2014 Giant Propel Advanced SL Review

Giant Bicycles has released their 2014 Propel Advanced SL — claiming that the bike simply, ”makes you faster.”

Propel is a bike that Giant’s engineers have worked on for years; not necessarily trying to make the fastest bike in the world, but a bike that can help make you faster.

What Giant did was take every angle of every tube, the design of the brakes, fork, handlebar, and steering system and design them in such a way that it effectively cuts through the wind. Not just the wind coming directly at you, but the crosswind coming in at different yaw angles.

The Propel Advanced SL uses Giant’s T800 Carbon Fiber strands (which is the highest tensile strength used in any bicycle) to max out the stiffness, while still leaving the ride comfortable so you can ride all day.

All of the Advanced SL models (Propel, TCR, Defy) use an integrated seatpost. This seatpost gives the bike a little more flex for comfort, and ditches a few grams of weight as well.

Giant tested the 2014 Propel Advanced SL against four other brands of bikes in a wind tunnel — each one using as many proprietary components as possible and a “dummy” to simulate the weight of the rider. At 40km/hr (24 or 25 mph) – this bike finished in an hour. The other bikes finished at 12 seconds slower, 34 seconds slower, and the final two bikes at 36 seconds slower.