When Giant pro Alan Hatherly won the 2025 Elite Men's XCO World Championship, he did it on a bike built specifically to win. The Giant Anthem Advanced SL 0 is that bike, brought to production and available to riders who want the same level of engineering without the race licence.
As a giant mountain bike, the Giant Anthem Carbon has always attracted serious attention from the XC community. This generation takes everything that made the previous model fast and rebuilds it with sharper numbers across the board.
The frameset is 89 grams lighter than its predecessor, with a 7.95% greater stiffness-to-weight ratio, and the semi-integrated 120mm FlexPoint Pro rear suspension system with flip chip geometry adjustment makes it equally at home on a World Cup racecourse and on the kind of technical UK trails where conditions change every few metres.
For any rider who obsesses over weight on their MTB, the Raw Carbon finish on the Giant Anthem SL 0 tells you exactly what this frame is about before you even pick it up.
Key Performance Factors
TOTAL CONTROL
The FlexPoint Pro suspension delivers 120mm of smooth, active rear travel paired with a 120mm fork. That combination gives you genuine confidence on rough descents while still climbing with the efficiency you'd expect from a top-end giant carbon bike. The flip chip lets you fine-tune the geometry to suit whatever the racecourse or trail demands.
Superlight composite Giant WheelSystems come with a next-generation 120-tooth helical ratchet drive system for immediate power transfer, and 5mm rim sidewalls that offer solid protection against the kind of rock strikes and rim impacts that are par for the course on aggressive XC terrain.
LOW-LATENCY SPEED CONCEPT
The fully reengineered composite frameset on the Giant Anthem SL0 doesn't just save weight, it converts that saving directly into efficiency. Every gram removed has been thought about in terms of how it affects stiffness, compliance, and power transfer.
The rear shock is repositioned and semi-integrated with the top tube, trimming the overall weight further and opening up space for a second water bottle cage, something any rider who's ever cramped up late in a race or long trail day will appreciate more than most. The WheelSystems and integrated handlebar and stem units are built for maximum efficiency and instantaneous response, so when you put the power down, you feel it move.
SYSTEM INTEGRATION
The one-piece integrated handlebar and stem unit on the Giant Anthem Advanced SL 0 reduces trail buzz and vibration, improving both control and hand comfort on long, punishing days in the saddle.
Available in two versions, the Contact SLR XC Integrated composite and the Contact SL XC Integrated alloy, both share seamless cable routing and versatile sizing with a 780mm standard width and stem lengths from 50mm to 90mm. Clean, purposeful, and properly sorted for racing.
For UK riders looking at the top end of the MTB market, the Giant Anthem Advanced SL 0 in Raw Carbon sits at a level where very few bikes can genuinely compete. The raw finish is striking in a understated, workmanlike way, and it wears the World Championship pedigree without needing to shout about it.