Giant Propel
£11,499 This sleek aero road bike is now just about as light as UCI racing regs allow
The winning bike in two of this year’s Tour de France stages, the latest Giant Propel is claimed to be lighter, stiffer, more compliant and more aerodynamically efficient than its predecessor. It also has a shortened reach and wheelbase. Its frame, with an integrated seatpost design, is made from Giant’s Advanced SL carbon layup: its stiffest, lightest and priciest carbon fibre. Here are the details.
01 Feathery weight
At 6.91kg for a complete ML-sized bike (including bottle cages, a power meter and the outfront bike computer mount) and just 1,429.5g for the frame, it’s one of the lightest disc brake aero road bikes out there. That’s around a 255g reduction in frameset weight compared to the previous version, which nudges it impressively close to the UCI’s minimum bike weight limit of 6.8kg.
02 Power play
Giant claims the bike’s frameset stiffness has been improved by 9.9%, while pedalling stiffness is up by 7.2%. This equates to an overall improvement of 9.2% versus the outgoing model, helping transfer power from rider to road.
03 Comfort factor
A slimmed-down rear end, as well as being lighter, is claimed to offer an enormous 85% improvement in compliance compared to the old Propel. This ups the comfort of the ride by helping neutralise road buzz.
04 Wind cheater
Overall, the bike’s said to be 2.6% more aerodynamic than before. This has been achieved thanks to the sleek new Contact SLR Aero cockpit, and using “sculpted lines” and “truncated ellipse” tube shapes to minimise drag. The recently launched Cadex 50 Ultra Disc wheelsystem and Cadex Aero tyres also help here.
05 Internal affairs
The somewhat ungainly over-thetop-of-the-stem cable routing is now gone, along with the bolt-on cover and flexible headset spacers. In its place is the new cable-routing system OverDrive Aero. This sees all cables and hoses routed internally through the handlebar before running under the stem and into the frame in front of the steerer tube, and is designed to make it easier to adjust the fit of components such as the stem.