It’s also refreshing to see the bike come setup tubeless out of the box and the weight savings are noticeable – 12.76kg without pedals. It’s an impressive feat that Giant has managed to use Shimano kit across the drivetrain (except for the cranks and chain), with other brands speccing cheaper cassettes to help reduce costs. Whether you’re drifting or railing it the Giant is an accurate ride Steve Behr That means more rider fatigue in the long run when you’re trying to maintain a decent pace, which is less than ideal on longer trail rides. Pedal into a rough section of trail - whether going up, down or along the flat – and the Fathom struggles to maintain its forward momentum, not absorbing the chatter or rolling over bumps as comfortably or as easily as some of the other bikes might. While the taut frame means you feel like you’re getting almost every watt of power you put in transferred to the rear wheel - and it accelerates rapidly when you really get on the gas - the stiff back-end can beat you up when things get bumpy.
The Fathom’s beefy construction made itself apparent fairly early on during the testing process. Giant Fathom 2 ride impressionsĮxcited by the spec and the bike’s overall look I hopped onto the Giant with lofty expectations. Turning to Suntour for suspension duties probably saves Giant some cash over Fox or RockShox alternatives but, on paper at least, the fork doesn’t balk on features when compared to what the big brands can offer. Stopping is taken care of by Tektro HDM discs that run a 180mm front rotor and a 160mm rear. The Tektro brakes have fairly long lever blades, like all the other brakes on offer at this price range Steve Behr
The bike has a 145mm travel Giant-branded dropper post, a 1×10 Shimano Deore drivetrain and Suntour SF19-Raidon 32 fork with 120mm of travel. The Maxxis Ardent tyres are setup tubeless from the factory and are wrapped around 30mm internal-width Giant AM 650b rims. The Fathom’s party piece has to be its headline spec. Surprisingly, Giant has settled on a 67-degree head angle and a 45mm bottom bracket drop (with an off-the-floor height of 315mm), figures that I’d normally expect to be accompanied by longer reach and wheelbase numbers. Likewise, the 425mm chainstays suggest that the bike is designed to be more playful than Giant initially let on. Giant states that the bike’s geometry is trail-friendly, but there are some measurements that surprised me.įor the size large, a 444mm reach is a little on the conservative side, as is the 1,153mm wheelbase. There’s also a standard, tapered head tube and a tapered fork.Ĭrunch the numbers and it’s clear that Giant’s intentions are a little mixed. There are two bottle cage mounts - both inside the front triangle - but the stock dropper post on my large test bike fouled the seat tube bottle cage mount - stopping it from being fully inserted. The rear wheel is attached with the Boost QR 141 axle, which replaces a standard 12mm Boost axle in favour of a quick-release system. Unusually, the bike’s seatstays join the seat tube lower than the top tube, which Giant claims helps to increase the bike’s bump-absorbing ability and make the back-end feel smoother on rough terrain. Here, they continue their journey along the underside of the chainstays to the mech and brake caliper. There’s provision for a front mech on the bike if you’d like to add more gears, and the cables are routed internally through the down tube, exiting just above the bottom bracket. The Fathom is built around Giant’s own ALUXX SL aluminium tubing.