Giant Defy Advanced 3 2021

Giant's Defy Advanced 3, the most affordable Defy in the current range, is an endurance road bike that offers a smooth ride and the precise power of hydraulic disc brakes, and it's very good value. It doesn’t bubble and fizz like some race bikes but it’s a dependable setup for getting in the big miles in comfort.

This isn't an especially lightweight bike, weighing in at 9.1kg, but the fact that it's so comfortable means you can happily keep ticking off the miles all day long.

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As ever, the geometry has a huge effect on the Defy Advanced 3's character and comfort. I've been riding a large-sized model with a 575mm top tube and a seat tube that's 535mm – much shorter than it otherwise would be because Giant slopes the top tube downwards in its usual Compact Road Design style. The idea – and it's one that Giant has been basing designs on since 1997 – is that this reduces the size of the frame triangles to create a lighter, stiffer product. On the flip side, Giant does need to fit a longer than normal seatpost to get the saddle height right.

The head tube on this large size is 205mm, which is tall; the reach is 390mm – not too far – and the stack is 605mm – generous.

For comparison, a large-sized Giant TCR Advanced race bike has a stack that's 24mm lower and a reach that's 12mm longer, putting you into an archetypal racing position. The Defy Advanced, in contrast, is fairly relaxed. I've not found myself riding bolt upright in the saddle over the past few weeks – far from it – but the handlebar is positioned higher and closer to the saddle than on a more race-focused bike, meaning you don't need to bend your back as much or extend your neck to the same degree for a clear view of the road ahead. If a standard race bike geometry leaves you aching, perhaps this setup, dialled back a couple of notches, will work better for you.

One other aspect of the geometry to bear in mind is that the wheelbase is pretty lengthy – 1,025mm on the large model that I’ve been riding. Even though the 72.5-degree head tube angle and not-too-long 110mm stem make for steering that’s pretty nippy, this isn’t a bike that becomes a handful over rough roads.

Even putting geometry to one side, the Defy Advanced 3 is a really comfortable bike. For a start, it comes fitted with 32mm Giant Gavia Fondo 1 tyres which we measured at nearly 34mm on Giant’s S-R2 Disc wheels. The maximum tyre size that Giant recommends is 35mm – not enough for full-on gravel riding but sufficient for everything short of that. This width would have been unthinkable on a road bike of this kind just a few years ago. The last time we reviewed a Defy Advanced 3 it was fitted with 25s.

The other thing you need to know about this system is that it’s tubeless – not just tubeless-ready but set up tubeless from the off. This isn’t the place for a full discussion of the pros and cons of tubeless but it does allow you to run low pressures without the risk of a pinch flat, so you can get a really soft ride if that’s what you’re after.

The S-R2 Disc wheels are a little heavy but I’ve no complaints about the performance. They’ve proved to be reliable over a test period of several months.

The seatstays are slim and taper to almost flat at the point where they reach the seat tube. That junction is low so the angle of the seatstays is small, and Giant says this helps dissipate vibrations from the road.

Then there's Giant's D-Fuse seatpost. As the name suggests, its profile is D-shaped too, with the flat edge at the back. The idea is that it can flex slightly in that direction to help reduce road buzz (the shape has the side benefit of ensuring you never set your saddle slightly off-centre by mistake). 

The Compact Road Design that I mentioned earlier means you'll almost certainly have loads of seatpost extending out of the frame – I’m long in the leg so I had yards of it – and that makes a difference to the ride. You can occasionally feel the post bend just a touch if you accidentally whack the bike into an unseen pothole, for example.

I won't go on about the saddle too much because tastes vary so widely, but I didn’t notice the Giant Approach all that much in use. Usually, when your attention is drawn to a saddle mid-ride it’s because it's uncomfortable or annoying you a bit. If I'm not particularly aware of a saddle then everything's cool.

Giant makes some really good saddles these days. The steel-railed Approach (270mm long, 145mm wide) isn’t particularly light but there’s a degree of flex in the shell, a pressure-relieving hole in the centre, and you get what Giant calls ‘Particle Flow Technology’. This features, in Giant’s own words, “high-elastic, free-flowing particles inserted into two separate pockets in the padding and reduces pelvic pressure by more than 20 per cent when compared with traditional foam by distributing pressure across a broader contact area”.

Essentially, it means that the saddle moulds to your shape to provide comfort and support, and it worked very well for me.

The aluminium Giant Contact SL D-Fuse handlebar is designed to provide comfort too, and the slightly flattened top sections increase the contact area to reduce pressure when you’re riding with your hands up there. I certainly didn’t feel any particular harshness at the front end during testing. 

The downside of that shaping is that there wasn’t enough round-section handlebar to take the clamp of my Wahoo out-front computer mount. I had to go with a stem-top mount instead.

Anyway, you get the idea: this is a really comfortable bike. The sum total of all the design features is that you can ride the Defy Advanced 3 for hours without feeling too jolted, vibrated or generally shaken up.

As mentioned up top, the Defy Advanced 3.0 isn't mega-lightweight but at just over 9kg it isn’t heavy for a disc brake bike at this price. It responds well when you increase the watts. I was actually surprised when we put the Defy Advanced 3 on the scales because it rides like a lighter bike with a distinct performance edge.

The whopping great lump of a bottom bracket area and asymmetric chainstays hold steady even when you crank out a power PR…

…and the tapered head tube – it's Giant's Overdrive design with a 1 1/8in upper bearing and a 1 1/4in lower bearing – offers plenty of steering stiffness (although not as much as you get with the Overdrive 2 setup on the higher level Defy Advanced Pro and Defy Advanced SL models). You'll have no worries at all on that front.

Tearing downhill is a definite positive in all conditions thanks to a well-balanced frame and a key feature that I've not yet mentioned, the Shimano Tiagra hydraulic disc brakes.

All of Giant’s Defy bikes are disc-brake only. There's no rim brake Defy in the range so if you're not into discs, well, you're going to have to look elsewhere, I'm afraid. Sorry about that and all.

Giant ditched rim brakes on its carbon Defys back in 2015, initially sticking with open-ended dropouts front and rear. These days the wheels are held in place by 12mm thru-axles.

The 2020 Defy Advanced 3 featured Giant Conduct disc brakes (hydraulic brakes with a cable-actuated master cylinder) but these have now been ditched in favour of Shimano Tiagra hydraulic disc brakes that work on 160mm rotors to provide loads of smooth, easily regulated power. Tiagra-level shifters are a whole lot better looking than they used to be too, the hood shape having been refined. There’s a small lump where the hose exits the lever but it’s unlikely to be an issue.

Tiagra is a 10-speed groupset and here you get a wide-ranging 11-34-tooth cassette matched up with a 50/34-tooth chainset, as you do on every other Shimano-equipped Defy (SRAM’s gearing the £5,499 Defy Advanced Pro 1 is different). It's a setup that suits an endurance bike where the ability to tackle a tough climb comfortably at the end of a 100-miler is more important than sprinting full-gas to the finish line.

Tiagra is a really impressive groupset that doesn't lag far behind next-level-up 105 these days.

The money bit

Looking at rivals in terms of price, Trek’s endurance-focused Domane SL 4 Disc is £2,325. It also has a carbon fibre frame and a mostly Shimano Tiagra groupset although it’ll take even wider tyres, up to 38mm. The Domane’s big selling point is its use of Trek’s IsoSpeed tech where the seat tube is decoupled from the top tube and a rocker cup at the top of the headset allows the steerer tube to flex. The idea is to improve comfort and allow you to feel fresher for longer.

> Buyer’s Guide: 17 of the best disc brake endurance bikes for 2021

The Van Rysel EDR CF 105 Disc Road 2021 that Stu reviewed for road.cc recently offers incredible value at £2,229.99. The Shimano 105 groupset is a level higher than the Giant’s Tiagra and the bike as a whole is almost 1kg lighter, although you are paying an extra £130. 

Bear in mind, though, that we found the Van Rysel to be as much a race bike as an endurance bike, including in terms of its geometry. Also, consider that the Van Rysel’s price is ridiculously low for what you’re getting. The Giant Defy Advanced 3 is still a great buy compared with the market as a whole.

Overall

The Giant Defy Advanced 3 isn't a gazelle of a bike like the more race-focused TCR but it's certainly not dull either. It handles superbly, it's highly comfortable, and with space for tyres up to 35mm, it can take you off the beaten track too.

This bike is at its best when getting in the big miles on less than perfect roads and, with the ability to take mudguards and wide tyres, it'll happily do that year-round. Plus, with a really good frameset and Shimano Tiagra groupset – including hydraulic disc brakes – it offers impressive value for money.

Verdict

Smooth-riding endurance bike that offers hydraulic disc brakes and plenty of value