Couple of Giant TCR advanced questions...

Nevereverland

Hi Guys,

I plan on buying a 2010 TCR Advanced 3 and have a couple of questions.

I believe that the only difference between the Advanced 1/2 and the 3 is that the 3 has an alu fork compared to the fully Carbon fork of the 1 and 2. However, when I go into froogle, the TCR 3 is nearly as cheap as the frame alone, am i missing something here?

Seatposts... the Giant TCRs have those aero seatposts... if problems arise (breaks/stolen) how does one go about replacing it? Do Giant charge much (I imagine they do)? Will other seatpost brands work?

Also, if I wanted to upgrade the fork with a carbon Giant one, how much would i be looking at?

Thanks

Lemond75

You're right re the forks; the 1 and 2 have a full carbon fork but I doubt you'd notice much difference! I have and Advanced and an Advanced SL and do notice that the steering feels much lighter and twitchier on the SL but how much of this is due to the fork compared to the stiffer front end on the SL I don't know.

Purchasing a complete bike is almost always a cheaper option than buying the frame and components separately so don't be worried about the frame alone price seeming high. Component manufacturers such as Shimano sell groupsets to manufactures like Giant for less than you can get them for on their own.

if the seat post breaks or gets stolen, both of which hopefully are highly unlikely then you will need to buy a replacement from GIant as they are proprietary items. I'm not sure what the RRP is but remember seeing a new one on EBay for about 40 quid recently.

Hope that helps. Both the Advanced and SL are great bikes so you're not likely to regret getting the Advanced 3 by any means.

wildmoustache

Think the wider point here is there often isn't that much difference between bikes/frames that vary wildly in price.

An alu steerer is a big chunk of metal right where you dont' want it, but will it make you 2mph slower? No.