Bike of the Year?

kingrollo

http://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/r ... year-21018

See above the giant tcr advanced 3 - gets the bike of the year award - how valid is this ? - and does this influence your purchasing decision.

I must admitt the ribble being marked down for having deep section wheels - is a very brave decision. However impractical these are - I d love to be seen on some !

gpsBRM

Looks like Giant are doing rather well this year seeing as What MTB also named the Giant Anthem as best MTB.

Nothing beats getting outon the bike to see what its like for yourself. I normally take mags as a guide, but rarely agree with them

zedders

kingrollo wrote:

I must admitt the ribble being marked down for having deep section wheels - is a very brave decision. However impractical these are - I d love to be seen on some !

I'm probably only saying it because I got a Ribble, but I did think, why test the bike with the deep section wheels? I don't think any other bikes had deep section wheels did they? And with Ribble the beauty is you can use their bike builder to pick and choose your spec, so why didn't C+ spec it with normal wheels, and then compare it to the rest?

I have also looked around on the ribble site many times and have never seen a bike in their special edition bike section where you can pick that spec bike for £1999? All a bit odd?

simon johnson

I saw one in the 'flesh' the other day- massive headtube! I have a 2008 TCR Advanced C0 which has been great so far; the 2009 equivalent seems to have been modified significantly; said headtube especially.

I'd take the review as an aid to buying for sure as it did seem reasonable; but of course 'bike of the year' did have to fit certain criteria (price; purpose etc. Nice to see a review covering so many brands; some I'd never considered prior. Though, I didn't remember any of those tested getting any majorly (SK- missing you on the Dauphine) negative reviews.

"I must admitt the ribble being marked down for having deep section wheels - is a very brave decision. However impractical these are - I d love to be seen on some !"

Yes, me too. So much that I almost bought a pair of these:



I had to admit to myself that it was pure vanity

ademort

simon johnson wrote:

I saw one in the 'flesh' the other day- massive headtube! I have a 2008 TCR Advanced C0 which has been great so far; the 2009 equivalent seems to have been modified significantly; said headtube especially.

I'd take the review as an aid to buying for sure as it did seem reasonable; but of course 'bike of the year' did have to fit certain criteria (price; purpose etc. Nice to see a review covering so many brands; some I'd never considered prior. Though, I didn't remember any of those tested getting any majorly (SK- missing you on the Dauphine) negative reviews.

"I must admitt the ribble being marked down for having deep section wheels - is a very brave decision. However impractical these are - I d love to be seen on some !"

Yes, me too. So much that I almost bought a pair of these:



I had to admit to myself that it was pure vanity

I have a pair of those on my bike
Ademort

kingrollo

I think there should be an element of how good the bike will look in 3 years time. My pinarello is 8 years old now - I still get a buzz every time I look at it. The main brands update bikes every year - so the current year model quickly looks dated IMO - then again I am a pretty vain cyclist !

giant_man

The test was in the May issue of Cycling Plus anyway, not sure why they have put it up on the site again.

But anyway, tested the TCR Advanced at the Bike Radar Live weekend to see what the fuss is all about, and yes it is a nice ride, stiff but comfortable, but most of all, the damn thing was sooo light, and that's what you notice most (or at least I did) so probably well deserved at BOTY, but there again, I didn't have 30 odd other bikes to compare it against.

agnello

Giant always do VERY well in the +

Personally I'm with Lance when it comes to sloping top tubes (although they make him ride one now )

GyatsoLa

Its not surprising Giant top the polls - they are a huge company with huge resources, they can put a vast amount of resources into getting things right and then keeping the price down. And they also build frames for many other brands, so its not surprising that they keep the best for their own stable. I was in Taiwan over the winter and they had an amazing number of different designs out, some quite wierd and wonderful - they can afford to try out all sorts of different layouts, just to see what consumers like. Giant even have women only bike shops to promote womens cycling (a great idea I think). King Liu, the Chairman of Giant is quite a hero over there too, he is in his '70's, but has dedicated his later years to promoting cycling - he wrote a bestseller about his ride around Taiwan and I believe he is currently planning a ride across China.

In general, I find C+ reviews to be quite good, and usually I will trust them on my buying decisions (my most recent purchase was some Easton wheels, bought on the basis of their 10/10 review a few months ago). My main quibble with their bike reviews is that the reviewers are very much race-heads, and sometimes can't seem to shake that perspective when reviewing bikes for more ordinary cyclists. I doubt, for example, that the average keen leisure cyclist will get much out of a super stiff headtube which seems to be what impressed the C+ reviewers the most about the Giant. I remember a review about a year or so ago of Sportif bikes, where the main criticism of some of the bikes being that they weren't racy enough - not really the point! I'd like to see them use testers who are more sympathetic to the design aims of the bike - if a bike is aimed at beginner Sportif riders, for example, it would be better to have inexperienced riders test them, instead of the usual C+ crew.

cougie

I have the TCR 1.0 and even that rides very well. Cant fault Giant at all.

sandbag

i'm 6'3 tall with 34" inseam. would the TCR XL fit do you think? i notice the 60.5cm top tube. i understand Giant are sized different.

those Ribble wheels are terrible in a crosswind. bad move