Defy the odds
Giant Defy Advanced Pro 1
It’s easy to see why the Defy has been Giant’s best-selling range... JOHN WHITNEY
PRICE £3199 UPGRADES £134.99 (SADDLE) MILES RIDDEN 562
As you may have already read on p76, descending isn’t my forte. A friend recently called me ‘Captain Sensible’ for reasons that I shan’t get into here. I bring the same caution to the road, particularly in the mountains. The results of said feature have nothing to do with this Defy that I had with me. It handles superbly on long descents; its Ultegra hydraulic discs are superbly responsive, and the tubeless 28mm tyres – they came fitted with sealant – are a revelation, offering superb comfort and grip. A somewhat late adopter of hydraulic discs, I really couldn’t consider using anything else in the mountains these days, for their stopping power, assurance on wet roads and knowledge that you’re not going to detonate an inner tube with all the heat-generating braking required on long descents.
It was quite the baptism of fire for the Defy. Weeks earlier, my first ride on it had been up the 19km Colle delle Finestre, which turns, abruptly, unpaved 8km shy of the summit. The Giant’s own Gavia tyres (all components are its own) suffered a few light cuts from what’s a real dog’s dinner of a surface, but nothing that required
the tubeless tyres’ sealant to slop into action. What really saved my bacon was the 34/34 bottom gear, allowing me to pedal away to the summit of all the high mountains I’ve recently ridden aboard the Defy: Izoard, Agnel, Furka, Nufenen and Gotthard. At a not at all shabby sub-8 kilos, this Giant defies gravity superbly.
Genre classic
As is the case with any bike I ride, the Giant saddle was banished forthwith, replaced by the doughty Fizik Antares that’s been with me for three years. The D-shape seatpost adds to the comfort at the rear, with the noticeable movement from it shepherding me through long rides. Like the neat front end with the cables housed within the chunky Stealth stem, the seatpost gets a nod to aero with the clamp flat against the top-tube. It can be tricky to fix the seatpost back in, particularly with the bike upright; you may well find yourself having to fish the bolt out from the depths of the seat-tube.
It’s easy to see why the Defy has been Giant’s best-selling range through the years and with a ride like this, the Advanced Pro 1 is a classic of the endurance genre.