I am now working for a Giant dealer and we sell the hell out of these bikes. They are fugly. Like, really fugly. The other fixed bikes we sell are the langster, pista, and concept, and the Bowery is just eycatchingly ugly compared to all of them.
It's not shown in the giant site, but it comes stock with a flimsy plastic chain-guard like on kiddie bikes. I'm sure it's for liability reasons, but it increases the ugly factor about 10x.

It also just looks shoddy. The quality of the cranks is ultra crappy, even worse than specialized's house brand, and much worse than the truvativs on the pista. You get the same feel from the fork too.

I built my bike from the frame up and managed to use nice-ish (80s dura ace) components for about the same price, and I know the bike is relatively solid.
If I was going to buy a showroom bike, or was dead set on a compact aluminum frame, I would probably pay the exra 150 for the langster, or just go with an Ebay bike... in fact I would definitely go with an Ebay mercier or windsor over the Bowery because the component spec in the major components (wheels, cranks) is better, and they cost 150 bucks less.

I'm actually kind of surprised. Giant is known for being an outstanding value for the price point, getting lots of nice parts packed onto a decent frame for very little moolah. This bike just doesn't seem worth the 500.



my 2cents.