Bike Check: Michael van den Ham's Avro Arrow Giant TCX
The Canadian Champ partnered with Painthouse Customs to paint his Giant TCX to honor a lost piece of Canadian history.
After capturing his first Canadian National Championship in 2017, Michael van den Ham of the Giant - Easton p/b Transitions LifeCare team has really leaned into tricking out his bikes to celebrate his accomplishments. For the 2018 domestic season, he rode a Garneau Steeple with a tough-to-miss Canadian flag front fork, and last year, Van den Ham was on a red Giant TCX painted by Toronto’s VeloColour with flourishes to celebrate his home province of Manitoba.
“I've been really fortunate to work with such great artists with my bikes that last few seasons,” Van den Ham said. “All in all, I'm feeling pretty spoiled to have some many amazing people create these pieces of art for me all so I can ride around and get it dirty somewhere in a poop-filled field in Belgium.”
This year, Van den Ham is again on a Giant TCX with a paint scheme designed and painted by Painthouse Customs, which spends a lot of time designing the iconic Red Bull helmets for athletes.
If you’re thinking Van den Ham’s bike is looking particularly sleek this year, that is no accident. The bike has been painted to honor the Avro Arrow, an interceptor plane designed by the Canadian government in the 1950s to help fight the Cold War.
Van den Ham explained why he chose the Avro Arrow for his bike. “The plane was fast, Mach 2 fast, and was poised to be an aviation revolution not just in Canada, but worldwide. Something that would put Canada a little more prominently on the World stage as a leading nation.”
The Arrow project, however, was never completed, and Van den Ham’s bike now takes up the charge of repping the Cold War era project. “Pretty suddenly the entire project was canceled by the government. No one really knows why,” Van den Ham said. “The prototypes and plans for the planes were destroyed, the scale models sunk to the bottom of Lake Ontario, and just about every piece from the original Arrows disappeared.”
The paint scheme on Van den Ham’s bike pays homage to different aspects of the project. The headtube design follows the top-down design of the plane.
Van den Ham’s MvdH logo was revamped to mimic the project’s logo. (The house is Painthouse Custom’s logo, not a dripping Monopoly house like I thought it might be.)
The sleek red lines on the top tube and elsewhere are also taken from the sharp lines on the original Arrow prototypes.
Van den Ham explained another flourish in the bike’s paint scheme. “The RL-202 designation is an homage to the 2nd prototype and, if you the believe the rumors, the plane that may have been smuggled out of the country and preserved.”
Giant revamped the TCX for the 2021 model year, keeping the geometry pretty similar to previous models but redesigning the carbon composite frame to make it stiffer and lighter. Van den Ham said his M 54cm frame is a claimed 200g lighter than last year’s model, and his full build weighs 16 pounds before getting weighted down by Belgian mud.
Van den Ham’s Giant - Easton p/b Transitions LifeCare team is rider-run, and it has always maintained some independence in selecting its drivetrain components. Last season, even as seemingly every domestic and international team went to electronic shifting, Van den Ham and his teammates were some of the last riders sticking with the mechanical SRAM Force 1 groupset.
“One of the nice things about not actually being sponsored by a drivetrain company is that I get to mix and match things a little bit to ride what I actually want to ride,” Van den Ham said. “I was a holdout on the old SRAM Force mechanical stuff for a long time because I liked it, it was cheap for the team to buy, and it seemed fairly durable.”
This year, Van den Ham joins the electric revolution by running parts from the electronic SRAM Force eTap AXS groupset. He noted that the team typically purchases stock Giant bikes, and this year, the company offered its TCX Advanced Pro 0 with the electronic Force groupset.
This may come as a surprise, but with Easton as a title sponsor, Van den Ham’s team runs a lot of Easton components. His single-ring setup includes either a 40t or 42t Easton direct-mount chain ring mounted on a carbon Easton EC90 SL crankset. The crankset has Easton’s spindle-based power meter and the RaceFace Cinch direct-mount technology. Van den Ham runs 170mm crank arms.
When I saw Van den Ham’s bike at Jingle Cross in 2019, he opted to go without the Giant 1x chain guide, but when we did the bike check, he had the chain guide mounted up.
In the rear, Van den Ham shifted with the Force eTap AXS rear derailleur.
Van den Ham pairs he front 40t or 42t chain rings with a SRAM Force 10-33t rear cassette. The black Force cassette has gained a reputation for better mud clearance than the Red cassette, and some riders on Red eTap AXS have opted to step down a component level.
“I have to say, it's been pretty great to never worry about changing cables or losing shift performance in a muddy race,” Van den Ham said about his experience going electric and wireless this year.
Up front, Van den Ham runs the Force eTap AXS shift-brake levers paired to the Force HRD hydraulic disc brakes and rear derailleur. His brake pads are Swiss Stop RS35 organic pads.
Van den Ham has worked closely with Vittoria over the years, so we are used to seeing the company’s Terreno tubulars on his bike. Van den Ham said he still runs the Terreno Dry and Mix, but he has been riding FMB Service Course Super Muds on the muddier courses like World Cup Dendermonde. He said he inflated them to just 15 psi for the new muddy, boggy World Cup track.
Van den Ham and his team typically try to get a few years out of its Easton tubular wheels. The Canadian Champ is again running 38mm-deep Easton EC90 SL carbon tubulars. He admitted he was not sure if this particular wheelset is a new one or a holdover from previous years.
One standout part on the 2019 Canadian Champ’s bike was the red stem. The red stem returns, but it is red stem 2.0 and not a rerun. “It is not!” Van den Ham exclaimed when asked if it was last year’s. “It's actually 10mm longer. Although they do look pretty much identical, and you aren't the first person to ask.”
An Easton EC90 SLX carbon handlebar helps hold down the front, and a Duster saddle from sponsor SDG accents the bike’s tail. Van den Ham is a Crankbrothers man for pedals, running the top-end Candy 11 model.
While the Avro Arrow was designed to fight the Soviets during the Cold War, Van den Ham is hoping his bike will continue to bring the fight to the toughest Belgian cyclocross courses out there. Van den Ham scored a career-best 17th-place finish at World Cup Dendermonde, and he is planning on wrapping up his 2020-21 season this coming weekend at World Cup Hulst.
For more on his Avro Arrow Giant TCX Advanced Pro 0, see the specs below.
Michael van den Ham’s Avro Arrow Giant TCX Specs
Frame: Giant TCX Advanced Pro, 54cm (M), Advanced-Grade Composite
Fork: Giant TCX Advanced-Grade Composite, Carbon Over-Drive 2 steerer
Shift/Brake Levers: SRAM Force eTap AXS shift-brake levers
Brake Calipers: SRAM Force eTap AXS hydraulic disc
Brake Rotors: TRP, 160mm, 6-bolt
Crankset: Easton EC90 SL, carbon, Cinch power meter
Chain Ring: Easton narrow-wide, 40t or 42t
Rear Derailleur: SRAM Force eTap AXS
Cassette: SRAM Force XG-1270, 10-33t
Wheels: Easton EC90 SL carbon tubulars, Easton Vault 6-bolt hubs
Tires: FMB Service Course Super Mud tubulars, 700c x 33mm
Handlebar: Easton EC90 SL, carbon
Stem: Giant Contact SL, carbon
Seatpost: Giant D-Fuse SL, carbon
Saddle: SDG Duster, carbon rails
Pedals: Crankbrothers Candy 11
More Info: giant-bicycles.com
That bike is amazing!