GIANT BICYCLES PRESS LAUNCH 2005

GIANT BICYCLES PRESS LAUNCH 2005

Last week, Giant Bicycles invited editors from all the major cycling rags to Santa Barbara, California, to ride the latest goods. The goods, in this case, were Giant's new line of Maestro full-suspension bikes. Maestro? Yes, Maestro. If you haven't been paying attention to all the web postings about this new suspension design, now's a good time to tune-in and perk up—it's worth it.

I know, I know….the cycling press tends to get all hot and bothered every time a company rolls out a new product. Suddenly every bike, fork and gew-gaw from the previous year is complete crap whereas everything new at the press launch is FANTASTIC, SPECTACULAR and (worst of all) A MUST-HAVE PRODUCT.

Well, at Bike we've always tried to steer clear of the marketing hype in favor of just giving you the facts, and the facts in this case are as follows: the new Giant bikes will not make you fitter, slimmer, sassier or minty fresh. You can go ahead and keep riding your old bike and you'll still have a grand time on the trail. The new Maestro bikes, however, are pretty damn impressive.

Here's the deal: Maestro is a completely new design that shares just about nothing with previous Giant designs. Giant engineers call it a "virtual-pivot-point bike," by which they mean that the design's two rear links create a floating pivot point that maximizes pedal efficiency by counteracting pedaling forces that would otherwise cause the suspension to bob up and down. Their goal was to create a no-compromise bike—one that would be incredibly efficient and yet remain responsive to small bumps. And while they had their drafting pencils out, they figured they might as well design a bike that didn't stink bug or stiffen up when you hit the brakes. Like I said, they wanted a no-compromises bike. They created three distinct bike lines that feature the Maestro design: the 4-inch travel Trance bikes, the 6-inch travel Reign bikes and the 8-inch travel Faith models.