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The new Giant Propel has undergone a host of changes compared to its last iteration in an attempt to make it a one-stop-shop race bike.
Everyone is familiar with the ‘lighter, stiffer, faster’ trope frequently adopted by the bike industry when new bikes are launched, but rarely do those new designs come with such comprehensive and significant claims of improvement over their predecessors.
Giant says the new bike – using the new Cadex Ultra 50 Disc wheels and Cadex Aero 25mm tyres – is over 6 watts faster on average than the old Propel at 40kmh, and the frameset is 225g lighter despite being 9% stiffer overall too.
It isn’t just the Propel’s aggressive performance characteristics that have been bumped up.
The new Propel is apparently 85% more compliant at the rear thanks to some revised tube shaping. At the front of the bike, the cockpit is far cleaner and is said to be easier to work on from a mechanic’s perspective as well.
The new bike will be available at several different frameset tiers and a range of builds. Availability is expected in November so pricing in most territories will be set closer to the time.
To give an idea of cost, Australia is the only country to confirm pricing so far on the three models available there. The Propel Advanced Pro 0 Di2 will cost $7,799 AUD (approx £4,500), the Propel Advanced Pro 0 AXS will cost $8,499 AUD (approx £4,900) and the Propel Advanced SL 0 will cost $13,999 AUD (approx £8,100).
As is standard for any bike with aspirations of being raced in the WorldTour, Giant says the new Propel was a project several years in development and required fairly extensive road testing to refine the design before its official launch.
As such, the fact the new Propel was on its way has been an open secret for a while. It was used by Giant’s sponsored pro team BikeExchange-Jayco at smaller races earlier this year and then Cyclist spotted it being raced under several team members at the 2022 Tour de France.
Dylan Groenewegen won Stage 3 on it and Michael Matthews also rode it to victory on Stage 14. Giant couldn’t have really asked for any better vindication of its design.
The brand says its aim in the new Propel was to make it a more well-rounded race bike, so it being ridden to victory on not just a sprint stage by a hilly intermediate one too was the ideal demonstration of the bike’s apparent newly acquired versatility.
That said, Giant says that while the new bike scores better in departments such as weight and comfort, improvements in those areas haven’t been achieved at the expense of aerodynamics.
Indeed, after the usual period of virtual development, Giant says it took prototype Propels to the GST wind-tunnel in Immenstadt, Germany, to test and refine the bike using a moving mannequin.
Recent product launches from Giant and sister company Cadex have been associated with the clear communication of data and testing protocols, and the Propel launch is no different.
Giant says the new bike was tested against the old one with mannequin aboard (legs spinning at 90RPM) at a wind and wheel speed of 40kmh at yaw angles ranging +/- 20°. Average drag under those conditions was 241.32 watts for the 2018 Propel and 235.11 watts for the 2023 Propel, meaning the new bike should be in the region of 6 watts more efficient than the old one.
On the face of it, that could be seen is somewhat surprising. The new Propel is markedly less bulky than the old one. The back half of the bike of considerably slimmer in profile.
Nixon Huang, Giant’s senior global road, gravel and CX category manager, says the new Propel uses an updated version of Giant’s ‘AeroSystem Shaping Technology’.
‘We analysed every tube, junction, angle and components individually and, more critically, as a system,’ he says. ‘As a result, the Propel uses truncated ellipse aerofoil shapes in areas like the down tube, seat tube and seatstays.
‘Following our holistic approach, we even created two different bottle cages (they are seat tube and down tube-specific) to minimise the effect of drag on those two different areas.’
While Huang says the Propel’s cockpit, wheels and tyres are all fast products in their own right, apparently they have all been specifically designed to work with the Propel’s frameset with aerodynamic efficiency in mind as well.
The modern race bike can’t just rely on doing one thing well though and attributes like stiffness-to-weight still hold significant sway in the minds of pro riders. Therefore, Giant says it wanted to make the Propel stiffer and lighter too.
Dropping weight was a motivator for slimming down the back of the bike. Giant says that airflow in that area is so messy that exaggerated aerofoil tube profiles count for less, so by making them not as deep the brand could both cut weight – taking the frameset and necessary hardware down to a claimed 1,429.5g in a size medium from 1,655g – as well as improve compliance at the saddle.
The beauty of composite fabrication though is how tunable the design can be in different areas by adjusting tube shaping and material layups.
‘We modified the tube sections of the head tube, down tube and bottom bracket area to reduce torsional and lateral flex in the frameset,’ says Huang. ‘As a result, using the same protocol as Tour magazine in Germany do, we measured the frame as having almost 10% more torsional stiffness and 7.5% more lateral stiffness than the previous model.’
According to Huang, adjusted tube profiles can only achieve so much though. There are some deeper techniques at play concerning the composite blend itself that has allowed Giant to produce the new Propel.
Unusually, Giant has its roots in OEM manufacturing and consequently has all the facilities required to fabricate its bikes from raw materials in-house.
For its new top-level Propel frames Giant has used its ‘Professional Grade’ raw carbon fibre, which it has combined a resin featuring ‘Carbon Nanotube Technology’.
‘This is a microscopic polymer that acts like mini buttresses between the carbon fibre swatches, strengthening the layers of composite,’ says Hunag. ‘Frames that use it are 14% more impact resistant than those without it.’
The Advanced SL-level Propel frames use an integrated seatpost. To create this feature the frame’s top tube is grafted to the seat tube using filament winding and co-moulding.
‘This involves hand-weaving the top tube and seat tube together, then remoulding the area to unify it,’ says Huang. ‘It makes the junction stronger and lighter.’
Similarly advanced techniques are used at the front of the bike, which have been informed by the development of the last generation TCR.
‘We’ve constructed the front triangle of the Propel with larger, and therefore fewer, pieces of composite,’ says Huang. ‘But in conjunction, laser cut the smaller swatches and automated some of their assembly, which makes their shape and placement more precise.’
The cap, spacer and stem arrangement on the previous Propel became somewhat infamous for its brutalist looks and fiddly set-up, so it will be music to the ears of many to see Giant has completed redesigned the area.
Giant says it works with Team BikeExchange’s technical staff on the new design to ensure it was easy to maintain and adjust.
Cables now route through the bars and along a recess in the underside of the stem, entering the frame via a port in the profiled headset spacers.
A new D-shaped steerer in combination with an oversized upper headset bearing creates the space for the cables to enter the frame.
The steerer is still Giant’s proprietary ‘Overdrive’ diameter meaning only the new Giant Contact SLR and SL Aero stems can be used with it, but Giant offers them in a range of sizes and they accept any handlebar, so that all-important adjustability isn’t too meaningfully hindered.
As Huang mentioned, in the development of the new Propel, Giant’s assessment of how to improve it didn’t end at the frameset but extended to essentially everything about the bike apart from the groupset.
That led to the introduction of a host of new finishing kit.
Gaint has revamped its Contact SLR and SL Aero bars. The SLR variant is made from carbon composite and very similar in weight to the previous version (it is just 5g lighter at a claimed 215g), but uses a revised shape, including aerofoil tops and compact drops.
Thanks to the enlarged port at the back of the bars, Giant says +/- 10° of rotation can be accommodated in the Contact SLR and SL stems.
The Giant Contact SL Aero bar trades carbon for aluminium, making it around 100g heavier in a given size.
The Contact SLR Aero bars are used on the Advanced SL and Advanced Pro 0 bikes, while the SLs are used on the Advanced Pro 1 and Advanced 1 and 2 builds.
The new Contact SLR and SL Aero stems are made exclusively for the new Propel. They are bulky in form and include a recess on their underside in which the cables entering the frame form the levers sit.
The Contact SLR Aero stem is said to shave an impressive 97.5g off the previous version of the components, now weighing a claimed 145g in the 100mm length, while Contact SL Aero stem is the SLR’s alloy counterpart.
Again, it will be cheaper but heavier, at around 60g for a given size. Both stems are available in 10mm increments from 80mm to 140mm.
The SLR stems are used only on the top-tier Advanced SL models, with anything lower using the alloy SL version.
The Propel’s wheels are new too – depending on frame tier, most bikes receive Cadex’s new Ultra 50 wheels or Giant’s SLR 1 or 2 level wheels, which are scaled back versions of Cadex’s progressive new design with many of the same features and rim dimensions.
There will be 7 specs of the new Propel available in the UK, but no frameset-only option for the 2023 model year. Giant says the scarcity of component supply is unlikely to make custom builds a sought-after option at the moment.
There’s no 105 Di2 spec in the line-up either. This was due to the highest gearing from Shimano in model year 2023 for 105 Di2 being 11-34, 50/34. Giant UK says it took the decision that that gearing doesn’t suit this type of bike, so specced Rival AXS instead.
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