Liv has just announced that its award-winning Intrigue trail bike will now be available in a more budget-friendly aluminium version.
The women's specific Intrigue occupies the same space in Liv’s lineup as the Trance does for its sister brand Giant, with 27.5in wheels and 140mm travel.
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After a two year hiatus in Liv’s range, the Intrigue was redesigned and relaunched in 2018, but only at the ‘Advanced’ product level, which according to the brand's naming structure means a carbon frame and a hefty price tag.
Even with a full alloy frame, the new Intrigue still sees the brand's Advanced Forge composite rocker, Maestro suspension setup and a 150mm fork.
The Liv Intrigue Advanced 1 impressed BikeRadar testers enough to be crowned the 2019 Women’s Trail Bike of the Year, so it’s good to see a lower-priced option making this bike accessible to more riders.
According to Liv, the Intrigue — as with all its bikes — is based around the 3F Design process, which includes thousands of data points about women’s anatomy, sizing variations, and muscle energy and outputs.
Liv is one of only a handful of brands that produces mountain bike frames with a specific geometry for female riders, with the majority of women’s mountain bikes on the market being based around a unisex frame and gender-specific finishing kit, such as saddles. There’s an ongoing debate about whether gendered frames provide a benefit, but that’s a whole other article.
The Intrigue ALUXX, like its carbon sister, will have room for a bottle cage inside the frame in every size and internal cable routing for a clean look.
As with the carbon version, it will have a Trunnion mount metric shock and Boost hub spacing, and Liv says the cockpit will feature 35mm diameter bars and a short stem, so that no handling precision is lost to flex.
Rolling on 27.5in wheels, the frame will accept up to a 2.6in tyre and of course will be tubeless-ready — we assume that this means the wheels will come with rim strips, valves installed and a bottle of sealant included in the box.
Interestingly, despite all three images showing bikes with 1x SRAM drivetrains (including what appears to be the yet-to-be-officially-launched Eagle SX), Liv says the Intrigue ALUXX will be compatible with a 2x drivetrain and front derailleur.
It makes sense, since the front derailleur tap does allow the brand to hit lower price-point builds.
Set to be available worldwide in the coming months, specific builds and pricing are to be announced.