade makers out there such are Parlee (in some models), Allied, Alchemy, Calfee, FiftyOne, Crumptom, Appleman, and others that I’m just not recalling at the moment who are truly handmade outside of Asia using very different methodologies that are a completely different story altogether…
I don’t always agree with Giant designs in terms of aero, aesthetics, or maybe some other features, but from a manufacturing point of view, they build a top not frame with exceptional dimensional accuracy and excellent warranty/service/support backend, and the do it at a very fair price. I would also point out that since they build frames for some of the top brands, they also have to do their own things while not looking too much like any of the brands they produce for… which is not easy…
Josh
do their own things while not looking too much like any of the brands they produce for… which is not easy…
Worth pointing out that Giant of yesteryear had the balls to allow Mike Burrows to design and mass market the (at the time) radical compact geometry that forever changed road bike design and manufacturing.
I am a cross guy. I have been on a TCX the last two seasons and it has been a great bike. I will definitely consider a TCR when it is time to get a new road bike. Their products are top notch.