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 2007 Giant Glory 8 Freeride Review

Check out this ride a friend of mine managed to get his hands on. He left the country to travel for a bit, so I managed to convince him to let me “test drive” it and look after it for him while he was away. It is the new 2007 Giant Glory 8 Freeride frameset built up with Shimano Saint components, Syncros parts, and Manitou suspension.

The Freeride Machine

He built this ride up over the long, wet cold, winter and just cracked it out for a ride here and there early in the spring.  I have been “looking after it” and riding it since May and I would have to say what a ride it is. Nick-named the “Mushsticken”, due to the very plush 8 inches of Manitou suspension front and rear, this bike rides like a Lazy Boy Sofa when ripping downhill.

Here is the part spec on this Freeride machine.

Frame Set            Giant Glory 8 Freeride ALUXX SL aluminium, 203mm Travel
Rear Shock           Manitou Revox 222 x 70 w/ 400 x 2.75 Titanium Spring
Front Fork           Manitou Travis Triple Titanium Intrinsic 203mm Travel
Stem                     Manitou Integrated Stem
Handle Bar           Syncros BULK 7075 - 40mm rise, 690mm w, 9 deg sweep 31.8
Seat Post              Syncros Micro Adjust 7075 Post 27.2 with Telescopic post 30.9
Saddle                   Fi’zi:k Gobi Wing Flex
Pedals                   Syncros Mental Alloy Pedals
Front Shifter        Shimano XT Rapid Fire Shifter SL-M760
Rear Shifter         Shimano Saint SL-M800 Rapid Fire Shifter  
Front Derailleur    Saint 34.9mm FD-805 Top Swing Bottom Pull
Rear Derailleur    Saint RD-M806GS
Brake Levers       Saint BL-M800
Brakes Front       Saint BR-M800
Brakes Rear        Saint BR-M800
Brake Rotors      Saint Center Lock 203mm SM-RT80
Cassette              Shimano XT 11-34 CS-M760
Chain                   Shimano XT CN-HG93
BB                        Saint
Crank Set           Saint Hollowtech II 175mm 32-22T/Bash Guard FC-M805-2
Hubs FRONT    Saint 20mm Through Axel HB-M801
Hubs REAR       Saint 12mm x 150 FH-M806
Rims Front        Mavic EX 823 Tubeless (Spoke Calc-Left 256 - Right-258)
Rims Rear         Mavic EX 823 Tubeless (Spoke Calc-Left 258 - Right-256)
Spokes               Black Stainless Steel Straight Gauge
Tires Rear         Continental Digga 2.5 Tubeless
Tires Rear         Michelin DH 32 A/T 2.8 Tubeless
Grips                  Syncros Lock Jaw
Head Set            Syncros FBI Reducer Headset 1.5-1 1/8

Love the Manitou Revox Rear Shock

 

Love the Travis front Fork

The Saint Components are Bomb Proof

 

I weight about 140lbs soaking wet, and maybe with all the gear on about 145-150 lbs. The Giant Glory Freeride 8 with the part spec isn’t the lightest steed in the stable. The weight of this bike is in the neighbourhood of 46-49 lbs depending on what scale you use. Either way that is about 1/3 my body weight.

Riding this machine uphill is difficult, but not impossible. I was extremely impressed with the Giant Maestro suspension design on this bike as for bike with 8 inches of travel all around it pedaled extremely well with what felt like little to no pedal induced bob. All the XC trails I rode with my lighter weight Freeride / XC bike I can ride with this Giant Glory. I might not ride them as fast, but I can still ride and clean most of them.

Getting this beast to the top of the mountain is well worth the effort as descending any given trail on this machine is pure bliss. By the time you get gravity working for you, you will have forgotten the pain and suffering you just went through to get the Glory 8 to the top.

Obviously a bike that is setup like this one would excel well in any bike park. I have taken this bike up to North America’s (if not the entire world) #1 bike park : Whistler a number of times already. Talk about an awesome testing ground for DH and freeride oriented bikes. The trails were beautifully compact, the lift lines were short, and the variety of trails unparalleled.

If you are an avid Freeride or DH mountain biker, you must at one point in your life come to Whistler and ride the park. Be sure to check out my Whistler article about the bike camp I recently just wrote. You will feel like a little kid in a candy store the entire day and you will be amazed at some of the features and stunts this place has to offer. There is lots of stuff to get your heart racing and loads of stuff where you can’t believe that people ride and launch themselves off of.

Anyhow back to the Giant Glory 8.  I have taken the “Mushsticken” on a variety of trails in the Vancouver Area including the world famous North Shore, to the hidden gems of Eagle and Burke Mountains and I have even taken it numerous times on the XC classic Burnaby Mountain.

No matter what kind of trail: steep and technical to fun and flowing the Giant Glory 8 Freeride AKA “The Mushsticken” performed wonderfully well. Am I saying this a good one bike does everything bike? No not at all, far from it,  but if you have the skill, lungs and ability to handle a big machine like this up and down the hills, it will perform marvellously well for you.

The Glory pedaled well through the technical trails, it corners phenomenally well due to the low bottom bracket height and as mentioned above the slack head angles give you the opportunity to sit back comfortably in the cockpit and ride the bike fast and furious.

You can ride this bike like you are playing a video game through your favourite trails conquering pretty much anything you want until your brain and fear kicks in and tells you that the stunt/obstacle you are contemplating is really stupid and you could possibly get really hurt! I figure no matter what bike you are on, there is no love loss in walking away from something as I would rather walk away, and ride another day than eat dirt hard, break myself and the bike and not be able to ride for awhile!

What I did notice on the Giant Glory 8 was due to the low bottom bracket height, I did have to make a conscious effort to make sure my pedal placement was in the right place at all times. There have been a number of occasions where I have been coming around corners or rolling over some rocky terrain where I have clipped the pedals on stuff. I would have figured that I would have hit the bottom of the rear shock that sticks out of the bottom of the down tube more frequently, but I have yet to hit anything with it.

There is one thing that sort of annoys me about this bike and it pertain to the seat post area. The annoyance is the fact that I have to run a telescopic seat post due to the amount of seat post I need for climbing. Those telescopic seat posts are so whacked that just adjusting them up and down is just a bit of a hassle.

Having to use a Telescopic Seat Post Sucks!

Giant did a great job on this frameset. The matte black tubing presents nicely and the makes the bike look stealth and fast. I’m not sure if I am a big fan of the big “Giant 8″ graphics on the frame, but it’s not my bike, so I really don’t care too much. I like that the cable routing points seemed to be all in the right places allowing the brake and shifter cables to run and lay naturally and cleanly.  The imbedded Giant Logo on the front of the head tube looks really sharp with the matte black. The only drawback on the matte finish is trying to clean the frame when it gets muddy or dirty. The dirt seems to stick to the frame a bit better than if the finish was polished.  

I believe though that a bike is only the platform that you ride and the other side of the story is the part spec. As you can see from the parts listed above,the part specification for this bike is completely customized for a Freeeride/Downhill application and a pretty good one at that.

The parts that I notice make the biggest difference in my riding are:

a) Manitou Suspension
The suspension technology in the Manitou Travis front fork and the Revox rear shock are so plush and smooth it is indescribable. The Travis with 203mm of travel definitely gives me the confidence in riding things that I never rode before on my other bike and the Revox, well the Revox just feels like butter. Both the front fork and the rear shock  are using Titanium springs which lightens some weight and give abit of a softer ride compared to a standard heavy steel spring. Both of these suspension elements have been factory tuned at Manitou and they seem to just work in perfect harmony with each other. The bike just feels like a well oiled machine with the Travis and the Revox.

b) Saint Brakes
This entire bike is pretty much the Shimano Saint groupo and all of it is awesome,  but the Saint brakes stand out big time over all the other parts! These Saint brakes are marvellous. I can’t begin to say how much nicer these brake feel and perform over my HFX Hayes 9 brakes on my own bike. There is a night and day difference. These Saint brakes have awesome braking power in pretty much any condition and the modulation is outstanding. I really really like these brakes and I can’t say enough good things about them. If you are looking for hydraulic disk brakes and are undecided, I definitely recommend these Saint brakes. They are stupid easy to bleed too!

c) Tubeless Rims and Tubeless Tires
For a big bike, the wheel set on this bike is relatively light. The Saint hubs are a bit burly and heavy, but the Mavic 829 Tubeless rims with the Michelin Tubeless front tire and Continental Digga 2.5 rear tire are great combination. The rubber compounds on both tires seem to just want to stick to everything, yet the wear-ability has been remarkable. I have used them since late April and there has been little sign of wear so far. With the tubeless setup, you can run lower tire pressure because you don’t have to worry about pinch flats and the lower tire pressure gives you more traction on the ground. I am a big big fan of the tubeless and you can notably feel the difference between the rolling resistance and acceleration of a normal rim and tube tire to a tubeless setup.

This bike is awesome. I am can just imaging what it would have cost to put this rig together. No idea, maybe in the $5000-$6000 range at full retail? Whatever it is, my friend did a good job and I will be sad when the day comes that I have to give the “Mushsticken” back, but until then, I am going to try and throw everything I can at this bike and ride it like crazy.

 

websites-for all the parts
Giant Bicycles
Syncros
Answer Products
Fizik
Mavic
Shimano
Michelin
Continental Tires
 

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