Just last week, ex-pro Tony Martin accidentally on purpose leaked some pictures of a new Giant bike onto his Instagram page. Based on its recent addition to the UCI-approved frames list and its fairly clear aero design, we put two and two together and deduced that it was a never before seen Propel, the aero bike within Giant's range.
Luckily for our egos (and for fans of the Giant aero road platform), we were right. Proven by the fact that during the buildup to the Tour de France, all eight riders from Team BikeExchange Jayco have been doing their recon rides aboard the same bike, this time in full Giant branding and team livery, and most importantly, the Propel model name.
As we mused in our earlier post, Giant looks to have steered away from the hyper-aero focus, like you'll see on the new Scott Foil for example. Instead, Giant has made the Propel more of an all-rounder, with shallower tubes and what we can only presume (representatives from Giant were on hand to stop us from checking) will be a lighter total weight.
Luckily, we were permitted some time with the bike, so we got up close with the one that Luke Durbridge will use for the next three weeks, and squeezed the team mechanics for as much info as we could, to bring you as many of the gory details on this as-yet-unreleased road bike as possible.
Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, was the mechanics' confirmation that, despite all riders intending to use the Propel on flat stages, the lighter weight TCR will return to service on the mountainous days. This proves, at least for the time being, that Giant isn't planning to 'do a Specialized' and kill off one of its bikes in favour of the one-bike solution.
However, with our arms well versed in approximate bike weights from all of our various galleries from Tours gone by, we were suitably impressed with the lightness of Durbridge's size XL bike, estimating it at the low sevens (kilograms) with tubular wheels. With that, it feels to us that the Propel will make more sense for most buying consumers than the brand's lightweight TCR.
