Weight Weenies

All the stiffness tests are valueless anyway with no rider on board which changes the measurememts a ton.

AFAIN Cervelo is the only manufacturer that tests stifness with the riders weight added

Also the weights for certain bikes are suspect and their seatpost must be made of lead to weight 250g

Visit starbike.com Online Retailer for HighEnd cycling components
Great Prices ✓    Broad Selection ✓    Worldwide Delivery ✓

www.starbike.com

we went out and purchased all of our relevant competitor's frames

They actually manufacture some of their relevant competitor's frames...

And either Giant specifically picked the lightest frames or there must be something wrong with their scales, since the Advanced frame according to Giant weighs 968 while the Germans have measured values of 1167 (Roadbike.de) and 1183 (Tour magazin), so around 200 grams heavier (although to be fair: the Giant test weighed a size M frame while Tour had an M/L and Roadbike had an L, though that should never account to 200 grams difference).

madmole wrote:All the stiffness tests are valueless anyway with no rider on board which changes the measurememts a ton.

AFAIN Cervelo is the only manufacturer that tests stifness with the riders weight added

Also the weights for certain bikes are suspect and their seatpost must be made of lead to weight 250g

To put a value on the bias I went and looked up the weights of a comparable high level seatpost and ISP topper to compare. If you adjust the table for use of a Ritchey Superlogic seatpost (148g claimed) or Ritchey Superlogic ISP top (99g claimed) then the TCR Adv SL drops to a solid mid-table 6th, 186g heavier than an Evo - and interestingly only 1 single gram lighter than a non-ISP TCR.

And that's assuming a TCR SL weighs what they say it does... which it surely doesn't

I'd like to see MSRP put beside the bikes. Interesting to see which bike wins the "bang for your buck" award...

Giant is working hard to gain street cred - I think they have a lot of catching up to do. I bought a new ride this year and never even took one for a test ride - just could not see myself owning one. I looked at the TCR, was impressed, but it just didn't do it for me.

http://winwithgiant.com/

This is all very convincing. Too convincing. Are all the other bikes (apart from the SuperSix) that inferior?

I believe that we already discussed this, maybe somebody is willing to dig the topic up for you.

Interesting video, especially for someone that sells Giant bikes.

One obvious problem is that they seem to be doing exactly what they are accusing others of, i.e. being very selective in what bikes they compare theirs to... Current (or 2012?) model Giant vs. Scott Addict..?? How about the Foil? And I don't see any Italian bikes in there such as Colnago, Wilier and Bianchi. Looks like half of the frames they are testing against are outdated models.

Also, you have to laugh at them adding 250g for the seatpost weight to "level the playing field" when comparing with their own ISP model... If you make that a more realistic 150g for a properly light but robust post, things might look a little different.

The page and video is littered with lies and false claims. Even from the first thing the guy says in the video, that Giant is the ONLY bike manufacture that has full control over all the steps of making their bikes, from concept, engineering, prototyping, manufacturing, to delivery to your door. Well... I can name quite a few others. What about Parlee?

They also fake the weights of all other bikes by adding 250g to each weight to "level to field", which is unrealistic. They also don't account for the weight of the clamping head on top of their ISP, which is probably a couple hundred grams.

I also like their reason for why Giant bikes are not included in any other bike companies testing... because Giants are superior. Hahaha.

I agree that the test figures are not really altogether accurate, but the claim that Giant is the only bike manufacture to have full control is nearly true (aside from Look). Giant manufactures its own carbon cloth and makes it into tubes specific for the application. They make carbon wheels, they make damn near everything. There is a reason why manufacturers like Colnago and Trek used to, or continue to entrust production of several models from Giant.

There are plenty of bikes I'd prefer over a TCR Advanced SL, but that does not mean that the TCR is not a superb bike. It is, and to underestimate Giant is folly. They are the largest bike manufacturer in the world.

Not Look neither Parlee but Time is doing what Giant does considering production, carbon weaving, resins, molding etc. The BMC impec has also full control of its manufacturing process.

@Tinea, @Ryan94, regarding my earlier post which you disagreed with:

Firstly I hope we can agree that the bike industry is full of dubious marketing of the sort which would not be acceptable in the automotive or financial service industry. If a bank offered a loan with a 6% interest rate it would not even consider stating that the APR is 4%. Yet bike companies (Pinarello, Deda) continue to show unrealistic figures for their products. To be fair there are also some good guy out there as well (Zipp, HED, Cervelo), who do their best to make objective tests, share the methodology and discuss the results.

Secondly I think it's absolutely right to observe that if marketing cannot make a straight comparison between products and get basic facts about competitors right then the corporate culture might be weak, leading to longer term issues in other parts of the company. There are many recent examples in corporate history and banking in particular where a gradual erosion of corporate culture around transparency and honesty led to larger problems later on.

Since this is bike manufacturing not financial services, I would be looking for ways in which sub standard materials could get into the supply chain and whether quality controls could be dodged. I am convinced that a bike brand will be seriously damaged through this type of issue either directly or indirectly.

At the time they released this I re-interpreted the data.
Look and Trek both have dedicated posts. TCRs have to use the heavy post. Left in 250g for frames with aero posts (Felt, S5). Used 140g for 27.2 and 165g for 31.6 (based on Bontrager weights).
Assumed 180g for TCR cap as I couldn't find a weight for it anywhere but it's never seemed particularly svelte on bikes I've set up.
And ended up with the following:

kgt wrote:The BMC impec has also full control of its manufacturing process.

So does the Impec actually exist yet?

all that data is pointless, the only way to find out if the bike rides well is for you to ride it.

Visit starbike.com Online Retailer for HighEnd cycling components
Great Prices ✓    Broad Selection ✓    Worldwide Delivery ✓

www.starbike.com