- It's weird like you push down on it.
If it's just on level ground and you push down on it,
you're like, it's my shit locked out?
What's going on?
You're like, did I forget to leave my suspension locked out?
But that's not how it works.
(upbeat music)
- Hey everyone, I'm Mike Levy
and welcome back to another Field Test video.
This time around, we're talking about Giant's Trance X.
It's 135 millimeter travel bike, with 150 millimeter fork.
And Giant says," It's the one trail bike to do it all."
We're gonna talk about suspension first, as always,
and the Trance X's 145 millimeters of travel.
It's controlled by the Maestro dual link suspension design.
It's a co-rotating system, both the links rotate clockwise,
and it's been around for a very long time now.
But there's something new here, adjustable geometry.
The adjustment range is pretty wide as well.
Whereas some of these bikes offer just a third of a degree,
or three or four millimeters
of bottom bracket height change,
Giant gives you 0.7 degrees of adjustment
for the head and seat angle,
and 10 millimeters of bottom bracket height change.
Giant says that the Maestro's dual link suspension
creates a virtual pivot point somewhere around here,
and that it's independent of breaking and peddling forces,
the Holy Grail.
The shock is a metric trunnion mount,
of course, as are most of these days
and the lower shock mount actually does double duty
as the rocker links main pivot and the shock pole,
thereby saving some weight.
This is the Trance X Advanced pro 29 0.
Long name, it's the highest-end model
and it comes with Fox's live valve suspension.
That's computer controlled suspension,
that adds low speed compression damping automatically.
Now we're gonna talk all about that later on,
so stay tuned for that.
The name's been around since 2005,
but of course, this is the longest, slackest
and probably the lightest version ever.
It's carbon fiber everywhere including the upper link,
everywhere except that lower rocker link which is aluminum.
Now all that adds up to a weight
that Giant says, is just 2,100 grams with the shock.
Now that's almost half the weight
of the Actofive P-Train frame,
now to be fair, that's a steel fund triangle
and it's made in pretty small numbers,
but it's still much lighter than some of the others.
Now like a lot of companies,
Giant has some fancy sounding names
to describe some of the things they've done here,
but the gist is, big tubes, mean lower weight and less flex.
Now you're gonna find that everywhere,
especially down at the bottom bracket
where you'll also find a 92 millimeter wide press fit shell.
That's where you're also find,
a set of ISCG chain guide tabs,
and Giant has done a good job with frame protection as well.
There's a thick pad underneath the down tube,
and on top of the chain stay.
There's internal cable routing, but it's not passed through.
So I definitely wanna point that out
where most of these other trail bikes
on the new carbon frames,
you could push the cable in,
and it comes through the other side.
You don't have to lose your temper,
you don't even have to throw any tools.
With the Giant, you're gonna have to do a little bit
of fishing to get it out.
Onto the geometry, I'm five foot 10,
and this is a large size Trance X,
with a 486 millimeter reach.
Now it has that adjustable geometry,
that we talked about earlier,
and that gives it a 65.4 degree head angle,
and 76.2 degree seat angle.
The carbon fiber Trance X's, well they start at $4,300
and there's a few to choose from.
And if you want the fanciest model, it's this one behind me,
it's $8,500 and that gets you carbon wheels from Giant,
Fox's live valve suspension,
and an XTR drive train.
That's enough about the parts and geometry,
let's talk about setup,
and then how the new Trance X rides out on the trails.
(upbeat music)
Let's get through set up.
We installed our control tires, of course,
and that's a minion upfront, inflated at 21 PSI
and a dissector in the back, inflated to 23 PSI.
The exact same as all the other trail bikes
here at the Field Test. Now this bike, as I mentioned,
it comes with Fox's live valve suspension.
Interesting note, it comes with a placeholder battery,
that looks just like the real battery.
So I spent about 20 minutes trying to turn it on,
until I realized that it had just a fake battery on it.
I'm not so good at this tech stuff.
So once you've got your battery in there,
it's pretty much just the same as a normal suspension setup
after you've selected your live valve mode.
You still need to pump it up to the correct air pressure,
and select your rebound and low speed
compression setting on the fork.
(upbeat music)
So what does all that fancy stuff
do for you when you hit the climb?
Well it turns the Trance X and do a fricking rocket ship.
This bike had the fastest climb by a long way.
We're gonna get to our climbing times in a bit,
but that's the gist of it.
Live valve takes what is essentially
a 30-ish pound trail bike,
and turned it into something that feels like a 24
or 25 pound almost cross-country bike.
It's extremely efficient,
but what it doesn't have is that locked out,
feeling that a, well, a lockout has.
Lockouts don't let the suspension move,
and that's not the case here.
And of course, live valve acts a little bit differently
on the climbs than it does on the descent
or when the bike is in the air.
There's sensors on the fork and at the rear axle
that know what angle the bike is at.
So it gives you a firmer feeling
when you're climbing up the hill,
but it's still not that super locked out feeling
that a race bike would have.
What I'm trying to say with all that is live valve
doesn't give you that firmly locked out feel
that a race bike does where it feels like
no matter what bump you hit,
the suspension, ain't moving.
That's not the case here.
The rear wheel can still move
and it's not entirely an active feeling bike,
like a something with DW link
where you wouldn't lock it out at all,
but in the end of the day,
it makes something that's extremely fast and sporty feeling.
So we know the Giant is efficient as hell,
but let's talk about handling.
Now for this, the Trance X definitely leans
more towards that classic trail bike feel,
more towards the Ibis and the specialized,
in something like the P-Train or the longer travel Salsa.
In those tight sections, the Giant can easily
be steered around or through any sort of rudy or rocky mess.
And it really lets you pick your lines as you're going,
whereas on a bigger travel slacker trail bike,
you're basically just saying,
"All right, I'm gonna keep pedaling and see where I get.
I know what you're saying, Levy, I climb to the top
of the mountain on my big travel trail bike,
and I don't dab it all."
And that's true, the Salsa and the P-Train,
they get to the top of the hill without me dabbing,
even in the tricky spots,
but it just feels like less work
on a bike like the Trance X,
than it does on those more forgiving bikes.
(upbeat music)
When I first got the Trance X,
I rode it on its own for four, five days,
and not back-to-back against the other bikes.
And in most places, the suspension felt just fine.
Maybe a little bit unforgiving here and there,
but mostly just fine.
But it's a different story when we started
doing some back-to-back riding.
When the ground was really rough and choppy,
or traction was questionable in those settings,
when I was riding the bikes back-to-back-to-back,
there was a fairly noticeable difference
in suspension performance between live valve,
and traditional suspension from Fox.
Now keep in mind those other bikes have higher-end,
piggyback shocks or the higher-end grip to damper.
And what it felt like is basically the bike
was getting knocked around a bit more,
and I had less traction.
You could see it on video in some sections,
where the rear of the bike would be sliding
when I didn't want it to,
or even the front of the bike.
Overall, it felt a little bit less consistent,
and definitely a bit rougher and with a bit less traction.
Now, part of that difference is suspension performance,
when you're descending might come down to the fork spec.
When you get live valve suspension,
well live valve only pairs with the FIT4 fork damper.
Truth be told when you get the Trance X
on less demanding terrain,
and doesn't have to be a pure flow trail,
it could still be full of roots and rocks,
the Giant can be a lot of fun.
And this is a bike that really rewards a rider
who likes to dip and dive and play around on the trail.
Where the Salsa and the P-Train,
are more for you straight liners out there,
who are just trying to go as fast as possible,
the Giant, well, it's more of like the Ibis
and the specialized.
It rewards somebody who thinks about their line choice more
and is more interactive with the trail.
(upbeat music)
Let's talk about timing first.
And our climb was a mix of smooth single track at the bottom
that went into some pretty tricky, slow stuff,
full of roots and rocks at the top.
The Giant had the fastest time by 19 seconds
over the Ibis Mojo,
and it definitely felt like that on the trail.
This thing feels like an absolute rocket ship on the way up.
That's a different story on the way back down.
The Giant had these slowest time,
seven seconds behind the Mojo.
And to be honest, it was a little bit slippery,
and I didn't have a ton of confidence in the traction.
(upbeat music)
Let's go over what I liked about components
and a big standout for me again,
is this Shimano Drive train.
It's hyper glide plus and I've said it before,
and I'm probably gonna say it a whole bunch more
in the near future, you could shift under load,
like never before.
And that comes in handy on all sorts of climbs,
especially technical ones.
The other thing I wanna talk about,
it's the Fox live valve suspension,
and I'm done moaning about it at least for now,
because the upside is that it creates an incredible climber.
If you want a trail bike to go extremely fast up the climbs.
If you're the kind of rider
who times yourself up all the climbs,
if you care about that sort of stuff,
if you're into fitness,
well, you're gonna be in the live valve.
All right, let's talk about the stuff I didn't like.
And I'm gonna bring up live valve suspension
again, of course.
Well, it makes the bike an incredible climber,
it also makes the suspension feel quite rough
on the descents.
I'd equate it to feeling something like the rear tire
has 35 PSI in it, as opposed to being in the low 20's.
To be fair our trails are quite complicated.
They're full of roots and rocks and things get even worse,
or better when it gets wet.
Traction is very on, off and live valve here,
well, it makes the bike feel quite rough.
But having said that if you live, I don't know,
almost anywhere else in the world
that doesn't have super rudy rocky trails.
I have a feeling that live valve won't feel nearly
as questionable as it did here in Squamish.
Now when I asked Giant's thoughts about this,
they told me to keep in mind that the Trance Nameplate
indicates this bike should be equally adept
at climbing as it is descending.
For Giant, this translates into 50% climbing,
50% descending proficiency.
It needs to accomplish both tasks equally.
If riders are more focused on pure descending capability,
our Enduro-focused reign 29 range is skewed 60/40
toward the descending experience.
(upbeat music)
Time for pros and cons and the first one here,
if you're looking for a trail bike to cover a lot of ground,
that doesn't have to do double duty
on some pretty sketchy terrain,
well, the Trance X trail bike might be the one for you.
The other thing with this live valve suspension,
it's extremely fast and efficient.
And if you're into the tech,
it's hard to not get excited about some of this stuff.
(upbeat music)
Let's talk about cons,
and I'm gonna bring up the packaging
of live valve suspension.
Now this is not entirely all Giants fault.
Fox's live valve suspension requires wires to work,
the sensor at the back and the front,
it's all connected to the microprocessor,
and then you got this battery up there.
The whole thing is just, well,
it's not very well integrated into the frame.
And along those same lines,
there's no frame storage integration here on the Trance X.
While you have specialized and trek out there
with holes in their down tubes,
that I think they could fit Anthony Massari
in their down tubes,
Giant, well, they don't have any way to carry anything.
And not only that, the internal cable routing,
isn't tube in tube.
It's all internal, but just rattling around in there.
(upbeat music)
Let's be honest here, unlike some trail bikes out there,
the new Trance X is not pretending to be an Enduro bike.
And Giant's decision to spec electronically controlled
suspension for increased pedaling performance,
definitely tells you what the bike is meant for.
And none of that is gonna make it the cool bike to have out,
of our field test group of trail rigs.
So why would you have the Trance X?
Well to cover a ton of ground, of course.
It's live valve suspension means that it's incredibly fast
and efficient on that sort of terrain.
So while it might not be forgiving on the rough descents,
as bikes like the specialized or the Ibis,
or especially the Salsa and P-Train,
is a great choice for someone who's more fitness focused
and wants to do a ton of miles.
That's it for Giant's all new Trance X.
Let us know what you think about it in the comments below,
and make sure to subscribe,
so you don't miss any field test video reviews,
and round table discussions where I argue with Kazimer.
(upbeat music)