Women’s Dream Machine: Specifically Crafted to Propel its Rider to the Top

A subsidiary of Giant, Liv is one of the few major brands still making women’s-specific bikes, with proportions and stiffness crafted ideally for women’s bodies.

In this article we will look at Liv’s high-performance aero road bike — the EnviLiv Advanced Pro Disc – created by a team of designers and engineers specifically to fit the female anatomy. Liv’s team of designers and engineers carefully craft everything specifically for women’s physiology. From frame design and stiffness, component design and selection and positioning, the entire bike build maximises women’s power.

The secret ingredient that goes into EnviLiv Advanced Pro Discbike is its 3F design philosophy: fit, form, function. 3F is a data-driven, no compromise approach to building the perfect ride. That means women get a bike built to fit them, based on body dimension, muscular activity and strength patterns.

Together, the data and feedback are applied to design the final bike build to complement a women’s body and make the most of the rider’s lower body strength, while ensuring optimum balance and comfort. By choosing EnviLiv Advanced Pro Disc bike, women don’t have to settle for something that merely works, they will have a bike that fits and delivers the ride.

For example: Liv uses data for setting body position and contact points, such as narrower handlebars, smaller grips, women’s-specific saddle design and crank length.

Looking at the average body measurements of men and women measuring 5ft7in and 5ft3in, you can see significant anthropometrical differences that will determine the best bike fit. Notice that differences in proportions become more pronounced for shorter men and women.

When putting the average woman onto the closest sized men’s frame, you can see that she becomes too bent over and stretched out. Not only can this negatively impact power output, pedal efficiency and balance for bike control, but it can also result in pain points such as lower back pain, neck pain, elbow pain and numbing of the hands.

Riding in the wrong position may lead to injury down the road…Designed as a pro-level aero road bike for the like of Marianne Voss and her Women’s World Tour CCC-Liv team, the EnviLiv is Liv’s carbon road race bike geared towards all-out speed and performance. But it is the aerodynamics what triathletes will be happiest about with this bike. The aerodynamic frame and integrated stem and handlebars are all designed for one thing: to go fast. If you don’t go fast on this bike it just feels like a waste.

The redesigned EnviLiv actually had an early debut without a huge amount of fanfare last autumn, but is now actually available to women cyclists looking to speed up in a new race season.

At first glance the most obvious change is the addition of flat mount disc brakes & 12mm thru-axles, but the highlights of the bike got much beyond that adapting technologies developed on the Giant Propel and reapplying them in Liv’s women-specific data-driven Fit, Form & Function approach. The result is claimed to be a lighter frame set, while stiffer in both frame & fork. That especially goes for improved lateral stiffness in the thin, oversized fork legs for more precise handling. And all of that while overall taking aerodynamics one step sleeker.

Frame tube shaping is pretty standard truncated aerofoils like you see on most aero bikes these days, with some unique to the EnivLiv sharp edges leading from the headtube, back along the top & downtubes. Then you get a dropped seatstay rear end just like on the Propel. There are a lot of similarities in the two bikes, but Liv designers say that while technology & expertise are shared between the two brands, the EnviLiv was designed on its own.

Further Bike Specifications and prices can be found on each of the links below:
EnviLiv Advanced Pro 0,
EnviLiv Advanced Pro 1,
EnviLiv Advanced Pro 2,

If you’re looking for a beginner bike, this probably isn’t it. But, if you want to go fast and you’re looking for the rare high-end power aero road bike built for women, then this is the versatile ride for you. It offers both a snap when standing and a smooth dampening feel over Triathlon distances. It also looks pretty cool.