Giant 29er Has Arrived!

Giant Bicycles has finally thrown their hat into the 29-inch-wheeled mountain bike arena this year with the XTC 29er series. We just received our first XTC 29er 1 model here at Century Cycles!

If you're not yet familiar with the 29er concept, the idea is to use larger-diameter 700C-sized wheels on a mountain bike, as opposed to the traditional 26-inch wheels. The larger wheels give you more traction and better pedaling efficiency.

In addition to the bigger wheels, the Giant XTC 29er 1 gives you everything you'd expect in a race-ready mountain bike, and more. It features Giant's ALUXX SL aluminum frame, a Fox 32 F29 suspension fork with 100mm of travel, a 27-speed Shimano drive train with Deore/XT/SLX components, and Avid Juicy 3 hydraulic disc brakes, and Kenda Karma 29x2.0 tires. The 15mm thru-axle in the front fork and hub, combined with Giant's new tapered head tube frame design, give you increased stiffness and control in the front end.

Take ours for a test ride (as long as the mountain bikes trails are dry enough) through our Demo Bike Program! We have a Medium frame size available for demo or purchase; other sizes available by special-order. It's currently in our Peninsula store; call us if you'd like to check it out in either Medina or Rocky River!


You can see here that our model comes in at 27 pounds, 2 ounces (including test ride pedals).

BikeRumor.com reviewed the XTC 29er 1 back in September of '09. Among other things, they said that "Giant has done a stand up job in making an attractive bike...it has pop to it and there is something about the look that makes you just want to ride it hard and fast." And, "Able to maintain its momentum for crushing over small obstacles and re-engaging an increase in power seamlessly." You can read the full review here.