I wanted to love the bike mainly because of the price of bike for the tiagra parts. The bike was delivered pretty quick as others said. The bike was nearly scratch free except the one in the real quick release which was also pointed out by other reviewers.

The reason that I'm giving it only 3 stars is that the bike I received has some defects. The chainrings in the crank set is slightly misaligned, rubbing against the front shifter guide at its extreme gear settings. I searched the web for the solution and some said that the cause of the loosen crank bolt but it didn't solve my problem. I think I may need to disassemble the crank from the bottom bracket to align it better. (I'm waiting for a solution about this from giantnerd)

Also, although expected, the rims were not true. Stem was slightly misoriented. Shifting levers were not securely installed; one of them was out of the right position so I made it right and tightened.

Overall, the bike is decent for the price but don't expect much about the quality. I have a cannondale caad 8 tiagra bike which I bought at my LBS for $750 including tax; and the caad 8 is way better than this in terms of the quality. (yeah there is price difference but at least you can't expect such a high quality bike for the price you are paying for this) The weight of the bike including the pedal was 21.6 lbs for XS size.

Equipped with nice shifters/derarilleur. Lite. I would get clipless pedals though. Great service too.

nice setup with aluminum frame and carbon fork. shifters integrated with the brakes is really handy. I didn't care for the pedals it came with, that had the clips and the strap. I went with a clipless pedal, much better. I was afraid that I would not be able to clip out and fall, but it was easy. Great bike for any beginner, will not find a better deal for a beginner bike.

I purchased 2 of these bikes one for myself & the other for my Grandson who is in Special Olympics and has taken up cycling. You probably wonder how can a special Olympics person ride a road bike, well he had ADD and dexterity problems so he has a hard time writing and needs a para pro but other than that he does well. Received the bike while I was away on vacation by my neighbor and went I got back started the assembly. First I built a stand to make the job easier. To be honest it too longer too unwrap the packing that it took to put the bikes together. Before I even purchased the bikes I went on to u-tube and looked how to adjust the rear & front derailleurs so once I started putting them together it would all fall into place.
After getting the seat post in place I was able to put the bike in the rack to install the front break, the tire, handlebars & adjust the breaks I was ready to get started. Again watching the u-tube videos I made the adjustments to the rear derailleur first then the front for a fine tuning and after that the bike was ready to go. To do both bikes it took approximately 2 hours and they both work as expected. Only because it was a dry day I took both out for a spin and the gears shifted flawlessly now all I have to do is the seat adjustment and decide if I want the stem up instead of down where I have it right now. I will say like others if you get this bike for half off the MSRP you got a deal if not well maybe you over paid a little for it and if you didn't order Genius build you saved another $79.95 & in my case purchasing 2 $159.90. So if you are having trouble with the gears again go to u-tube and search how to adjust the Rear derailleur first and then the Front derailleur next if it needs fine tuning. For the money these bikes are awesome and with my Nerd Dollars I got the Shimano R-540 clip-less road pedals and extra 23c road tubes. All this means that my Grandson will win more Gold metals at the Michigan State Special Olympic games this year with better times and possibly have a chance to advance to the US Special Olympics.

To write an objective review as much possible as I can. I waited until after putting on 200 miles. I didn’t order the tuning by GiantNerd as I think that it may still need tuning after it was delivered. This turned out to be a good decision as the LBS tuned the entire bike including the rear wheel (out of alignment) and the regular tune up.

The good
The standard shipping took only 5 days, and the box arrived in a good condition without any damages. But the rear wheel lever stuck out of the box purposely and fortunately it was not damaged during shipping. This may be something to improve for packaging.
The bike is light and the white frame has an aesthetic appealing. I’m 6 foot tall and weight 195 lbs and the large size fits me ok, but an XL size may fit better.
This particular tire brand and model gets some bad reviews online. After 200 miles, they still look good and hold the air well. I just need to pump them after a few rides.

The bad
The biggest complaint is the handlebar being shorter than my shoulder width. I think that I have a normal shoulder width for a 6 footer with 195 lbs. With this short handlebar, the rides are not as comfortable as they would have been.
Sometimes there is a slight noise coming from the crankcase area even on the middle rear gears. Sounds like the chain is rubbing slightly the front guide. I had the bike tuned at a LBS twice and the noise is still there sometimes. The same noise comes back on the large front gear with the largest rear gear – this may be the cross chaining that I’m not supposed to use. But the noise is there for small front gear with largest rear gear.
The white tape on the handlebar looks nice and matches the white frame. But it gets dirty easily and the bike came with some dark marks on the white tape.
One minor issue is that it does not come with the screws for the water bottle cages. I had to buy the crews. It was more a matter of being inconvenient than the cost.

The reason for a 2-star rating is that I won’t buy this model again and will recommend friends to shop around.

I usually don't write reviews but this bike deserves one.

I'm not a triathlete... or a competitive rider. I run 3-5 times a week and decided to look into roadbiking as a more friendly-on-the-knees cardio alternative. Was also excited about the prospect of saving some gas money by riding to work. I did some research and was a bit overwhelmed with the sheer number of road bike manufacturers. That being said...

This bike has been fantastic. I've had it for a couple months now. It looks great and rides smooth. I am 5' 7'', 165 lbs and the medium frame fits like a glove. The shifting is clean and responsive. The brakes still make a bit of noise, but the hardware is solid so I assume it's just a matter of me wearing them in. The bike is light as heck as well. If you want a sexy ride with performance to spare then this is a great option.

FYI... My only quam is that it didn't come with a water bottle rack but the description didn't say it did. $10 on Amazon later and problem fixed.

I've had this bike about 2 weeks now and have put close to 300 miles on it. For reference I'm a competitive triathlete and cyclist, part time mechanic, and general bike enthusiast.

First the good: the shipping was amazingly quick, I got the free 10-15 day shipping over a holiday and the bike came 5 days from the order date, and was packed quite well with no scratches (even though the box was messed up). Everything is working well, the wheels were true, the few parts that were installed were installed quite well, and the tires and tubes were already installed. The bike itself is great, 10 speed Tiagra for the price is an amazing deal, and the geometry is spot on for my size and position. I'd buy the bike again in a second.

Now the bad: The bike does not have a tapered headtube and fork like the description says, it's straight 1-1/8. I was expecting this so I'm not really bothered, but the description should be fixed. The other bad point about the bike is the brakeset. The brakes work fine, but installing and working on them is not confidence inspiring; the quick release flexes like no brake I've ever used, and the bolts connecting the pads to the cartridges stripped the moment I touched them. They work fine and have adequate modulation and stopping power, but I'll probably be replacing them soon. The third negative is the chainrings. They shift okay, but are a little rough under load, and they flex enough under power to rub the front derailleur coming out of every single turn. I replaced them with a set of SRAM Red chainrings and it improved the shifting quality quite a bit. The white paint on the stem is also flaking a little where it clamps to the bars, but that's not much of an issue.

Overall the bike is still great, even with the few issues I would have no problem recommending it to friends, and I will have no issues using it as my crit bike next season.

I ordered the GTR series 3 a couple of weeks ago, and I don't usually right reviews, but I am so happy with it that I am making an exception this time.

First let me say that I ordered this bike to ride doing errands and to the gym all within 10 miles of my house. I am not a serious dress-up-in-the-latest-spandex kind of rider. That said the bike is incredibly light, and stiff. The components work promptly and smoothly. The bike looks awsome and rides like a dream.

Something you should know when ordering this bike is that it comes with pedals. The picture on the website shows the bike without them, but they come in the box with the bike, so don't waste your money ordering extras. The bike also needs to be set up by a proffesional bike mechanic to keep the warranty in place. Giantnerd will do this for $80.00, but I found a local shop that only charged $50.00, so maybe call around.

I used the standard shipping which quoted 10-14 business days to arrive, but my bike arrived 4 days later, so I am very happy with the shipping speed. However, there was a hole in the box that allowed the back wheel's quick release lever to get very scratched up, you may want to address this when ordering and ask for extra packaging around the back wheel hub. However, for the money I saved from buying this bike locally, I am willing to live with it.

Honestly, I could not be happier for the bikes weight, and preformance, especially for the money. Also as a side note, I read the owners manual and it says that the bike is made my the Cannondale company. I was thrilled with this because growing up I always wanted a Cannondale, and now it looks like I have one.