Giant Defy Advanced 3

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.

This isn't an especially lightweight bike, weighing in at 9.5kg (21.0lb), but the fact that it's so comfortable means you can happily keep ticking off the miles all day.

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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 for over 20 years – is that this reduces the size of the front and rear triangles to create a lighter, stiffer frame. On the flip side, Giant does need to fit a longer than usual seatpost in order to get the saddle height right.

Giant Defy Advanced.jpg

Anyway, the head tube on this large size is 210mm, and that's pretty tall; the reach is 390mm – not too far – and the stack is 605mm – generous.

For comparison, a large sized Giant TCR race bike has a stack that's 24mm lower and a reach that's 11mm 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 a little higher and a little closer to the saddle than on a standard race 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.

Giant Defy Advanced - riding 3.jpg

Even putting the geometry to one side, I found the Defy Advanced 3 to be really comfortable. For a start, it comes with 25mm-wide tyres, although that's pretty much the norm nowadays. There's plenty of clearance for 28s if you want to go wider, and I tried 30mm tyres too, although that left just a tiny arc of daylight between the rubber and the fork crown.

Giant Defy Advanced - fork clearance.jpg

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. The top tube has a D-shaped profile, flat at the top, rounded at the bottom, and this is designed to do a similar job.

Giant Defy Advanced - rear.jpg

Then there's Giant's D-Fuse seatpost. As the name suggests, it's D-shaped too, the flat edge at the back. The idea is that it can flex slightly in that direction to help remove 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 and that makes a big difference to the way the bike feels. You can occasionally feel the post bend just a touch if you really whack the bike into a pothole, for example.

Giant Defy Advanced - saddle and post.jpg

I won't go on about the saddle too much because tastes vary so widely, but the best I can say about the Giant Contact (Neutral) is that I didn't really notice it all that much. Usually when you notice a saddle it's because it's inflicting pain or at least annoying you a bit. If I'm not particularly aware of a saddle then everything's dandy.

Giant makes some really good saddles these days. The Contact is fairly flat with quite a broad nose. The upper features a pressure relief channel down the centre, high-density foam padding and what Giant calls its 'Particle Flow Technology' where material held in pockets within the structure can mould to your body.

Giant Defy Advanced - saddle.jpg

Anyway, you get the idea: this is a really comfortable bike. I'd have preferred a larger diameter handlebar to spread the weight on the hands a little more and, while we're about it, some thicker bar tape, but 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.

Giant Defy Advanced - bars 2.jpg

As mentioned up top, this isn't an especially lightweight bike but it still 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/chainstay area (it takes an 86mm-wide BB) holds 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.

Giant Defy Advanced - bottom bracket.jpg

Tearing downhill is a definite positive in all conditions thanks to a well-balanced frame and the key feature that I've not yet mentioned, the Shimano BR-RS405 hydraulic disc brakes.

Giant Defy Advanced - front disc brake.jpg

Nine times out of 10 when we review a disc brake bike we say that if you're not down with the brakes, no sweat, just go with a rim brake bike from the model range instead. The thing is, though, that Giant makes its Defy bikes (all of them, including the Advanced Pro and Advanced SL models) disc-brake only these days. There's no rim brake Defy in the range anymore 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 for 2015, initially sticking with open-ended dropouts front and rear. Now the wheels are held in place by thru-axles to better handle the forces associated with disc brakes. Dropping out a wheel isn't quite as quick but that's unlikely to be a huge issue with a bike of this kind.

Giant Defy Advanced - fork detail.jpg

The Shimano BR-RS405 brakes are Tiagra level and they work well on 160mm rotors to provide loads of smooth, easily regulated power. I must say that I struggle with the bulbous look of the shifters. I'm not one for judging bikes and components on looks – I try not to do that, anyway – but these aren't pretty. They're functional, though, and provide a vast acreage of space where you can perch your hands, and I'm sure they have a great personality once you get to know them.

Giant Defy Advanced - bars and shifter.jpg

Tiagra is a 10-speed groupset and here you get a wide-ranging 11-32-tooth cassette matched up with a 50/34-tooth chainset, as you do on every other Defy right up to the £3,699 Advanced SL 1. 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.

> Read our review of the Shimano Tiagra groupset here

> Find out how Shimano 105 and Tiagra compare here

Overall

The Giant Defy Advanced 3 isn't a lightweight gazelle of a bike but it handles superbly and it's highly comfortable. 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 wider tyres, it'll happily do that year-round. Plus, with a really good frameset, Shimano Tiagra groupset and hydraulic disc brakes, it offers impressive value for money.

> Buyer's Guide: 10 of the best £1,000-£1,500 road bikes

In comparison, Trek’s endurance-focused Domane ALR 4 Disc is aggressively priced at £1,400, but although that bike has a similar parts package the frame is alloy rather than carbon. Merida’s £1,600 Ride 4000 has a carbon frame and a full carbon fork, and it also has a 105 groupset – a level higher than the Giant’s Tiagra components. Unlike the Giant, though, it has rim brakes rather than hydraulic disc brakes.

If you’re after a carbon frame and hydraulic disc brakes, the Giant is a great buy.

Verdict

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