Giant TCR
Giant TCR
That’s the Defy covered then, so it’s time to take a look at Giant’s race-focused bikes, starting with the new TCR. The TCR is Giant’s lightweight climber’s bike, ridden to victory by Simon Geschke’s on stage 17 of the 2015 Tour de France in the Alps, and we covered the launch in detail but let’s recap a few details.
TCR stands for Total Compact Road and that refers to the frame’s compact geometry. Giant were pioneers of the compact geometry, whereby the toptube slopes from the headtube to the seattube to reduce the size of the front and rear triangles, and in turn create a lighter, stiffer bike. It’s a design you’ll see across the Giant range – and now that of many other manufacturers.
There are three frames in the TCR range, once again built around varying grades of carbon fibre to lower the weight and up the price. Continuing the theme set by the Defy, the TCR Advanced and TCR Advanced Pro are made from Giant’s T-700 Advanced Composite carbon fibre (but the TCR Advanced Pro gets a lighter, stiffer and more compliant fork), and the TCR Advanced SL is made from a T-800 grade of Advanced SL carbon.
As for the bikes, there are three models in the entry-level (we use that term relatively, as they’re all over a grand) TCR Advanced line-up: the TCR Advanced 3 (Shimano Tiagra, £1,049), TCR Advanced 2 (Shimano 105, £1,199) and TCR Advanced 1 (Shimano Ultegra, £1,499).
The TCR Advanced Pro is also available in three builds: the TCR Advanced Pro 2 comes with Shimano 105 for £1,799, the TCR Advanced Pro 1 wears Shimano Ultegra for £2,599 and the TCR Advanced Pro 0 gets Shimano Dura-Ace for £3,799. You can also get the frameset for £1,299 if you want to put your own build together.
How about the TCR Advanced SL, then? When the flagship TCR SL frame – the one used by Giant-Alpecin – was launched back in July, Giant said the frameset is 12 per cent lighter than the previous generation, without sacrificing any stiffness. Remember, Giant say the TCR Advanced SL offers ‘best-in-class stiffness-to-weight ratio’, though we’ll have to take their word for that. The claimed frame weight itself is 856g – the lightest Giant have ever produced.
It swaps the TCR Advanced and Advanced Pro’s normal seatpost for Giant’s new Variant Integrated Seatpost, which has been tweaked by Giant’s engineers, who have given it a more rounded profile from the post on the previous TCR in a bid to make it more compliant.
Again, there are three bikes to choose from: the TCR Advanced SL 2 (Shimano Ultegra, £2,999), TCR Advanced 1 (Shimano Ultegra Di2, £3,999) and TCR Advanced SL 0 (£5,499, Shimano Dura-Ace Di2). There’s also the frameset for £1,999.
If you want a disc version of the TCR (or Propel for that matter) then you’re out of luck, but given that the UCI are flirting with the idea of disc brakes in the pro peloton, you may not be waiting for too long.
Open the gallery below to see the entire Giant TCR 2016 line-up, or head on to the next page to take a look at the aero Giant Propel collection.