Giant never intended to be the world’s biggest bike brand. Cyclist discovers how it grew to be the colossus it is today
Words: Sam ChallisPhotography: Danny Bird
With a name like Giant, it would be easy to assume that the Taiwanese bike brand always planned to be a global behemoth from the day it was founded. But actually it started life in original equipment manufacturing (OEM), making parts for other companies.
The company began in 1972 but it wasn’t until 1977 that the Giant Manufacturing Company’s chief executive, Tony Lo, secured the golden ticket of contracts that was to be the launch pad for future growth. The contract was to produce bikes for Schwinn, a US bike brand that dominated its market at the time with its 10-speed steel machines.
The Schwinn deal followed five fairly barren years since King Liu and a group of his associates founded Giant, but it wasn’t blind luck. Having learnt Japanese while Taiwan was under Japanese rule, Liu spent time in Japan to study what was then the premier bike-building economy.
The working practices he observed and subsequently replicated at Giant were key in securing the Schwinn contract, but in many ways it was when that partnership came to an end in 1987 that the Giant brand really took off.
When Schwinn chose to switch supplier in search of cheaper production costs, its orders accounted for 75% of Giant’s business. That prompted Giant to switch its focus to producing bikes under its own name. Fortunately it had been nurturing this side of the business since 1981, thanks in part to the resources the Schwinn relationship had allowed Giant to develop.
‘It was definitely a make or break moment for us because until then Giant as a brand in its own right had been comparatively small scale,’ says global marketing manager Ken Li. ‘Going global in 1986 was a huge risk but one that paid off.’
Interestingly it was and continues to be Giant’s expertise in OEM that has played a role in the success of its own products.
‘I think it definitely adds a trust and respect factor to our products,’ says Erik Klemm, Giant’s performance design manager. ‘When people know that other brands come to us for production it tells them our manufacturing is top notch.’
‘Being an OEM pushes us to maintain our competitive edge in manufacturing,’ Li adds. ‘But being a successful consumer brand takes effort in R&D, marketing and sales, more so than in manufacturing. Currently our OEM business accounts for only 30% of sales.’
Considering that Giant counts Trek, Scott and Colnago as clients – but that combined they amount to less than a third of Giant’s revenue – helps put into context the sheer size of the Taiwanese corporation. Now the company really does live up to its name.
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Driving change
The geographical location of Giant’s HQ has also played an important role in the brand’s success. The company’s rise can be seen as the perfect example of a rebirth in Taiwanese manufacturing more generally after the country underwent an economic and industrial transformation at the start of the 1990s.
Taiwan became the place to manufacture technological products, and that included bikes. The fact that Taiwan has for many years possessed the most comprehensive supply chain continues to benefit Giant today.
‘Whether it’s a phone call or a face-to-face meeting, being in the same time zone and island is extremely helpful,’ says Klemm. ‘Having our development centre here allows designers and engineers to meet with the vendors quickly.
‘If we design a new saddle it’s easy to take our 3D print, go to the saddle vendor and interact on ways to improve it for manufacturing. We might have a new decal concept that requires some input. One of our graphic designers can easily visit the supplier to learn how to make this design better for production. Everything is just so much more efficient.’
As is the way of the world, success breeds success. ‘Giant is the only bicycle company that covers the full value chain from R&D through manufacturing to marketing and branding,’ says Li. ‘Despite our size, and because everything can be done in-house, we can get market information quickly and respond quickly.’
‘I feel that raw material suppliers are eager to work with Giant,’ says Klemm. ‘Our reputation definitely gets us in the door if it’s a new partnership and allows us to work collaboratively. Most of the time we have the capacity to experiment in-house and will then approach a supplier with a concept – for items that we cannot simply produce ourselves, that is.’
These wide-reaching internal capabilities have only become more valuable in recent times. Klemm says they have allowed the company to adapt quickly and work around the complications caused by the Covid-19 pandemic with minimum disruption. In some cases the enforced change has even been to the brand’s benefit.
‘We have had to streamline many projects and procedures, but honestly this is maybe something we should have done all along,’ says Klemm. ‘The pandemic has opened up our thinking to new forms of communication.
‘For instance, we would usually have multiple in-person meetings with product managers from around the world to discuss colours and graphic styles for the coming year.
‘Travel restrictions caused our designers to come up with better methods of visual communication. We have made videos of colour samples, upgraded our rendering capabilities and connected more for feedback.’
Li believes this means Giant is well placed to take advantage of the uptick in the global cycling market triggered by the pandemic.
Leading the way
With 14 sales subsidiaries distributing its bikes all over the world, Giant is known for different types of bikes in different regions, but it’s in road bikes that the company built its reputation. Giant has repeatedly innovated within the sector, with the Cadex bike giving the brand a flying start in 1987.
‘The Cadex meant we became the first bike maker to apply computer-aided design and volume production techniques to carbon fibre road bikes,’ says Li.
Among Giant’s many achievements, though, its TCR innovation must sit atop the pile. The concept, conceived by British engineer Mike Burrows in the mid-1990s, is ostensibly the most influential development ever in modern road frame design. It was so revolutionary the UCI banned it for a while before coming to its senses.
Having been recruited by Giant off the back of his radical TT bike designs – one of which was the iconic Lotus 108 that Chris Boardman rode to gold at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics – Burrows drew inspiration from mountain bikes, which back then had just started to incorporate sloping top tubes.
‘Sloping the top tube yielded instant results,’ says Klemm. ‘The smaller front triangle was lighter and the correspondingly reduced rear triangle was stiffer.’
The design’s true validation came from Giant’s sponsorship of the ONCE pro team, which had several hugely successful seasons aboard the TCR.
It later transpired that it wasn’t just the bikes giving the team a competitive advantage, but nonetheless the Total Compact Road blueprint has been adopted by virtually every other bike brand in one form or another since Burrows and Giant first introduced it.
Pro rider feedback has continued to feature heavily in the development of the TCR. Klemm says that CCC Team frontman Greg Van Avermaet was influential in the latest iteration.
It occupies the ‘lightweight race’ slot in Giant’s range, a niche that has seen much design convergence in recent years as bikes from competing brands all start to look the same. As the builder of several brands’ lightweight race bikes, Giant is well placed to say why.
‘There are a number of reasons why this is the case,’ says Klemm. ‘It’s related to the materials and techniques available to everyone, plus what is available from drivetrain manufacturers.
‘It’s also a little bit of consumers changing and being bolder about where they take their road bikes. They want on-road speed performance, hence the aero styling, but also more versatility, hence the wide tyre clearances and disc brakes.
‘It also has to do with UCI regulations, which definitely prohibit experimentation,’ he adds. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised to see more non-UCI-legal road bikes being released over the next couple of years purely to exploit the technological capabilities that are continuing to develop.’
eyeball
The convergence notwithstanding, Giant’s latest TCR is one of the few in the niche to stand out. It has an integrated seatpost, its seatstays aren’t dropped and the cables aren’t routed entirely internally.
‘The TCR has always been about stiffness to weight and providing the best acceleration,’ says Klemm. ‘We chose to maintain the position of the seatstays because their higher connection to the top tube equates to a higher torsional frame stiffness.
‘An integrated seatpost allows us to lay up uninterrupted carbon fibre to the saddle, which helps create a smooth ride. The decision to run external cables at the front was made based on ease of assembly, consumer maintenance and lower weight.
‘Although we have full internal cables on our Defy and Propel, we felt that was not the best solution for the TCR right now.’
By comparison Giant’s aero race bike, the Propel, does appear somewhat similar to its competitors. Klemm agrees, but says it’s important to note that like the TCR, the Propel was a leader, not a follower, in terms of modern aero design cues.
‘We have always been big supporters of the disc trend, being one of the first brands to release a full line of disc brake bikes with the Defy in 2015. The benefits of handling and safety they provide meant we knew we needed to include them in our second-generation Propel.
‘From early on we had full confidence we could integrate disc brakes and not compromise aero numbers or add too much weight in the process. Since that time the market has caught up and become extremely competitive. In many instances aero bikes are now only separated by one or two watts and a few grams in weight.’
Klemm doesn’t necessarily think this will lead to aero bikes’ obsolescence as lightweight race platforms catch up in aero terms, but does admit the ability now for brands to combine lightweight and aero qualities is interesting.
‘We still believe there is a separate market for aero bikes. It may not be as strong as for complete race bikes like the TCR but there is still demand in the consumer world for an aero bike.’
Bikes for the real world
Just as lightweight race bikes are encroaching into aero race bike territory, their wide tyre clearances could equally let them expand the other way and take on more comfortable endurance category characteristics. But here too Klemm sees the endurance category thriving in future.
‘While race bikes can now be made more comfortable, most consumers are simply better suited to the geometry of our Defy. They won’t like to admit that but a quick glance at their stems and positioning would confirm they don’t fit the mould that the TCR provides. So we focus on creating an endurance bike that has the appropriate geometry but still looks racy and has good performance characteristics.’
Race performance very much informed Giant’s Revolt gravel bike too. ‘Almost all markets kept wanting a lighter, faster, more capable bike,’ Klemm says.
However, rather than look to its road portfolio to incorporate those qualities into its gravel bike, Giant looked to its off-road experts to develop the current Revolt. This, says Klemm, allowed the brand to blend off-road capability with responsiveness and light weight.
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Gender roles
Another benefit of being the biggest bike company in the world is that Giant can give proper attention to women’s cycling in a way that few other brands can match.
‘Liv was founded in 2008 by Bonnie Tu, chairperson of the Giant Group, when she couldn’t find the right gear and bikes for herself,’ says Li. ‘She saw an opportunity to develop a women-centric brand to make cycling more inclusive.’
Some bike brands have reduced or dismantled their women-specific product development, suggesting a separate line of women-only products isn’t necessary. Li says Liv remains steadfast.
‘Ultimately it ensures fewer barriers and more choices for everyone, while also providing consumers with an opportunity to support a female-founded and women-led brand,’ he says.
‘The debate about the validity of women-specific geometry is a distraction from meaningful conversation and is counterproductive to developing the necessary action our industry must take to welcome more women into the sport.
‘We believe that there is no “right” or “wrong” way to design a bike but that access and market confusion are key contributors to lower participation rates by women. We believe that the broader the choices for women, the more opportunities there are to reach our goal of getting more women on bikes. When more women ride we all win.’
Despite starting out behind the scenes, Giant is now using its scale and visibility to instigate positive reform. It is a mission befitting Giant’s size.
Taking the lead
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The aero Propel is a trailblazer
When the latest version of the Propel appeared in 2018 it may have looked fairly conventional compared to more radical competitors such as the Specialized Venge ViAS or Trek Madone 7 Series.
But time has proven the Propel’s design. Many other aero bikes have since updated to incorporate features this bike already possessed, notably disc brakes and a cockpit that lends itself to easy maintainance.
The Propel uses a clever jigsaw of caps and spacers to hide cables cleanly but keep adjustments easy to make. Erik Klemm, Giant’s performance design manager, says incorporating disc brakes actually made the Propel faster with only a minimal weight penalty, which was quite the feat back when the bike was released.
Building a dynasty
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The TCR just keeps getting better
The TCR has always been Giant’s lightweight racer, but performance design manager Erik Klemm says new technology has given the latest TCR a more well-rounded set of attributes.
‘We’ve used laser-cutting of the carbon fibre fabric as well as robotic construction techniques. It allows us to efficiently manage the overlap of all the carbon pieces coming together in the frame.
‘In the past there perhaps wasn’t as much attention shown to where certain pieces end or the minimum overlap with that next piece. Accounting for that in the TCR this time resulted in less material used and a lighter structure. It also opened up the possibility to build in aero tube shapes and wider tyre clearances with no weight penalty.’
Defying gravity
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Giant’s endurance machine closes in on the race bikes
Most consumers just aren’t suited to the aggressive geometry of pure race bikes like the TCR and Propel, according to performance design manager Erik Klemm. Going for the raciest option may actually make the rider slower and their time on the bike less enjoyable.
That’s why Klemm says the Defy attempts to bridge the gap between performance and usability, creating an attainable riding position while remaining stiff and lightweight. The top-spec version even features the Power Pro power meter, with a proprietary design that has been developed and produced entirely in-house, of course.
Revolting against the norm
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Giant’s gravel bike was developed with an unusual approach
In demonstration of the company’s expansive resources, Giant chose to employ its off-road pro team rather than one of its many road pro teams to inform the latest Revolt gravel bike. Performance design manager Erik Klemm says it allowed the brand to make the Revolt stiffer and faster, but also more capable.
The bike takes the TCR concept to the extreme, compacting the frame triangles as much as possible to create a lightweight and efficient frame. Klemm says the Revolt uses features such as 45mm tyre clearance and Giant’s D-Fuse seatpost and bars to introduce some comfort-inducing flex.
