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A mate has a Giant hardtail, which is slowly going the way of Trigger's broom, and now has quite a few nice bits hanging off it. Any how, he's mentioned getting it painted as it's looking a bit tatty.
Are the Giant frames much of a muchness (ie, they make a small range of frames and stick different grades of kit on to make up a range), or do they make a huge variety of frames? Or would he be better off just binning it when he decides it looks too rough and building up a cheapy Dirty Jo / Brand X / ebay special?
Their frames are well made. I have a carbon fibre hard tail which is excellent. They do (or did) sell bottom end of the market bikes that wouldn't we worth blinging. So depends on the frame rather than the label.
Giant frames are good kit, but I'd need to know what it is.
As I already mentioned in a another post people tend to be a bit snobbish about Giants. But they come out of a fantastic factory and have millions chucked at them in research.
Anyway, if it's a very old hardtail it's almost certainly only 80mm corrected and would have steep angles and poor clearance (for UK use anyway) If it's a good'un then I would spend 100 quid on a respray rather than get a Dirty Jo.
The old XTCs make great 80mm travel V-braked flat barred racers 8)
It's not a high end bike at all (can't remember the model name etc.). Came with Alivio level kit, and now has some old XT 8 speed shifters/levers etc.
Clearance isn't bad (runs 2.35s quite happily) but it doesn't have a rear disc mount, which would make me lean more towards swapping it eventually rather than tidying it up. On the other hand, I suspect it would make a decent racey bike with a nice set of wheels and forks...