Giant vs Diamondback – Who Offers the Most?

Let’s have a look at two brands that offer quite a bit of bike for the money; Giant and Diamondback. If you want to get the best frame and components within a limited budget these two brands are a solid choice.

The main difference between Giant and Diamondback is that the latter mainly sells online. Giant offers complete bikes but you need to partially assemble a Diamondback yourself. Both brands offer great budget bikes but Giant offers bikes in all categories. Diamondback has a much smaller line-up.

So let’s have a look at what Both brands offer and what you pay for it. Since Diamondback only sells a couple of bike types we’ll be addressing those to make it a fair comparison.

Difference in Price Between Giant and Diamondback

I checked both websites and looked at the prices. Diamondback obviously offers a much smaller variety of bikes compared to Giant. When I compare the cheapest vs most expensive bikes in the same category it becomes clear that they’re not too far apart. You could conclude that Diamondback focus is on the lower end segment of the market.

The differences are much bigger when comparing Giants’ line-up. There are huge gaps between the cheapest bikes and most expensive. It makes sense, Giant is a huge company with huge factories. They want to serve all markets and their line-up, just like the company, is huge.

Diamondback is able to offer low prices because they ignore small independent bike dealers and only offer their bikes to online dealers and huge good stores. They’re better bikes then the ones you’ll find at Walmart and sometimes you can get huge discounts if you pay attention.

Brand	Bike type	Cheapest	Most expensive
Diamondback	MTB Hardtail	Lux 1 – $529.99	Sync’r Carbon – $2,999.99
	MTB Full suspension	Release 5C Carbon – $4,799.99	Release 5C Carbon – $4,799.99
	Road bikes (endurance)	Century 1 – $699.99	Century 6C Carbon – $3,249.99
	Gravel bike	Haanjo 2 – $799.99	Haanjo 3 – $999,99
	Fat bike	El Oso Uno El Oso Uno – $799.99	El Oso Tres – $2,199.99
	City bike	Haanjo 1 – $599.99	Haanjo 3 – $999,99
Giant	MTB Hardtail	Talon 29 3 – $550	XTC Advanced 29 – $4,200
	MTB Full suspension	Trance 3 – $2,000	Anthem Advanced Pro 29 0 – $12,075
	Road bikes (endurance)	Defy Advanced 2 – $2,450	Defy Advanced Pro 0 – $7,800
	Gravel bike	Revolt ADvanced 3 – $1850	Revolt Advanced Pro Force – $5,500
	Fat bike	Yukon 2 – $1,630	Yukon 1 – $2,100
	City bike	Escape $420	Escape 1 Disc $830

Mountain Bikes

Both brands offer hardtail MTBs and full suspension. A full suspension is usually much more expensive because of the extra components.  The cheaper hardtails from both brands cost about the same, make sure you check the components and see which brands offers the best parts. There is quite a difference in price when you look at the full suspension mountain bikes which probably has to do with higher quality components.

• Diamondback – cheapest hardtail: $529.99 Lux 1
• Diamondback – most expensive hardtail: Sync’r Carbon $2,999.99
• Giant – cheapest hardtail: TALON 29 3 $550
• Giant – most expensive hardtail: XTC Advanced 29 – $4,200
• Diamondback – most expensive full suspension: $4,799.99 – Release 5C Carbon
• Giant – most expensive FS: Anthem Advanced Pro 29 0 – $12,075

Road Bikes (Endurance)

Diamondback offers quite a few road bikes under $1,000 and they don’t go over $3,300. Giant goes way beyond that to a point where you can get a nice used car for the money. The cheapest Giant road bike comes close to Diamondbacks’ most expensive road bike.

• Diamondback – cheapest endurance: $699.99 – Century 1
• Giant – cheapest: Defy Advanced 2 – $2,450
• Diamondback – most expensive: $3,249.99 – Century 6C Carbon
• Giant – most expensive: Defy Advanced Pro 0 – $7,800

Gravel Bikes

Diamondback only offers low budget gravel bikes, their most expensive bike doesn’t come close to the Giant Revolt Advanced Pro Force starting at $5,500.

• Diamondback – cheapest: $799.99 – Haanjo 2
• Giant – cheapest: Revolt ADvanced 3 – $1850
• Diamondback -‘ most expensive: $999,99 Haanjenn 3 and Haanjo 3
• Giant – most expensive: Revolt Advanced Pro Force – $5,500

Fatbikes

Both brands offer fatbikes where Diamondback offers considerably cheaper bikes. As I said before look at the components each bike has to offer.

• Diamondback – cheapest: El Oso Uno El Oso Uno – $799.99
• Giant – cheapest: Yukon 2 – $1,630
• Diamondback – most expensive: El Oso Tres – $2,199.99
• Giant – most expensive: Yukon 1 – $2,100

City Bikes

These are just regular bikes for commuting. Short rides to the park and nothing off-road. Both brands offer decent city bikes!

• Diamondback – cheapest: $599.99 – Haanjo 1 and Haanjenn 1
• Giant – cheapest: Escape $420
• Diamondback – most expensive: $999,99 – Haanjenn 3 and Haanjo 3
• Giant – most expensive: Escape 1 Disc $830

Reputation

Diamondback seems to get a lot of slack on forums from the more hardcore crowd, but they actually are a decent bike company. They build quality frames and are great for people with small pockets. You actually get a lot of bike for a really low price. Diamondback is one of the few that can compete with Giant in the lower segment.

We all know Giant has a great reputation but they also get some hate on forums. Mainly because people consider it a bike for ‘normies’, you see them everywhere and they aren’t as fancy as the more exclusive brands. This is pretty much unjustified, people that talk like this are the ones that buy $6,000 premium bikes. Don’t pay attention to that if you read that nonsense.

Both Giant and Diamondback are an excellent choice and there isn’t a winner. You should always go with the bike that fits best, though that’s going to be difficult in case of Diamondback because most of their bikes are sold online.

Warranty

Giant gives you a lifetime warranty on all frames except downhill. Components and parts such as forks get between one and 10 years of warranty. Diamondback offers a lifetime warranty on rigid frames and five on full suspensions frames. Warranty is about the same, no huge differences.

Buying Online vs Offline

The biggest problem here is what do you do if you have issues with your bike? Although Diamondback offers a 30 days return policy, what should you do if your bike breaks down in two months? It’s quite a hassle to send a bike back or get it repaired. Fortunately, Diamondback has great customer service and people seem to be really pleased with how they handle complaints and issues.

There is still the issue of assembling. While Diamondback provides clear assembly instructions, you also need to tune your bike a bit. Not everyone knows how to do this so you might want to let a bike shop do this instead. It shouldn’t be that difficult to do it yourself but asking a professional save you a lot of hassle but adds another $60 to $80 to your bike.

This is quite different from buying a bike at your local bike shop. While you may have to pay a bit more, you get a lot of extras like free maintenance in the first year. You don’t have to assemble and tune the bike yourself.

Low Budget? Go for a Used Bike!

If you only have a couple of hundred bucks to spend you should look for a used bike. Bikes lose over half of their value in the first year so this means you can get a really good bike at a fair price. A new $500 bike usually isn’t great unless you got it a huge discount. Check out my guide on how to buy a used bike.

There are so many people who buy a new bike, ride it a few times and then let it gather dust. This is what I would do at least.

Sure, a city bike will work and short commutes won’t be a problem but don’t expect a great road bike or MTB at this price. You don’t want to ride a cheap mountain bike on gnarly trails or a cheap road bike at ridiculous speeds. Stuff will break down sooner than later and replacing parts is expensive.

Conclusion

Diamondback and Giant are equal on the low-end and a good option if you’re looking for a cheap new bike. I’d still recommend looking at a used bike if you buy anything under $600.

Giant has a huge range of bikes in both low- mid- and high-range and has about every type of bike imaginable. Diamond offers a limited variety of bikes in the lower end and a few high-end bikes.