As promised, our review of the Giant Trance X1. The Trance X range of bikes is Giant's 'ultiamte trail bike series', designed to go up and downhill equally well.
We rode it during our extensive training period, in which a whole range or riders (from singletrack experts to fish out of water roadies), took our range of test bikes out to Afan.
Giant’s 5 inch travel XC range has been getting glowing reviews from the bike mags and after we’d had a go we almost totally agree. A stunning looking frame that looks like it’s going to offer a nice climbing platform, good standover height and a balanced ride. It does. But we did say almost...
Before we get into the good stuff it’s worth mentioning that it seemed
to be the bike that had more people coming off it than any other. This
might be because it was a bad fit for some of us, but it seemed to
offer slightly less grip on the relatively dry surface than most of the
other stuff tested. We reckon it’s mostly to do with the stock tyres.
You just didn’t feel totally confident going into corners on the
Kenda’s, which led to a few scrapes and bruises. It wasn’t only the
tyres though, amongst some of the riders there were gripes about the
less than impressive brakes. They didn’t really seem to offer the
progressive control that you'd expect from this sort of bike.
That said we really liked this bike and it's easy pedalling. Thanks to the stiff rear end and the Maestro suspension system (that seems to get better every year), it never felt too heavy on the fire road climbs, never
felt like you were dragging a bulky five-inch ride. 
The downhill sections, forgetting the less than inspiring tyres for a sec, were an absolute blast to ride. The suspension set up was plush, sucking up the roots and rocks, allowing for point and shoot downhill segments without ever feeling like it was coming close to being maxed out.
So it climbs brilliantly for a five inch ride and goes down very nicely. But to be honest that 50/50 balance is exactly what you'd expect from a modern XC bike. This good looking bike just let us down slightly on the spec.
| Ascending | 9/10 |
| Descending | 7/10 |
| Appearance | 8/10 |
| Spec | 6/10 |
