The worst-kept secret in the cycling product arms race is finally out, there's a new Giant Trinity in town.
Legacy is the first word that comes to mind when you think of the Giant Trinity. The model first launched in the early 2000s, and has long since become a category leader. Welcome to the NEW Trinity and the continuation of a legacy.
The previous edition of the Trinity launched in 2016, and in a disc brake world, it truly stood the test of time. The bike has carried some of cycling's legends to some incredible victories. For Sync, our partnership with GreenEdge Cycling has flourished with some heroic performances from Matteo Sobrero, Simon Yates, Luke Durbridge and of course, the latest recruit, Luke Plapp.
The NEW Trinity is not all that Giant have launched this week; to accompany the new frame, CADEX have released a new version of the Aero Wheel System, with a revised quad-spoke and disc wheel.
What's New?
Disc Brakes
In one of its earlier designs, back in 2008, the Trinity was the first bike at the time to have an integrated front end with internal cables and integrated brakes. Now the new Trinity sees the death of brake cables too — because disc brakes solve the consistency and reliability problems of rim brake setups. Anyone who rode a rim brake TT bike in the last decade will know that brakes are extremely sensitive to cable wear. Disc brakes solve this.
Real Estate
With the move to disc brakes, there is now freedom to manipulate the frame shape around the BB and fork crown. At the back, this means more opportunities for playing with chainring sizes, without brake caliper clearance issues. The NEW Trinity is just in time for the 2024/2025 craze of large chainrings. Up front, the freedom to play with fork profiles has seen an expansion in the space around the front wheel and tyre.
Single Spacer
One of the most striking changes is the move to a single, central spacer. This has been driven largely by Giant's investigations into aero performance. From a consumer perspective, we applaud the centre-stack spacer design as it cleanly and elegantly allows us to achieve any width and offset that we desire.
A Tri Bike?
Modern-day TT bikes are also triathlon bikes too, and it ain't a tri bike unless it has integrated hydration options. Giant have revamped the hydration offerings with their Trinity in a meaningful way — it's now in the form of a removable tank above the bottom bracket, with a drinking straw that extends to the cockpit. This bike caters for both UCI and Triathlon, and this system simply makes a whole lot of sense.
Conclusion
The new Trinity is an upgrade on a classic. It brings in all of those timeless features that made it an iconic frameset back in the early 2000s, but with the engineering of modern-day aerodynamics. This could well be the bike that sees Giant through another nine-year product cycle. And that's not a bad thing...