Giant’s new TCR Advanced SL prototype road bike, first unveiled to the public at the beginning of 2008, has not only caught the attention of the international media, but has proven itself as a contender through a number of early-season victories.
"We’ve built a bike that is lighter than our previous TCR Advanced; we’ve built a bike that’s significantly stiffer than our TCR Advanced was, and we’ve catered it specifically for the team’s needs," said Giant Global Product Marketing Manager Andrew Juskaitis during the official team presentation in Palo Alto, California held on 15 February 2008.
Key changes to the new TCR Advanced SL frameset include square-profile tubing in the down tube and seat tube, an oversized steerer tube that tapers from 1 1/8" up top to 1 1/4" at the crown and the use of Shimano’s press-fit bottom bracket cups that affords a substantially broader down tube and more widely set chainstays. These chainstays are also noticeably asymmetric with a taller and narrower driveside stay and a wider and rounder profile on the non-driveside. Interestingly, the last section of rear brake housing pierces through the top tube as it makes its way from the tube’s underside near the seat tube intersection.
"We increased stiffness significantly, but one of the things we didn’t want to give up was ride quality and that’s always the balance," Juskaitis said. "When you make something stiffer, a lot of times it’s often going to ride like a rock. We weren’t going to, nor was the team going to, accept a bike that rode like a rock. One of the secrets up our sleeves is that ride compliance can really be tuned quite a bit through the integrated seatmast."
According to Juskaitis, the bike has been in development for over two years and the team has been evaluating near-final prototypes over the last year in order to firm-up any remaining details. In this final stage of testing, Team High Road will continue to use the new TCR Advanced SL prototype in actual race conditions to fine-tune the high performance characteristics of the new road format.
