Women's Vs Unisex Geometry - How Do They Compare?
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- Опубліковано 18 жов 2024
- The Liv Hail is most definitely not a Giant Reign. We had one of each in for testing recently, so Aoife and Tom decided to head out to the Forest of Dean for a gender-swap bike test.
This is one of the best women's vs men's bike comparisons I've ever watched. Excellent job taking two similar bikes and having both sexes ride them (I imagine this will be especially useful for tall women and short men). I hope you guys continue to do this for other types of bikes including road and commuter oriented/ hybrid ones.
This is very good comment too.
Agreed
We'll definitely look for opportunities for a road version of this. With more and more brands doing separate geometries it's getting to be a hot topic.
Canyon endurace cf slx vs new wmn endurace cf slx may be??
I wish there were a women's brand that didn't have a super "girly" name like friggin Liv or Juliana. Something badass would be appreciated.
Also I'd wish they came in other colours. Not every woman is a girly girl and personally, I hate pink.
I think the same... maybe a Xena or Lilith brand will work... and more than just My little Pony colors... some women are more badass than us... and some men are more "princess" than them...
@@julioricardolopezaguirre1206
Any woman who calls herself a "badass" is likely not...and man who goes out of his way to refer to a woman like that is likely pandering.
@B P
Not if it's just mimicking boyishness. Confident and unapologetic femininity is a kind of badass especially now when its often looked down upon for girls to just be girly.
@B P
No one fits neatly into masculine or feminine... that doesn't negate the existence of the binary nature. It reinforced it though.
steeper head angle and higher BB, I agree, seems like an odd choice for a big burly bike, it's they've taken geometry from 5 years ago, and weakly tried to justify the changes as women's specific.
I think the argument here is that they've taken the suspension formula used to make the Reign a descent-conquering beast, and turned it into a long-legged all mountain bike with contact points where their research told them makes sense for women's specific setups. If that's how they marketed it (and practically speaking, could have quite easily put the travel figure at 152mm and made it obvious as its own unique bike), nobody would have any qualms at all about whether or not the Hail being slightly less capable than the Reign is some form of gender condescension, and instead be a unique bike that merges most of the benefits of the Trance and Reign in a package that works better (at least on paper) for the target audience.
Really good comparison, and it's an interesting critique of Liv's approach to frame geometry changes as far as long-travel MTBs go. Nice to see that the "women's geometry" model isn't necessarily an instant recommendation for lady riders - not that the Hail is a bad bike but it's still down to personal preference and fit. I'd like to see something similar on the road bike side.
Thanks! That's the tricky thing about WSD as a concept: if the claimed benefits over a unisex design are all related to fit - and fit is a deeply personal thing - then how can any one tester assess whether the benefits are real, let alone give advice to others?
I really like this direct comparison as it seems as if it helped you really feel out the specifics of the "women specific" geometry and what they actually mean while riding.
so it seams that offset bushings is the way to go for the hail
So with a steeper head angle and higher BB, it's almost more of a long travel Trance than an analog for the Reign.
It's almost as if they're trying to say women will stick to milder trails.
Personally, I'll be buying the wife a Reign, and shortening the cockpit some with a higher rise set of bars cut down a little.
That way, I won't have to worry about her going OTB following my line.
Swapping between my Enduro and the daughter's Trance, the geo differences are extremely noticeable, and stuff like concrete stairs and mild rock gardens, which aren't using much of the travel, leave me feeling like I'm going OTB at any moment.
This bike looks as its more designed with the "average woman is a worse rider than an average man" in mind than anything else.
Piotr Sulej I mean its true though...
It is, but the bike shouldn't be advertised as a "woman body geometry specific version of reign" and instead just "woman specific bike"
Sounds like the Giant Reign, with a shorter stem, would be perfect for her then.
Just ride Reign, Hail or shine 😜
Would be interesting to compare the Santa Cruz bikes vs the Juliana bikes and see how much difference the is.
You missed the most important thing: the colour scheme. :P I really like the Hail in that respect.
Aoife can be my wingperson anytime.
Nah, you can be hers.
I have a Reign in Alum. And I'm loving it. But she's a better rider then me I think.
well I'm a happy broke a$$ on my old schwinn messa runner think "girls bike." $15 on craigs, gets me around town good, kinda feels like my old bmx dyno I had as a teen but 7speed vs no speeds and 26"tires vs 20". I'm liking the 7 speed thing and smaller frame with low bar (little more room for error & possibility of no nut crush if shtf) also the cantilever brakes rock compared to any bike I've had before with v strait pull brakes. would love to find a 27.5 mb 7speed "women's version" large frame, cantilever brakes, aluminum frame. there was a super sport schwinn I seen with disc brakes I liked but guess is old model cause bike shop only sells a super sport 3 version and has v pull brakes I definitely don't want and they only have small frame available which I could live with maybe for city but not trails.
"Not that I am saying that we are average in any way"" 😂😂😂 dirty mind
How can one of the frames fit both riders? Their height diffrence is quite conciderable.
They're not around for a back to back comparison today, but we don't think there's more than a couple of inches in it.
Is it okay for Men to use Liv bikes? Or it is realy designed for women only?
im planing to buy CUBE STING WS 120 EXC TURQUOISE´N´BLACK 2020,but i just found out the bike is made for female,doese it realy maters ?
I don't see the point in womans bikes, or unisex bikes, a bike's a bike, woman and men both have two arms and two legs, there's no woman specific motorbikes, yet woman can still ride them with no problems, just buy a bike that you like and feel comfortable on.
Listing to people talking about the difference between a 66 and 65 degree head angle and I'm riding double black down hill trails on my short wheel based, 69 degree head angle hard tail Cross country bike
Jacob Koo koo How's it feel to be the only guy in the uplift wearing lycra?
Embrace the lycra
Jacob Koo koo -- YUP! One degree is *that* different? Impossible! Having just +/-5mm of fork sag differential is more than one degree of head angle difference! Nevermind different fork height! There's a bunch of discussion out there already about this phenomenon...but one degree on a MTB is generally a write off.
thechosendude how much sag equates to a degree in HA change would depend largely on the bike's wheelbase and it's HA though - slacker head angle means less angle change with compression/sag, after all.
Running 140mm forks on a 68° HA hardtail, 5mm change in sag would be noticeable for me, at least if it was +5mm. I run 35mm of sag to begin with, so that's a 14% increase
To be able to notice a difference that minute (albeit 1°, a Dual Air Spring vs. Solo Air Spring), it's almost like you'd have to ride them back to back to tell a difference. Wait for it...
Why is the WSD steeper?.... Er because as you demonstrated really well. women are on the whole much slower descenders than men... contrary to the regurgitated nonsense the mtb media spouts. The stability of a slacker H/A comes into it's own at higher speeds. You don't actually need a slack headangle at all to ride supersteep trails at slower speeds.
I can make this argument more portable - the ladies who are going fast enough to make that 65° head angle setup and capability of 160mm travel work for them are also savvy enough to know they can buy a Reign, customize the cockpit and finishing kit to fit them, and go shred.
The REMAINING market of women shopping bikes are going to be slower on average just because the top 5% of faster riders are going to just get a Reign, so why design the bike around a non-existent market.
Giant will have their Pro Ladies racers on the Liv because they exist to sell bikes, but at the level of bespoke suspension (and probably some offset bushings to bring the geo in line), but pro racers are fast on anything, and a bike that shows up for free and is tuned up is always the best bike in the universe....
@tehllama42 This is a pretty good analysis and summary. In the end, Giant/Liv would want to cover all their customer bases by offering the Hail. Maybe there's a bit of a disconnect or inconsistency with how it's labeled as "women-specific" in terms of out-and-out performance, but if the Hail's fit works with riders as an alternate option, and it gets more people's butts riding on bikes, then it's all peachy.
Get some offset bushings for that liv then
Loved this!
canyons WMN range are the only acceptable bikes lol
why mens and womens bikes , why not shorter , people bike im 5ft 6" 29" inside leg im sure a womans size bike would suit me better than a mans . ?
so if you're a woman or have short arms, get a slack frame with a review saying it needs to be longer? like a YT or Canyon?
I think the argument for anybody with some mechanical aptitude is to just buy a YT, Canyon, or Commencal, and spend the savings on whatever parts make it work best for you.
tehllama42 yeah I'd agree with that too
Can man ride liv e bike x adv?
Very well done..
can't really see the point in women's only bikes I think I've seen two ladies riding lady only bikes in the EWS the rest ride small men's bikes smaller handlebars different needs in saddle department I guess but that about it (give that lady more air time top job)
Yes, you generally can make a "men's" bike fit a woman. But...the purpose of a women's bike is that a woman doesn't want to go through the hassle of buying new finishing kit...bars, stem, seatpost, saddle, cranks, etc, just to fit a bike.
Juliana bicycles (Santa Cruz sister company) has their own justification *against* women's specific geometry; many of the talking points in the video show up in their link www.julianabicycles.com/en/us/why-juliana/fit
great review
Well, marketing is a beast. That is the main reason we have "women bikes". On average, women have have shorter upper body and longer legs (when looking at the proportions), and they also have lower centre of gravity. That means - unisex bikes are perfectly good for women if they come with shorter stems and/or slightly narrower handlebars. Another important consideration is how big the wheels are, but many bikes (at least XC 29ers) are actually 650b bikes in size XS, and sometimes even S🤓
Marketing gimmick like everything else in past 10 years in cycling.
what a load of crap.....you are not going to notice 5mm difference
but what if you are a woman built like a man. lol.
Total BS. They're selling S/XS bikes with 170mm cranks. That shows how much they're thinking about sizing/geo. It's 100% marketing.
Amen. If it were really about getting people on the "right" bikes, these would be two different tailorings of the same bike. Like a medium-long and medium-short size or something.
To be honest the game has moved on. You can see the companies that are employing the switched on people in R&D right now and top of the tree is Scott. Look at the numbers and geo on that new Genius.
Hmm I'm not into the whole "womens specific" hype, but I still ride a 12" (14) KONA Explosif which came with 176mm cranks (Curve) and I LOVE the longer cranks. I'm 5'3'' and the 165mm feels horrid, even 170mm are a little odd on my road bikes. ;))
If it was 100% marketing, they would do what Trek does, slap a WSD sticker on it and put narrower bars on it. Props to Liv for tweaking geometry to make the best women's bike they can. Not always gonna hit the nail on the head but it's a constant evolution....