Test Ride : Giant Trance X2
andy_welch
Posts: 1,101
I've got a Giant Trance X2 on loan for a few days, so I thought I'd post my initial impressions in case they were of interest.
First the qualifiers. 1) I don't know what I'm talking about ! Before this year I'd not ridden off road (although plenty on road) for about 15 years and that was slickrock riding when we used to live in Utah. 2) my only comparison (and the bike I've been using for the past months to rediscover the joys of mountain biking) is a 20 year old fully rigid steel Specialized Rockhopper. So, I can't give any thoughts on the subtle differences between largely similar bikes (which is probably what you are after if you are looking to buy a particular bike), but I can give some thoughts on what 20 years of development have done for the MTB.
I deliberately picked a route where I thought the Trance would struggle. It's the white loop at Pitfichie, for those who've ridden up in Aberdeenshire. Despite the Forestry Commission map claiming that it's suitable for "good mountain bikers" there is nothing much that would cause many people any trouble. It's a 12 mile loop, mostly on forest roads, with a fair bit of climbing and only one section that you could call technical (a short sharp climb followed by a fairly steep drop through the trees on a natural but pretty bumpy path). As I say, I picked the route to challenge the Trance (and to minimise the chanceof me breaking a bike that isn't mine) but also because it's fairly typical of the sort of thing I like to ride. A bit of a challenge can be fun but mostly I ride for fitness and to enjoy the views and the main reason for going off road is to escape from the traffic rather than to hurl myself down stuff that is likely to cause me to crash.
Since this wasn't a blind test (i.e. I knew what bike I was riding) it could well be biased by my own preconceptions, so best to state those up front too. Basically I expected to Trance to be more fun on the downhill sections, more comfortable, but slower on the climbs.
Although the suspension was the main thing I was interested in testing the thing that actually shocked me most was the brakes. Luckily I thought to test them before I needed them in anger otherwise I'm sure I'd have come a cropper. For anybody who has never ridden on old cantilever brakes, just think yourself lucky. Even compared with a top of the range road caliper these were amazing and actually quite easy to modulate. I'm not saying that Avid Elixir 5 are the best brakes out there. I dare say they are not, but brakes have certainly come a long way in 20 years.
The ride starts with a good little climb then goes up and down on a good forest road for the first 4 miles. I started with the pro-pedal turned on front and back and experimented switching it on and off. The guy in the shop had said that some people don't need to use pro-pedal on the back. All I can say is that they must have a lot smoother pedalling style than me. I found that, with it off, it felt like trying to ride a pogo stick with the whole think bouncing in synch with your pedalling (presumably this is bob) in a most disconcerting way. However, switching it on stiffened things up nicely. It still didn't feel as stiff as the rigid Rockhopper, but it just felt like a rather springy rigid frame, in quite a nice way. Standing up still brought on the horrible bobbing, but I prefer to climb seated anyway, so that didn't bother me.
Turning off the pro-pedal on the descents gave the magic carpet ride that I had hoped for. Leaving it on really showed how much work the suspension was doing even on these pretty smooth trails as the bike started to judder around much like the rigid Rockhopper. Having to turn it on and off, front and back, for every climb was a pain but it did give a much better ride up and down that way. So, it looks as though, if I'm going to go full suss, I need to look carefully at the lockout type options available.
Near the top of the hill are a couple of logs where I've taken to stopping and admiring the great views. OK, I lay on the logs and gasp like a fish out of water first, but then I admire the view. The overall difficulty of the ride to that point today seemed about the same. However, when I got back on the bike there were a couple of surprises. First, I was 2 minutes faster to that point than I had been a week earlier. Given that it's basically 20 minutes of climbing and 5 minutes of descending on hard smooth trails to that point I really wasn't expecting that. Second, I realised that I was actually in the middle ring and not the granny as I'd thought. Dropping down to my rightful ring left a pretty easy spin to the top.
The path is then a bit more bumpy but doesn't really climb much for a while and while the trance couldn't smooth out every bump it was certainly a lot less annoying than being knocked about on the Rockhopper.
Next there is a short steep and bumpy climb that I've not managed to get up on the Rockhopper. With the Trance I could just point it and ride, which was still an effort, but I got up OK. I'm sure that gearing had a lot to do with this though. The Rockhopper has a 28 tooth largest sprocket, compared to 36 for the Trance (both have a 24T granny ring).
There then follows the only remotely rechnical section as you drop down through the woods on a bumpy path. On the Rockhopper this is done with the brakes keeping the speed down to walking pace so that I can slowly pick a line and stop to examine anything that looks too tricky. With the Trance I was soon letting go and letting the suspension do it's thing. Steering was not too fast and it just tended to plough through things. In fact it seemed as though you could point it anywhere and it would get through and ofcourse, that's when I fell off ! I tried to go accross a rut at an angle (never a good idea) and I'm sure my weight wasn't as far back as it should have been. So, the front wheel dropped into the rut then didn't come out the other side. The back wheel did (I think) climb out as the front twisted and it may be that the saddle gave me a nudge. Either way I went over the bars and landed on my elbow. Fortunately I landed on a pretty soft bit of ground so only got a couple of minor scratches and thankfully didn't do any damage to the bike. After pushing up hill a bit to ride the same bit again I got to the bottom without incident and it was both a lot faster and a lot more fun than on the Rockhopper. However, it did highlight an irony of the bike. Part of the reason for looking at a Trance as opposed to a supposedly faster Anthem, for example, was that I thought it would give a bit more security on the descents, which it does. But that extra security just means that you go faster. So, when it goes wrong (as it always does sooner or later) the crash is more spectacular. So, ironically, I'm probably less likelt to get hurt with the rigid Rockhopper where I have to pick a line at walking pace than I am with the Trance, even though it is undoubtedly a much better descender.
The rest of the ride (on mostly undulating forest roads) was uneventful as I could just enjoy the peace and the views. One of the reasons why I'm considering a full suss bike, despite the fact that the sort of riding I do is nowhere near technical enough to require one, is partly because of a comment that I saw from Chris Juden (of CTC fame) on a message board. He basically said that he rides a full suss bike off road as it means that he can spend less time looking at the trail and more time admiring the view. That was certainly the case here.
One thing I did notice on a steep climb (steep enough to be on the borderline for me to ride) was that the front end wanders about more on the Trance than the Rockhopper, which could stop you getting up something that in theory you would be fit enough to climb. I was also struck by how easy it was to lift the front wheel in general.
The final shock was the biggest though as when I compared overall times on getting back to the car I realised that I was a ful 12% faster over the whole loop than I had been last time out. I really didn't expect this and still can't explain it. It weighs pretty much the same (29lb compared to 28 lb for the Rockhopper) and it has all those energy sapping springy bits. So, on a pretty smooth hilly route it should be slower. I was interested to try and get an idea of just how much slower to see if I could live with that in exchange for the extra comfort, but I didn't expect it to be faster.
So, I guess the final question is "would I buy it"? Well I certainly enjoyed riding it and could easily live with it for the sort of riding I do. It's comfortable, fun and doesn't seem to lose much (if anything) in speed to my 20 year old fully rigid bike. However, it is the only full suss (or any suss) bike I've ever ridden, so I can hardly say that it is the best. That's not too big a deal for me though. I'm not one to worry too much about minor details on bikes and tend to believe that you are better off just buying a good bike and getting out and riding the thing. All good bikes are a compromise. By which I mean that there might be something else that is better in one area, but it will probably be worse in another. So just enjoy riding what you've got and remember the n+1 rule.
There are a couple of other options I'd still like to weigh up though. On paper the Boardman FS Pro and Canyon XC 8.0 look pretty similar (69 degree head angle with 120mm travel), but both are lighter and around £400 cheaper. In the case of the Canyon I don't think that would be enough to tempt me into an online purchase. I like bike shops (even Halfords) and want them to stay in business, so would prefer to buy from a local (or at least a UK) shop. The Boardman also suffers from the fact that I couldn't give it a proper test ride. I know that I got on OK with the Meastro suspension system on the Giant, but does that mean I'd get on just as well with whatever the Boardman has?
Sticking with Giant, there is also the Anthem X2 29er. On paper this is £200 cheaper, marginally lighter and may be better for the soft of mile munching I enjoy. However, it doesn't look as though you can lock out the Monarch RT shock at the back and they wont have a demo to try for at least a month (although I could probably ride one around the car park).
Well, that was long and rambling, so well done to anybody who made it this far.
Cheers,
Andy
First the qualifiers. 1) I don't know what I'm talking about ! Before this year I'd not ridden off road (although plenty on road) for about 15 years and that was slickrock riding when we used to live in Utah. 2) my only comparison (and the bike I've been using for the past months to rediscover the joys of mountain biking) is a 20 year old fully rigid steel Specialized Rockhopper. So, I can't give any thoughts on the subtle differences between largely similar bikes (which is probably what you are after if you are looking to buy a particular bike), but I can give some thoughts on what 20 years of development have done for the MTB.
I deliberately picked a route where I thought the Trance would struggle. It's the white loop at Pitfichie, for those who've ridden up in Aberdeenshire. Despite the Forestry Commission map claiming that it's suitable for "good mountain bikers" there is nothing much that would cause many people any trouble. It's a 12 mile loop, mostly on forest roads, with a fair bit of climbing and only one section that you could call technical (a short sharp climb followed by a fairly steep drop through the trees on a natural but pretty bumpy path). As I say, I picked the route to challenge the Trance (and to minimise the chanceof me breaking a bike that isn't mine) but also because it's fairly typical of the sort of thing I like to ride. A bit of a challenge can be fun but mostly I ride for fitness and to enjoy the views and the main reason for going off road is to escape from the traffic rather than to hurl myself down stuff that is likely to cause me to crash.
Since this wasn't a blind test (i.e. I knew what bike I was riding) it could well be biased by my own preconceptions, so best to state those up front too. Basically I expected to Trance to be more fun on the downhill sections, more comfortable, but slower on the climbs.
Although the suspension was the main thing I was interested in testing the thing that actually shocked me most was the brakes. Luckily I thought to test them before I needed them in anger otherwise I'm sure I'd have come a cropper. For anybody who has never ridden on old cantilever brakes, just think yourself lucky. Even compared with a top of the range road caliper these were amazing and actually quite easy to modulate. I'm not saying that Avid Elixir 5 are the best brakes out there. I dare say they are not, but brakes have certainly come a long way in 20 years.
The ride starts with a good little climb then goes up and down on a good forest road for the first 4 miles. I started with the pro-pedal turned on front and back and experimented switching it on and off. The guy in the shop had said that some people don't need to use pro-pedal on the back. All I can say is that they must have a lot smoother pedalling style than me. I found that, with it off, it felt like trying to ride a pogo stick with the whole think bouncing in synch with your pedalling (presumably this is bob) in a most disconcerting way. However, switching it on stiffened things up nicely. It still didn't feel as stiff as the rigid Rockhopper, but it just felt like a rather springy rigid frame, in quite a nice way. Standing up still brought on the horrible bobbing, but I prefer to climb seated anyway, so that didn't bother me.
Turning off the pro-pedal on the descents gave the magic carpet ride that I had hoped for. Leaving it on really showed how much work the suspension was doing even on these pretty smooth trails as the bike started to judder around much like the rigid Rockhopper. Having to turn it on and off, front and back, for every climb was a pain but it did give a much better ride up and down that way. So, it looks as though, if I'm going to go full suss, I need to look carefully at the lockout type options available.
Near the top of the hill are a couple of logs where I've taken to stopping and admiring the great views. OK, I lay on the logs and gasp like a fish out of water first, but then I admire the view. The overall difficulty of the ride to that point today seemed about the same. However, when I got back on the bike there were a couple of surprises. First, I was 2 minutes faster to that point than I had been a week earlier. Given that it's basically 20 minutes of climbing and 5 minutes of descending on hard smooth trails to that point I really wasn't expecting that. Second, I realised that I was actually in the middle ring and not the granny as I'd thought. Dropping down to my rightful ring left a pretty easy spin to the top.
The path is then a bit more bumpy but doesn't really climb much for a while and while the trance couldn't smooth out every bump it was certainly a lot less annoying than being knocked about on the Rockhopper.
Next there is a short steep and bumpy climb that I've not managed to get up on the Rockhopper. With the Trance I could just point it and ride, which was still an effort, but I got up OK. I'm sure that gearing had a lot to do with this though. The Rockhopper has a 28 tooth largest sprocket, compared to 36 for the Trance (both have a 24T granny ring).
There then follows the only remotely rechnical section as you drop down through the woods on a bumpy path. On the Rockhopper this is done with the brakes keeping the speed down to walking pace so that I can slowly pick a line and stop to examine anything that looks too tricky. With the Trance I was soon letting go and letting the suspension do it's thing. Steering was not too fast and it just tended to plough through things. In fact it seemed as though you could point it anywhere and it would get through and ofcourse, that's when I fell off ! I tried to go accross a rut at an angle (never a good idea) and I'm sure my weight wasn't as far back as it should have been. So, the front wheel dropped into the rut then didn't come out the other side. The back wheel did (I think) climb out as the front twisted and it may be that the saddle gave me a nudge. Either way I went over the bars and landed on my elbow. Fortunately I landed on a pretty soft bit of ground so only got a couple of minor scratches and thankfully didn't do any damage to the bike. After pushing up hill a bit to ride the same bit again I got to the bottom without incident and it was both a lot faster and a lot more fun than on the Rockhopper. However, it did highlight an irony of the bike. Part of the reason for looking at a Trance as opposed to a supposedly faster Anthem, for example, was that I thought it would give a bit more security on the descents, which it does. But that extra security just means that you go faster. So, when it goes wrong (as it always does sooner or later) the crash is more spectacular. So, ironically, I'm probably less likelt to get hurt with the rigid Rockhopper where I have to pick a line at walking pace than I am with the Trance, even though it is undoubtedly a much better descender.
The rest of the ride (on mostly undulating forest roads) was uneventful as I could just enjoy the peace and the views. One of the reasons why I'm considering a full suss bike, despite the fact that the sort of riding I do is nowhere near technical enough to require one, is partly because of a comment that I saw from Chris Juden (of CTC fame) on a message board. He basically said that he rides a full suss bike off road as it means that he can spend less time looking at the trail and more time admiring the view. That was certainly the case here.
One thing I did notice on a steep climb (steep enough to be on the borderline for me to ride) was that the front end wanders about more on the Trance than the Rockhopper, which could stop you getting up something that in theory you would be fit enough to climb. I was also struck by how easy it was to lift the front wheel in general.
The final shock was the biggest though as when I compared overall times on getting back to the car I realised that I was a ful 12% faster over the whole loop than I had been last time out. I really didn't expect this and still can't explain it. It weighs pretty much the same (29lb compared to 28 lb for the Rockhopper) and it has all those energy sapping springy bits. So, on a pretty smooth hilly route it should be slower. I was interested to try and get an idea of just how much slower to see if I could live with that in exchange for the extra comfort, but I didn't expect it to be faster.
So, I guess the final question is "would I buy it"? Well I certainly enjoyed riding it and could easily live with it for the sort of riding I do. It's comfortable, fun and doesn't seem to lose much (if anything) in speed to my 20 year old fully rigid bike. However, it is the only full suss (or any suss) bike I've ever ridden, so I can hardly say that it is the best. That's not too big a deal for me though. I'm not one to worry too much about minor details on bikes and tend to believe that you are better off just buying a good bike and getting out and riding the thing. All good bikes are a compromise. By which I mean that there might be something else that is better in one area, but it will probably be worse in another. So just enjoy riding what you've got and remember the n+1 rule.
There are a couple of other options I'd still like to weigh up though. On paper the Boardman FS Pro and Canyon XC 8.0 look pretty similar (69 degree head angle with 120mm travel), but both are lighter and around £400 cheaper. In the case of the Canyon I don't think that would be enough to tempt me into an online purchase. I like bike shops (even Halfords) and want them to stay in business, so would prefer to buy from a local (or at least a UK) shop. The Boardman also suffers from the fact that I couldn't give it a proper test ride. I know that I got on OK with the Meastro suspension system on the Giant, but does that mean I'd get on just as well with whatever the Boardman has?
Sticking with Giant, there is also the Anthem X2 29er. On paper this is £200 cheaper, marginally lighter and may be better for the soft of mile munching I enjoy. However, it doesn't look as though you can lock out the Monarch RT shock at the back and they wont have a demo to try for at least a month (although I could probably ride one around the car park).
Well, that was long and rambling, so well done to anybody who made it this far.
Cheers,
Andy
0
