2013 Giant Trance 29er Prototype Spotted In the Wild

With a compact one piece triangulated rear end there is no need for the extra weight of a thru axle rear. If you have pivots back there then you need it but no pivots = little extra stiffness from a thru axle.

that stem is pretty cool. likely to be stiff.
bottle cage placement is not cool. i wonder how impossible to fit it will be on smaller frames.
ditto on the rear qr. hell, with the uci outlawing filing off lawyer tabs, road bikes might as well be thru-axle too. then team mechanics can use small electric drills to unscrew/screw them!

Oh, mechanical engineers are we?

GIant has said the maestro rear end on their XC and AM bikes does not need a through axle rear. It adds weight, not stiffness. Holding onto an axle tighter does not increase the stiffness of a wheel.

There is perceived advantage from an owners point of view by having additional compatability with alternate components, but don’t kid yourself this certainly isn’t enough to shift Giant. They won’t make a WORSE bike to suit a trend.

If you compare a maestro chain and seat stay lengths to a Trek, fisher, norco etc, these bikes must receive additional bracing at the rear to prevent the bicycle failing, not the wheel. These bikes, not wheels, are stiffened by a through axle rear.

Pete, was going to post the exact same thing. The Giant rear triangle is one piece to begin with… both linkages are near the frame, so that’s where things should be stiffened up. The benefit of a thru axle is much greater in a bike that has pivot points near the rear axle.

In what way does a thru axle rear offer additional compatibility? One could argue that a QR rear end offers better compatibility. Most new thru axle rear hubs can be converted back to QR, but many not so recent QR hubs cannot be converted to thru axle.

I was wondering if the seatpost is also a Prototype from giant or another manufacturer. Its not a RS Reverb, not a Giant Contact Switch, not a KS that I can tell, not a Fox. The distinct features are the clamp and the side mounted cable at the clamp.

“Ultimate = aluminum? Hardly”

Giant does some pretty rad things with their aluminum in terms of weight and stiffness, but that said I’m sure a carbon version will follow. As for the QR rear end, I agree with the other posts here – having a solid rear triangle as is the case with the Maestro suspension, the rear is inherently stiff to begin with at the drop-outs.

Another reason could be the same as why Santa-Cruz has stated that they decided to have standard QR and not a thru-axle on their Tallboy Aluminum models – price point. To spec a bike within a certain price point on the lower models, getting compatible components – namely rear hub – may not be in the cards. So if the extra stiffness doesn’t net much benefit in the type of rear triangle like we have with both Maestro and VPP suspensions, and they want to keep a certain entry price point, the decision to go QR is a valid one…

i dont understnad the need for discussion 142 is the only way wether or not stiffness is the goal. and its a giant nothing they do is inovative. they are a marketing company doing only what needs to be done to sell bikes. They are nobodys dream bike they are a punters bike with flawed geometry, i think we can all aspire to better bikes than this that are much better value!