One Giant leap…
The TCR’s original concept came from legendary British bike designer and engineer, Mike Burrows. Like all great innovators, Mike has a reputation for stepping away from the normal. He’d been a long-time advocate of single-sided fork and frame designs (for aero benefits), he was obsessive about correct crank length, and saw the traditional two-triangle, horizontal top-tube design of a road frame as archaic. His out-of-the-box thinking led to amazing, radical and proven designs, such as the Lotus Type 108 that Chris Boardman propelled to Olympic pursuit gold in 1992, and on which Boardman set the hour record in 1996. The story didn’t end there, though – the 108 was outlawed by the UCI and that hour record scratched from the official ‘athletes’ hour (Boardman took that record too, on a more conventional Look bike).
This wasn’t Burrows’ first (or last) run-in with cycling’s governing body, the UCI, as back in 1987 an early aerodynamic carbon monocoque was banned by suits in Aigle before the then-interested BCF (British Cycling Federation) had a chance to race it in competition.
Skip forward to the mid-1990s and Taiwanese brand Giant was one of the biggest bike makers in the world. An impressive feat as it’d only been in business since 1972 (overtaking huge marques such as Bianchi and Raleigh in the process). The company drove innovation with inventions, such as the mass-produced CADEX carbon bikes that launched as early as 1987. However, it had its sights set on becoming a leading brand in road cycling, and that meant professional sponsorship and a bike
