This is an interesting company, and one might say a dangerous one, if you're Trek, C'dale, Specialized, and the like. Giant started out as simply a contractor to the bigger companies in the U.S. and around the world—to the "brands." At a certain point, though, Giant decided to itself become a brand, and it is now both a contractor to, and a competitor of, some of these big flagship bike companies.
It took Giant quite a while to break through. I remember perhaps fifteen years ago when Specialized had a mid-priced road race bike—perhaps it was the Allez—and Giant had its Cadex. Giant built them both. They appeared to me identical, and the Cadex sold for $500 or so while the Specialized model sold for $600. Yet the Cadex was the poorer seller. That's branding for you.
That's not the case anymore. Giant has built a name for itself in road race bikes and is doing it on the back of good value, innovative designs, great workmanship, decent distribution, and of course the pro team it sponsored in Europe—ONCE. Giant made a good choice in focusing on the segments of the market it could pick off. Rather than battling Trek at the $3,000-$4,000 price point, which it half-heartedly tried to do, it focused on the under-$1500 price point.
It no longer stays clear of Trek's OCLV, and now feels it can go head to head with any high end road bike. But it's the entry level we'll focus on here.
My comments above were about the company, and that doesn't always translate to its products. In this case, I'm reasonably happy with Giant's line. Now let's get to the bikes themselves.
OCR VS TCR
What do these designations mean? Are they just price-point specific? This used to be perceived as the case, because the OCRs were always the cheaper of the two. But that's not it, and Giant has done a better job over the last three or so years of describing the geometric differences—or I'm doing a bit of a better job of paying attention to Giant's descriptions. OCR is what used to be called in the old days "road geometry," versus what they called (back when I started racing and there were five gears in the back) "criterium" geometry, meaning more aggressive.
Giant has said of its OCR geometry, "We've blended extra light TCR frame tubing with a slightly longer wheelbase, relaxed geometry, and a taller head tube, as well as opening up the frame and fork to accept wider road tires."
Don't entirely depend on Giant's brochure and website—I've found the geometries occasionally askew, and in some cases backward (with the OCR often having the shorter chainstay). As for the website, it's not currently up to date (as of this writing, 1/10/05) and its models are going to change again next month. But as the changes are to be slight, and as the bikes presented below will still be on showroom floors throughout the spring, I'll just present what Giant's now advertising.
I offer one caveat to the above. The tallest OCR has a wheelbase of just over 40 inches, while the TCR's wheelbase in the corresponding size is 38 inches and change. If I were using my Giant as a true tri-geometry bike—affixing a seat post that moved the saddle considerably forward—I'd probably like the shorter chainstay on the TCR.
Speaking of geometry, Giant pioneered something that is now almost commonplace rage: compact geometry. What is that? It is a dropping or angling of the top tube down as it leaves the head tube and travels back toward the rear of the bike. When I was a kid we had what were termed "men's" and "women's" bikes, and the women's had no top tube. I suppose this was because women wore dresses while riding and getting rid of the top tube aided modesty. The thing is, the geometries of these "men's" and "women's" bikes were the same—same "effective" top tube or "cockpit" distance, same angles, same wheelbase. That's what compact geometry is. The bike will fit and work precisely like a "non-compact" geometry bike, it's just that the top tube and seat stays intersect the seat tube a bit lower down. Why is this good? It allows for more stand-over height, perhaps a very slightly lighter bike, the ability to put a longer aero seat post on the bike (more on that below), and, of course, modesty (if you're going to be racing in a dress).
I'm not going to present all the bikes in the line. Some are equipped with Shimano Dura Ace or Campy Record throughout, and these bikes are beyond the price parameters we've set forth for this overview. Below are those we think are the best fit.
OCR 3
This is the bottom of the bottom. The parts on it are 8-speed Shimano Sora, and all these OCR bikes come with triple chainrings. The bike used to have a chrome-moly fork, but now it's got Giant's aero carbon fork with an alloy steerer. Yet, the price of $600 is just about what it's been over the last few years (maybe $50 more). Giant's adjustable stem is height (not length) adjustable. It has been replaced by an ultra-light carbon/aluminum stem on the higher-priced bikes, and while this adjustable stem is not a bad idea for somebody new to road riding, I guess I'd still just rather see a normal stem. The dealer can always change it to the right size stem during the fitting process.
My concern about this bike is that Sora is just a bit below my minimum threshold of component acceptability, but perhaps I'm just a snob. I like Tiagra as the base groupset. That said, this bike sells for $600, and that's a great price for an entry-level bike. It's a great bike. But if you can afford 200 additional clams, move up.
OCR 2
This is the same bike, more or less, as the OCR 3 except with 9-speed Tiagra as the groupset. I like Tiagra much better, and I'd spend the extra money if you can afford it. This bike has an MSRP of $850, which is still a great price.
Tiagra is part of the 9-speed "family." It is totally compatible with everything 9-speed above it, up to and including old-style Dura Ace. While Shimano never indicated this, I believe that in the beginning Tiagra was designed as a down-spec option for product managers. If I were Shimano I'd have gotten tired of companies spec'ing Ultegra and then substituting cheaper chains, bottom brackets, hubs, and other less easily noticed parts with those made by "lesser" companies. Tiagra is a groupset that product managers can use as a downspec option, and therefore you'll occasionally find the odd Tiagra part on considerably more expensive bikes. These parts are a great value, as is this bike. You could win a bike race on this bike.
Nowadays, Tiagra doesn't work as well as a downspec option, because FSA and Truvativ have come into their own as spec options. Tiagra is now just another nicely designed value, and it's a very good group for the $750 to $900 bike.
One thing, tho. Also look at Felt's F80 if considering this bike. The are similar, and the F80 is about $50 or $75 less.
OCR 1
This bike features another drivetrain upgrade: Shimano 105 (Ultegra rear derailleur) versus Tiagra. Used to be you' have to go to this level to get Giant's very nice fork. Now, you get it all the way down at the $600 level. This makes the OCR 1 not the automatic purchase it used to be. Still, at $1000 this may be the pick of Giant's litter when considering bang vs. buck. That's dirt-cheap for a 105/Ultegra bike, considering such nice fork, wheels, and the like.
Simply put, this is a great buy. One thing to remember about all these OCR bikes. As I mentioned above, they all come with triple chainrings. If you're slower, weaker, and/or come from a hilly area, this is a good idea. If you buy a TCR you get a double crank only. And, again, Felt's F70 will give this bike a battle. In general, I'd say Giant has a superior fork to Felt's fork under $1200. But, the F70 has a carbon rear end and the Giant OCR1 doesn't. Both good bikes, both good buys.
TCR 2
Same as OCR 1 specwise, but at $1100 it's $100 more. Why? Different frame, and it's also a racier geometry. What it doesn't have is Giant's aero seat post. Bummer. I used to like these posts. What happened? This was one of the nice elements of Giant's compact geometry. You could get a longer aero seat post.
As stated, this bike "competes" with Giant's own OCR 1 in that it has the same groupset and is spec'd similarly. This bike also used to have a carbon stem instead of aluminum. It was made the way expensive bikes are built and spec'd. Now it's got an aluminum stem on it and as such it's less sexy. At the same time, maybe everyone's fallen too much in love with carbon, and now they're pulling back to safer materials and processes. I can't fault a company for doing that. I also must point out that this bike, with all the fancy-schmantsy carbon stuff used to sell for $200 more than it now does. So, perhaps it's a better bike now, all things considered.
Let's talk about that aero post for a minute, the one that used to be on these bikes and isn't any longer. It was one of this bike's big selling features over the OCR 1. John Cobb didn't like these posts, as he pointed out in his article on wind tunnel testing. It isn't these posts in particular he dislikes, but aero posts in general. At the same time, the "right" sort of aero post tests well. (What kind is that? An integrated seat post and seat tube design like that on the old Lotus, or the integrated seat tube/seat post complexes now seen on Felt's B2, on the Kuotas, QR's Tiphoon and Lucero, and on the Cervelos? I honestly don't know what to tell you about aero posts. They're not always aero, if you accept the data from John's article. Whether Giant's post was or wasn't I can't say.
My (personal, unsupported) view of aero posts in light of John's testing is this: I'm an agnostic. I don't know if they're good or not. I doubt they're across-the-board bad. I just don't have faith either way.
It is my understanding, however, that the reason the seat posts are no longer sold on these TCR bikes is that the dealers kept complaining about the posts from the perspective of fit—you can't slide them up and down over their whole length, only until the posts went from round to aero. Of course, the dealers could simply have stocked a dozen or 20 of these posts in a variety of sizes, to fill in any blanks. Wouldn't that have fixed the problem? Maybe Giant's bike ideas are complex, and Giant's dealers are, you know, "simple."
Also notable is a wheelset change over the last few years from Shimano's wheels to Xero, a Taiwanese brand that offer the artsy fartsy spoke pattern product managers seem to feel they need, and also the value Taiwan delivers (the wheels are presumably made some blocks, or a very few miles, from Giant's own Taichung factory). Normally I'd be cynical of offbrand, nameless, faceless OEM wheels, but Giant's road product manager, Jeff Menown, has as his technical specialty wheels and hubs, and if the wheels were questionable Jeff wouldn't spec them.
One thing about all these bikes above. They're all standard road geometry bikes. None are steep seat angle bikes. If steep is what you're looking for, look elsewhere. We like these bikes for people who want to have a not-too-expensive road bike to ride (mostly in training and pre-tri-season bike racing) and for those who are new to triathlon and who ought to be starting out on a road geometry bike first. We discuss this latter point at some length in both our Bike Picker and on our Tri Bike Fit section. Hence, great bikes these Giants—but not for everybody.
Giant's website is here.
