Performance, value, an extensive range of models — Giant Bicycles check a lot of boxes. However, the world's biggest bike manufacturer does seem to fall short in one way. Giant rarely brags about its race victories. So, we decided to do the work for them and highlight five of our favorite pro race victories earned aboard Giant bikes.
Did we miss an important race won on a Giant road bike, mountain bike, or cyclocross bike? Let us know your favorite in the comments below!
5. Kittel powers Propel to Champs-Elysees glory
In his first season aboard a Giant, Kittel delivered at the 2014 Tour de France. He opened the season's biggest race with a win in stage 1 and racked up two more sprint victories in the first week. Best of all, he won stage 21 on Paris's Champs-Elysees, arguably the most important victory for a pure sprinter like himself.
This How the Race Was Won highlight reel covers the Tour's final five stages (although you'll have to excuse Cosmo Catalano's goofy Werner Herzog-inspired narration).
4. Rockwell breaks Vouilloz's streak aboard ATX oneDH
Turning back the clock 14 years and changing to a very different racing discipline, we remember Myles Rockwell's winning run at the 2000 UCI Downhill World Championships. Until then, French phenomenon Nicolas Vouilloz had a stranglehold on the world of downhill mountain biking, winning the rainbow jersey four times in five years. Then, the American came along on his Giant ATX oneDH and rode away with the title.
3. Dumoulin becomes first Dutch Giro winner on Trinity TT bike
One of the most exciting grand tours in the last decade, the 2017 Giro d'Italia came down to the final time trial in Milan. Up until that point, the Colombian climber Nairo Quintana had been harrying Tom Dumoulin through the final mountain stages, building up his lead in the pink jersey. It wasn't enough, though. Dumoulin, the outright time trial master in that Giro, won the overall on the final day aboard his Giant Trinity.
2. Degenkolb's magic spring capped off in Roubaix on a Defy
Everything fell into place for John Degenkolb in 2015. The German won the first Monument Classic of the season in Milano-Sanremo. Then, three weeks later, he won the 2015 Paris-Roubaix, becoming the first German to do so since Josef Fischer was victorious in the inaugural running of the "Hell of the North" in 1896. Degenkolb did so with canny tactics, waiting out his rivals in a small lead group and timing his sprint perfectly for the final corner of the Roubaix velodrome.
1. Danny Hart. Champery. Need we say more?
Possibly the most viral bike race video of all-time, Danny Hart's winning run at 2011 UCI Downhill World Championships in Champery, France was one for the ages. Even if you watched it on mute, you'd appreciate his fearless handling skills, sliding and jumping his Giant Glory all the way down the muddy hill. But the full experience must include the commentary from Rob Warner and Nigel Page. The memorable quotes come fast and thick: "Danny, stay on your bike!" "Look at the whip!" "How does he sit down with balls that big?" It's hard to find another race clip that matches that level of drama, energy, and pure entertainment.