Giant’s association with Downhill racing goes back along way as does their pedigree as a manufacturer who take the sport seriously. Going back to the days of John Tomac, Rob Warner and Myles Rockwell and all the way to today, where we see Danny Hart and Andrew Neethling chasing podiums and taking championships, Giant have consecutively made successful bicycles. It’s also fair to say that recent years have seen the progression in gravity specific geometry spiral in such a way that Giant were seemingly left behind. But that was then and this is now. For 2013 Giant have taken an already proven and incredibly popular design, updated the geometry and finished it all off with a livery that makes these bikes truly stand out. Here’s a snippet of what was on display at Giant’s giant Eurobike booth…

Words: Olly Forster | Photos: Nathan Carvell

It’s fair to say the 2013 Glory 0 is bad ass! It looks rad in a mixture of chrome and gloss black with bright blue logos and detailing, and combined with a top spec package screams “factory!” All this comes at a price and the Glory 0 comes in at £4999.99, but with Boxxer World Cup forks, Vivid RC2 shock, DT Swiss wheels, a full X0 package, including the carbon DH cranks and the new X0 Trail brakes, it’s a damned good deal when you break it down!

The Rock Shox Vivid RC2 is one of our favourite shocks, especially with colour c0-ordianted graphics they’ve popped on the Glory and it certainly help round off the factory feel of this bike – which is as close to Danny and Needles’ race bikes as your ever going to get! Talking of factory, the biggest change to the ’13 bikes is the introduction of the geometry the pro team have been fine tuning for the last two seasons. The biggest difference is in the head angle which has been dropped by 2 degrees, from 65.5 to 63.5 – that’s half a degree slacker than the industry standard 64! Other refinements include a longer wheel base and a lower BB, so expect this bike to put a serious smile on your face.

With three complete bikes in the range, this is the entry level Glory 2, which at this point I don’t think will be available in the UK. There is a Glory 1, which is one model above this one and will be hitting your local Giant dealer in the UK very soon at a retail price of £3499.99 and featuring a race ready spec with a full Rock Shox livery and yeah, this bike will be putting riders on podiums at races near you very soon!

The Glory frame will retail for £1999.99 in the UK and will no doubt be another big hit with the week-end warrior, just as Glory’s have done since they were first released. Featuring the proven Maestro linkage and Rock Shox Vivid RC2 shock, the Glory is more than right on the money against other frames on the market and with the new chrome finish, will certainly get you noticed.

Also on the Giant’s Eurobike booth was Danny Hart’s one of kind Fort William race bike with all the names of UK troops who have lost their lives serving their country in recent overseas conflicts. Danny’s a patriotic lad and his support for the armed forces runs deep and will be supporting the Help for Heroes DH race on September 29 – 30th in Hamsterley to raise money for British boys and girls who have been injured in the line of duty. Noble cause – DETAILS HERE!

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