Giant Anthem X Advanced SL first ride review

The Giant Anthem X Advanced SL is a genuinely rapid and responsive bike.

• Brand: Giant
• Product: Anthem X Advanced SL
• Price: range starts from £,4999 (this flagship ‘0’ model is £TBC)
• From: Giant Bicycles
• Tested by: James Vincent for 2 days

Celebrating 20 years of Anthem, this brand-new Anthem X Advance SL (and its sister bike the Anthem Advance SL which we’ll cover in Fresh Goods Friday) is something of a big deal for Giant. So big, they flew a bunch of journos to the bike manufacturing capital of the world, Taiwan, to witness the new bikes being made in one of the largest bike factories in the world. We also got to ride the bikes too. Which was nice.

In car terms, think of the Anthem Advanced SL as the track focussed model, purely designed to win races, while the Anthem X Advanced SL is the road going version. Still fast, but with a longer travel fork and road legal tyres (ie not lethal semi slicks).

Frame and construction

First seen on the TCR Advanced SL road bike introduced last year, the Anthem X Advanced SL utilises the same Advanced SL construction technology. As part of the launch, a select few journalists and influencer types were invited to the GTM factory in Taiwan to witness the frames being made.

The cold blade cutting and robotic laying up of the carbon weave is both expensive and highly accurate, and helps Giant achieve very high stiffness to weight ratios. The frame is very similar to the XC race version, the Anthem Advanced SL, the only difference being the addition of a storage compartment in the downtube.

According to Giant’s Global Offroad Category Manager Joe Staub, you can’t just chop out a large chunk of material without any compromise. Thus, in order to keep the same stiffness, there is a slight weight penalty over the race focussed frame, but we’re talking tens of grams rather than anything more significant. You won’t notice this on the trail, but World Champion Alan Hatherly probably will.

In spite of its trail bike aspirations, this is still a frame optimised for covering ground quickly rather than cruising along taking in the scenery, and the geometry reflects this. In the low position (as the bikes were presented to us), the head angle is 66.1° and the seat angle is 75.1°. Flip the flip chip and everything steepens up by 0.5° and the BB raises 6mm away from the ground, which as I’ll come to shortly, makes a noticeable difference to the handling. Suspension performance remains unchanged, or at least as far as anyone is going to be able to tell.

Talking of suspension, the Anthem X uses the same linkage driven single pivot design as the Anthem, offering 120mm of travel. Giant have dubbed this new system FlexPoint Pro, and claim this patented design reduces the swingarm’s flexing action to in turn reduce its influence on the suspension action. More flex in the swingarm means you hand over some control from the shock (tuneable) to the swingarm (not tuneable), so you’re always fighting against it.

Finally, the LOOKATMEANDMYFANCYBIKE gold and green paint job on this chi-chi ‘0’ model is quite the statement, albeit growing on me during my time in the jungle. It could almost pass for the Australian national colours, yet in a bizarre twist it’s currently only slated to be available in Canada!

Components

As you’d expect from a range topper like this, no expense has been spared on any of the components. Up front is a Fox 34 SL Factory fork with the aforementioned 130mm of travel and a GRIP X damper keeping things under control. The matching shock is a Fox Float SL Factory. Giant worked closely with Fox on this shock, speccing a larger volume air canister for increased sensitivity.

Fox also provides the dropper, a Transfer NEO offering 150mm of drop. Said dropper is impressively quick to activate, but the large box full of electronic gubbins was annoying on my inner thigh and looks like a bit of an afterthought.

Mirroring the Anthem race bike, the Anthem X gets Giant’s fancy looking integrated carbon bar and stem. The width of this engineering wonderbar is 780mm (can be trimmed to 720mm) and it has a 9-degree upsweep. Should you plump for one of the lower specced models in the range, you still get to look this pro, as Giant has gone to a lot of effort to make a similar looking one from aluminium.

Cables for the brakes, dropper (and gears if you’re still old school), slot into a channel under the bar/stem combo, before disappearing into the frame via the headset. So although you don’t need to fiddle about with routing cables through the bars, you do still have to deal with getting them through the headset. At least Giant has gone to the effort of adding extra grommets and seals to everything, but it still means longer and more complex maintenance. Welcome to progress.

Moving swiftly onto the gears, we’ve got a complete Shimano XTR electronic groupset, including cranks, cassette, rear mech, chain, and press fit bottom bracket. Like I said, all the fancy. I struggled with the shifter and kept inadvertently catching one of the shift levers and changing gear. It seems as though Shimano have tried to keep the ergonomics of their mechanical shifters, yet somehow made it worse. The shifts themselves however, were as smooth and silent as you’d expect from Shimano, even under power.

Brakes are also XTR, with 4 pot calipers and enlarged rotors (203mm/180mm) over the race bike. The slight upward bend in the new lever design initially felt unusual, but that feeling disappeared after 5 minutes on the trail. Power was good, although they didn’t feel quite as sharp as other XTR brakes I’ve used. I’m willing to chalk this down to a less than perfect bleed thanks to swapping brakes around in a field.

Wheels are the all new Giant XCR WheelSystem. Exactly the same wheels as on the race bike, with the low weight no doubt helped by carbon spokes. The wheels form part of Giant’s Low Latency Speed Concept, and as such feature a 120 tooth ratchet system which offers a tiny 3° of engagement. Stamp on the pedals to accelerate away after a corner, and there really is minimal lag before the bike leaps forward. I found the wheels to be very stiff without a great deal of flex, again helped no doubt by the carbon spokes. Other journos complained about the buzz from the freehub, but I didn’t mind it (I found it less annoying than the constant electronic whirring from the Flight Attendant and AXS equipped Anthem Advanced SL SE).

Along with the boost in travel, the tyres get an upgrade over the race Anthem – Maxxis Rekon (front) and Rekon Race (rear), both 29×2.4in, both EXO casing and set up tubeless. I’ll be the first to admit that a bone dry, hardpack course, with only a few rounded rocks on a dried out river bed, is never going to be the most testing of surfaces, but there was more than enough traction and it meant rolling speeds and resistance was low.

Ride & handling

With the extra 10mm of travel up front, and on the flatter trails we were riding, the low position was too slack for me. Even with the saddle slammed all the way forward, I still felt like I was going to slide off the back.

Bearing in mind the trail was bone dry with the only moisture present dripping from my pores, the tyres had plenty of grip and support. I started testing at 22psi front, 23psi rear, and dropped a couple of psi after the first lap. Even entering the rock gardens at full gas, there were no awkward rim dings (although the river bed rocks were rounded and smooth).

Compared to the Rockshox SID (with Flight Attendant), the Fox suspension feels a little more damped and not quite as supple on the small chattery bumps. I’m fully expecting them to loosen up and come to life with a little more riding.

The trick one piece integrated bar and stem combo is flat, racey and XC stiff as you’d expect, with minimal flex when out of the saddle and sprinting hard. The slight trade off with this, is that it’s less comfortable than something with a bit more give. Combined with the shorter travel, I found myself getting mild cramps in my hands at times. For more casual trail riding, I’d be interested to try a slightly shorter stem and a comfier bar as I felt a little stretched out at times.

The Flexpoint Pro suspension worked well, eating up bumps and delivering good traction, especially sprinting up the short, sharp inclines that littered the test track. Through twisting turns the bike is nice and nimble as you’d expect, especially in the high setting. Sure, the trails were bone dry, but there was plenty of grip on tap from the Maxxis Rekon tyres. Confidence inspiring and playful enough to encourage me to hit the few small jumps and wallride on the course.

Conclusion

The Anthem X Advance SL is a genuinely rapid and responsive bike. It hits the design brief with minimal lag when you stamp on the pedals and ask it to go. As a short travel trail bike (what’s happened to downcountry?), it’s nearly impossible to fault. Nearly. The high spec and performance of the components are as you would expect, and my only gripes are the internal headset cable routing, lack of adjustability on the integrated bar and stem, and the slack seat angle.

Geometry of our size Large

• Head angle // 66.1°/66.6°
• Effective seat angle // 75.1°/76.1°
• Seat tube length // 465mm
• Head tube length // 105mm
• Chainstay // 437mm/435mm
• Wheelbase // 1,225mm/1,224mm
• Effective top tube // 625mm/624mm
• BB height // 48mm/42mm BB drop
• Reach // 460mm/465mm