First seen at Sea Otter when Carl Decker used the matte black prototype to win the first race he ever rode it in, it’s no surprise that the Anthem X 29er is now official.
Introduced at the Downieville Classic, the Anthem X 29er’s frame will work with both 2×10 and 3×10 drivetrain options, and it’ll come with Giant’s 29er wheelsets (which, if they’re the same as the ones on the XTC 29er, should be pretty solid) and 100mm of travel front and rear. Claimed frame weight with shock is 5.28lbs (2,395g, including all paint and hardware). Other specs on the Allux aluminum frame are Giant’s Overdrive tapered headtube and a “Powercore” pressfit bottom bracket which we sincerely hope is just marketing speak for a stiff BB area and not some proprietary standard. Full details are limited at the moment, but we’ll update as soon as we have more.
Fox shock and fork and Maxxis tires round out the basic spec, and the frame is able to accommodate up to a 2.3 rear tire.
Check out the 2011 Anthem X, Trance X and Reign 0, all of which shed some grams from their frames, after the break…
The rest of the Giant range shown here apparently only receive minor updates, mostly in the form of dropped weight. That said, there aren’t any mentioned changes for the 2011 Anthem X 26″ mountain bike other than paint schemes (we’ll update after we get the full bytes from Giant if there’s anything else).
The 2011 Trance X drops 75g from the frame, and it’s head angle is now 0.5º slacker for more stable handling when gravity kicks in. Giant claims the frame is also now 4% stiffer despite the diet.
The 2011 Reign 0 gets 115g lighter and also gets a 0.5º slacker head angle.
Giant has put the Powercore press-fit bottom bracket and cable stops for a remote drop seatpost on both the Trance and Reign, too.
