By James Huang
Team Giant rider Adam Craig played a key role in developing Giant's dedicated short-travel Anthem XC-racing platform two years ago, and has been heading straight down the dual-suspension path since then with virtually no looking back. At the first major MTB test of 2007 on U.S. soil in Fountain Hills, AZ, Craig opted to use his Anthem for each stage save only for the twilight short track event that was held downtown on a mix of pavement and dirt.
"I can ride a hardtail as fast in almost all situations, but it would take so much more effort," stated Craig. "If I were to put that much effort into riding a dualie, I'd end up going a teeny bit faster in a much more relaxed and much more composed manner. We're fortunate enough to have a super efficient suspension design that gives you faster rolling over all of the square-edged stuff because of the axle path and it just generally facilitates riding fast."
Craig himself played a key role in the creation of his Anthem, which was formerly launched just prior to Interbike 2005. "I personally, and everyone at Giant, including Rune Hoydahl, involved in development agreed across the board that we could make a super steep, super short, aggressive race bike that would be designed to handle like a razor blade on courses like this where it's just all super turny and twisty," said Craig after his second place finish in the Stage 1 time trial.
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