Road Cycling - Thoughts on new bike

I am currently looking at a new bike for racing. The bike I am looking at is a brand new stock Giant OCR 3. I was wondering what the rest of the group has heard about the Giant OCR bikes. I was also wondering what you guys/gals may think the advantages/disadvantages are for me. I'm currently riding an older huffy 10-speed all steel road bike (weighs in at 38lbs) and race in shorter duathlons (rides <50K). On my Huffy, I can average around 17MPH. What could I expect to average on the Giant OCR 3?

Well I am not familiar with the Giant but a 38 lb Huffy really is not a racing bike and unless you course is hill a 17 mph avs is not really a racing speed. I suspect that you are talking about club rides or organized rides rather than USCF races.

Be that as it may, I will assume that the Giant will be a 20-25 lb road bike and you should notice a marked improvement over the huffy. Being about 12 lbs lighter will make the new bike accelerate faster and probably it will corner better too because it should have a more aggressive geometry than the Huffy. If you were riding a straight flat course with no stops, you really would not see much improvement. But most rides that I have done have corners and stop signs so having an improvement in acceleration can easily add an mph or two to your average speed.

In my opinion going from a low end bike, like I think your Huffy is to a decent bike will be the biggest upgrade you will ever have. After that, improvements become smaller and more subtle but the increase in $ is large.

Here's a link to a few reviews:

http://www.roadbikereview.com/2002+Road/Giant+OCR+3/PRD_101355_4229crx.aspx

I had a look at one and was impressed for the money, it would certainly be a big improvement on what you've got. It's built much in the way MTB's are in three basic sizes with a sloping top-tube and a fair degree of variation in saddle and stem height. The welding is very much MTB frame style, strong enough, but not pretty. Judging from their MTB's, Giant make reasonably light frames, but at the bottom end use cheaper weightier components, hence I think it weighs about 23lb. Generally their frames are well worth using as a basis for an upgrade later.

Richard

I'm not a big fan of the OCR3. It is a fine example of "you get what you pay for." It simply is not a raceable bike. Although it probably weighs less than 38 lbs, the medium bike tips the scales at somewhere around 28 lbs. The components are sub-Sora, and will not last a season of hard riding. The OCR3 is to road bikes what bottom-end MTB-type bikes are to mountain bikes.

Better to set your sights a little higher. Look at bikes from KHS, Jamis and Mercier. For a couple of hundred dollars more, you can get a good, raceable [though not elite level] bike.

[If you're still not sure, I'm rewally not impressed by Giant's low-end road bikes.]