Just how different are men's and women's bikes? We tested the Giant Reign against the Liv Hail to find out
Liv Cycling is the women's specific sister company to Giant Bicycles, but unlike many others that simply modify pre-existing unisex models with components more appropriate for a women’s build, Liv designs its bikes from the ground up with different geometry for female riders.
But exactly how much do women's bikes differ from their unisex or male counterparts?
The Hail is a new addition to the Liv range and according to Liv it's been designed specifically for women with a focus on enduro riding and racing.
The Reign is a 160mm travel bike in the Giant line, designed for a similar enduro/all-mountain purpose.
Both offer 160mm of travel, plus similar suspension kinematics and build kits. However, this is where the comparisons end, with the geometry of the two bikes being markedly different.
Liv bases its geometry on data gathered from a global body dimension database, which offers access to a range of body dimension stats that include leg length, arm length, height and sex.
Sadly, this data isn't open source, so we can't take a look at it, but Liv says that it indicates sufficient differences between the average man and woman to mean that developing a bespoke geometry for female riders makes for a better ride experience and performance. Liv refines this with rider testing and feedback.
But how much of a difference does this make? To find out we sent out women’s editor Aoife Glass and technical editor Tom Marvin to test both of the bikes back to back. Check out the video above to see how they got on!
