Field Test Review: 2022 Giant Trance Advanced Pro 1 - Eat, Pray, Live Valve?

Our test bike has electronically controlled suspension, but you could of course get it without. To say that the feel of this suspension didn’t somewhat dominate the conversation around the bike during testing would be untrue. However, the Trance's bedrock of good trail-focused geometry shouldn't be overlooked.

The Inclusion of Live Valve 1.5 and How We Used It

Before we get into that, let’s quickly go over what Fox Live Valve 1.5 is and how it’s changed from the previous version that was reviewed on the Giant Trance X. This new system still shares the same architecture, and sadly that still includes the unrefined, round-the-back-of-the-90s-television cabling. The new system isn’t a complete overhaul, and that’s what the 1.5 is representative of. The way it controls the suspension is different though, and that’s done on two fronts.


Firstly, and rather succinctly, this is far more passive than the previous version and feels like it’s less obvious. Secondly, it can now be controlled via an app. The app is very nice to use, and yes, for those of you wondering, I think it’s better than SRAM’s Flight Attendent app, and it never crashed or suffered from glitches as I used it.

In the app, you can fine tune compression levels for each setting. I think the app is executed well, but it does require a few more steps than a more 'traditional' setup. I’m used to setting damping and spring rate, not damping, spring rate, and the bias for an overriding system that controls what will happen in any number of varying situations.

There are some pre-selected modes. The two I found myself moving towards were Climb and Sport. There are others, and even the option to download additional ones. Climb mode acts like Sport on everything other than uphill sections. Fox say that Climb mode "Keeps the fork open for increased traction on technical climbing and increases rear thresholds. Sport behavior on flat terrain and descents." So, when you do go uphill, it firms up the rear but also opens up the fork and lets it sit into its travel. If there were to be a setting for a downcountry test, this would surely be it. It’s for that reason that I predominantly used this mode.

The Other Important Details

The Giant isn’t just Live Valve, even if that does grab the headlines. It’s a bike that has plenty of other things going for it, too. The other highlights include its integrated storage, progressive geometry, and an aggressive spec. The whole bike seems to place more of an emphasis on descending rather than climbing. That’s not to say it can’t climb, but it was the heaviest bike on test with the burliest spec.

That’s no bad thing, either. In fact, the geometry seems to be a near-wholesale inclusion of trail and enduro ideals. Whereas some bikes on this test have a slack head angle paired with slightly slacker seat tube angles or lower stack heights, this isn’t the case with the Giant. It pairs those enduro-like dimensions with a steeper seat tube angle. This, in turn, gives a more upright riding position. It’s quite similar to the Niner that we also had on test in this regard.


The Trance also has a flip chip that delivers a solid 0.7-degrees of adjustment. This is nearly double the 0.4-degrees on the Trek Top Fuel. I’m not saying I’m ever sold on the idea of flip-chips but, a lot like the Rocky Mountain Element, at least it gives a real adjustment.

The Maestro system delivers 120mm of travel at the rear of the bike, which is paired to a 130mm fork. It also features an internally adjustable Trans-X seatpost that lets the rider fine-tune their amount of drop. It’s a good execution of the idea, and although the lever is slightly clunky it does a great job. The bike has Shimano’s 4-pot brakes on stopping duties. Interestingly, this bike came with fin-less sintered pads. I’m not sure if this is the standard spec, or they just preempted Levy complaining about the rattling.

One small criticism I have about the bike is that it kept dropping chains. We had XT drivetrains on bikes that didn’t have the same problem. This could potentially point towards the Praxis chainring or lack of a chain device being the problem.




Climbing

The previous version of Live Valve drew firm praise for the way it climbed on the longer travel Trance X. As previously mentioned, the new system is a lot less obvious. Mike Levy, who spent a lot of time on the original version, said that it did feel like less of a rocket ship on the climbs, but I still think it did all that it needed to quite well. That said, the big step in progress with this new system is you can fine tune its influence on your suspension.

In fairness to Live Valve, it does make the bike feel a little more spritely. However, it does feel out of place on a bike that recommends as little as 20-25% sag. If I were to ever want to bolt on self-adjusting suspension on my bike, I would want to really give it something to counteract - for instance, if this bike ran 35% sag on a coil-sprung shock the Live Valve concept would make even more sense to me.

The Trance does climb well, as you'd hope for a bike with computer controlled suspension. There is plenty of grip, but there is also the added weight. The bike is very adept at finding traction in the unlikeliest of places. It also manages to do this without inducing any energy-sapping movement from the shock. It may not be the absolute fastest bike in this category, but your weight sits in a good place and the bars are in a great position to apply weight to the front, especially in the Climb mode with the fork more open.

The steep seat tube angle plays a large part in this, too. The Trance is a fundamentally good climber, and it benefits from this very comfortable position, but it is never going to set the world alight on the way up. It was the slowest on the singletrack climb, and quite frankly I don't really know where the time went. It is a touch heavy, but it never felt particularly slow.

Running it in fully-open mode does usher in a degree of pedal bob. However, by our efficiency test the results are minimal, at around 2 seconds slower over the same course at the same power. Moving back to the timed singletrack climb, it was the slowest of the downcountry bikes with a time of 2:45 in Climb mode. In open it was even slower at 2:47. Are all these extra complications worth 2 seconds? And would it be faster if it was lighter?

I would be very curious to see how this bike compares when fitted with a standard Fox shock, and I would imagine it would offer a bit more platform than the electronically adjusted model in Open.




The performance of the Live Valve does generally blend into the bike on the descents, but that’s not to say there aren’t instances where you notice it. Personally, I didn’t enjoy the unpredictable nature of the self-adjusting suspension. It sometimes felt as if the bike didn’t really know what to do with my body weight.

After trying the different available modes, I ended up predominantly riding this bike Climb mode, which firms up the rear suspension on the climbs while leaving the fork open to sit lower in its travel; the mode then automatically turns to Sport mode on flat or descending terrain. While this updated version of Live Valve is a major improvement over the first generation, there were still moments when it felt great until it suddenly didn’t. Through hard-hitting turns it often felt like I was hitting a wall of support in the shock, which would then pivot my weight forward and into my hands upon the exit of the turn. This wasn’t a one time occasion - it was predictably unpredictable.

It was the same problem with jumps. In Open mode, it takes to the air really well, but in other modes, if you have a reasonable run-in to a jump as you load the transition it will again provide you with a wall of support, sending weight into your hands and throwing your weight forward as you got airborne. I know this is only a short travel bike and you probably won’t be hitting huge booters, but at the same time, this was quite disconcerting.

Verdict

The trails in our test loop were very downcountry appropriate, and not overly technical or complicated. That said, Levy is right to point out that there are terrains and riders out there that Live Valve will likely suit—some people are really going to like it, and I think it does do some things well. A good candidate for the Giant Trance is a trail rider, not doing anything too aggressive, just someone who likes to cover swathes of ground in comfort.

Ultimately, I liked the Giant in spite of its electronic suspension and not because of it - I'd love a chance to see what this bike can really do with the system removed.

Overall the Trance has a solid foundation of good geometry and sensible parts, and for somebody who wants more efficiency while still having a bike that's very easy to ride this would do the job very well.

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