While pro road racing may be on hold for the time being, an all-new Giant TCR carbon road bike is race-ready. Giant’s flagship all-rounder lightweight carbon road bike gets a ‘total race bike’ facelift, adding aerodynamic improvements and improved pedaling efficiency to the already fast & lightweight TCR. And interestingly, while many new top-tier road bikes have gone disc brake only, the new Giant TCR still includes a rim-brake version, even up to the top TCR Advanced SL level…
2021 Giant TCR Advanced SL light carbon road race bike
The new TCR is in fact already race winning. Greg van Avermaet won last year’s GP Cycliste de Montreal on a special Olympic-gold painted prototype.
And more recently, some on the CCC Team raced the bike at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad before the Classics and any hope of a normal race season came to an abrupt close. Some pros prefer the quicker Propel for the sprints or the more comfy Defy, but with its subtle added aero updates, the new TCR had CCC riders picking it for its lighter weight and overall smoother ride.
What’s new in the new TCR?
At first glance, the new TCR doesn’t look all that different than the previous generation, carrying over their long-held sloping compact frame shape and the long extended seat mast on the Advanced SL model. If anything, tube shapes look slimmer than before, but Giant claims this new TCR is “significantly more aerodynamic” than before, while still delivering the “best-in-class stiffness-to-weight ratio”.
The trick to the aero gain is an overall reshaping of every tube shape on the new TCR to decrease drag, while not adding a single gram to the frameset as a whole. Giant says they did that mostly in improved production, from on-site woven carbon raw material to laser-cut carbon piles, even more precise robotic layup of the carbon plies. Their new ‘ThinLine’ painting process for the top-spec bike is even said to shave 50g off the conventional 7-layer paint that regular bikes get.
The new TCR’s subtle aero gains
It might not look ultra-aero, but the new TCR uses all-new modified airfoil tube sections throughout. Giant opted for truncated ellipse shapes that they say “consistently produce lower drag coefficients at a wider range of yaw angles”, equating to more realistic improvements in real-world riding conditions with varying wind & riding speed.
Curiously, the new TCR does not go for full cable integration, instead retaining internal cable routing ports in the non-driveside of the downtube and the left fork leg. Top-spec bikes do get integrated bar+stem routing and the Advanced SL bikes feature SRAM eTap AXS to eliminate shift wiring, but there are still sections of brake hose out in the wind that could fairly simply be tucked inside.
A completely redesigned, now-symmetric carbon fork design has been optimized to have more room around the tire (up to 32mm for disc brake bikes) and to smooth airflow over the disc brake caliper, both of which are said to decrease drag too. And updated routing to the new flat mount discs (and of course 12mm thru-axles) doesn’t hurt either.
2021 Giant TCR geometry
The new TCR still comes in a wide six size range, and geometry doesn’t change significantly. Headtube angles and offset for the new lighter fork remains the same to maintain the TCR’s race-winning handling. But the bike does get slightly steeper seat angles, a bit more BB drop to compensate for larger race tire sizes. Plus, while stack remains unchanged, the mid-smaller bikes add more reach & slightly longer wheelbases for improved fit & more stability.
TCR Tech Details
This new TCR retains Giant’s OverDrive 2 1.5″-1.25″ tapered steerer tube, PowerCore pressfit BB86 bottom bracket, and works with Giant’s Ride Sense speed/cadence sensors.
The top SL models feature the integrated seatmast, while lower spec bikes get a proprietary aero Variant carbon post.
TCR options, pricing & availability
The new TCR comes in three carbon frame levels – TCR Advanced SL, Advanced Pro & Advanced – and both disc brake and rim brake versions of each. With 1-4 different build spec models of each, there are a total of 15 complete bike options available depending on your market (the top spec rim-brake bike for ex. won’t make it to the US), with prices ranging from $2000 for the base rim brake TCR Advanced 2 Pro Compact bike to $11,000 for the top-spec disc brake TCR Advanced SL 0 Disc. A slightly more attainable TCR Advanced SL 1 Disc shares the same frameset but downgrades from Red, powermeter & Cadex wheels to Force eTap AXS & Giant-branded carbon to drop to $8100.
As for availability of the new TCRs, that’s a different question, the best answer is “Coming Soon”.
The bike was officially unveiled just a few days ago, but global supplies aren’t likely going to start arriving in bike shops until at earliest the start of next month, May 2020.
