I just took one home today. Before I decided on the Giant, I looked online for any reviews I could find. Sadly there were little to none available. I figure I should post up how I came to with my decision to go with this bike instead of the Cervelo P2 that was on sale at my LBS for 2500.00.
I’ve been riding road bikes for a while now. Recently I have started to get into triathlons and so far, I love it. After my first event, I wanted to get a tri bike. So after a month or so of mulling around, I narrowed it down to these two bikes.
First I will go over with what I liked about the P2. I thought the P2 looked better than the TC2 (Trinity Composite 2) of course that is subjective. Looking at it from the front, the P2 was thinner. It comes with 3T Aura aerobars which look awesome IMO (I will say up front I had some biases towards this brand because I have 3T parts all over my road bike and I’m very happy with it). The P2 was also really light compared to the TC2. I would go even as far as to say it’s almost as light as my road bike. I also like the brake feel on this bike compared to the TC2. I don’t feel like I have to pull as hard on them as I did on the TC2.
What I didn’t like about this bike however, is that it felt unstable. Keep in mind that having only about 30 miles of experience riding on aerobars, I’m pretty much a noob on this. My height is 5’6" and I’m about 17-18" shoulder to shoulder. I had the arm pads adjusted as far wide as possible on the Aura bars and I felt that it wasn’t wide enough for me. Basically when I rode it in aero position, I had a death grip on those bars. The 3T Aura, as cool as it looks, doesn’t really leave much room in terms of adjustability.
Next I take out the TC2. This bike is heavy by comparison to the P2. Using my bathroom scale, the weight of this bike comes to around 20 lbs. The things I do like about this bike are: The hidden brakes. Instead of single pivot brakes on the front, this looks like a mini Vbrake.
I also like how much adjustment you can do on this bike. You can adjust the arm pads as wide or as narrow as you want and also adjust the pitch. But I’m guessing that is normal on some Profile Aerobars right?
Three settings on how far forward you want to move the saddle.
And because it’s a heavier bike, this thing absorbs the bumps nicely compared to the P2. The integrated speed/cadence sensor and Di2 compatibility is a nice touch too.
The thing that I don’t like about the bike though, I would say is the relative weight of this to the P2. Also the brake levers seem to take more effort to pull than the ones on the P2. The rear brake also makes a squealing noise when you brake but I think that is due to where it is. I used to own an Haro mountain bike that had “Saved by the Bell” graphics on it. The rear brake was also in the same position as this bike and that too made a lot of noise. But I suppose you can’t have it all.
The price on this bike was 2100 dollars. After accessories like the speedfil and such, it ended up still being cheaper than the Cervelo. The first thing I’m going to upgrade on this would probably be the crankset (would do the same thing, if I went with the P2). Ultegra cranks can be had for about 200 bucks I believe. Overall though, I’m very happy with this purchase. I can’t wait to ride it longer than a test drive tomorrow. I hope it doesn’t rain.
-jamie
