[Closed] Liv (Giant) Lust - Womens specific FS alternatives?

The women's Calibre Bossnut is going to be released soon. Same price, smaller size and some small changes for women.

Scott are usually a good place to look for women's bikes.

With her height she doesn't need to restrict herself to WS, much larger selection of men's but avoid a long tt.

cinnamon_girl - Member
With her height she doesn't need to restrict herself to WS, much larger selection of men's but avoid a long tt.

Thanks, her first two bikes were small men's bikes and the stand over height was always an issue. She has been much happier with womens specific since then.

Her first 2 bikes were HTs though, right? I can't see standover being an issue on any modern FS as they all have hugely dropped/sloping top tubes.

T'other half has a wimmins specific Giant full susser and can't get on with it - it's basically too short despite being the "right" size. She loved the "men's" Giant full susser she owned before it (except for the weight, hence the change). I'd get her sitting on or demoing a men's small before you rule them out as I can't think of a modern FSer that [I]doesn't[/I] have loads of standover.

When you say 100-120mm travel, do you mean on the rear?

My wife is selling her 2014 Intrigue 1 if you're interested mail me for pics

In a similar situation, having looked at and demoed a few options, my wife chose the liv lust 3 in the sale and it's been excellent. For £1200 is a no brainier. The maestro suspension is excellent.

why not just buy a bike, woman specfic bikes are the same as the rest. saddle, grips, susension tune are down to an individual not gender

So upon asking for recommendations for womens specific bikes the recommendations are buy a man's despite explicitly stating in the OP that she doesn't want a man's bike. Thanks

The problem is most 'womens specific' bikes are just mens bikes with a different colour, badge and grips.

Even the Juliana bikes are just the Santa Cruz bikes with a different colour. Liv are one of the only brands that are truly women's specific.

What you want to do, is work out what geometry she needs and find a bike that fits that.

Your list looks like it starts:

Low stand over
...

There's plenty of bikes that'll fit that well, Kona for one...

snownrock - Member

So upon asking for recommendations for womens specific bikes the recommendations are buy a man's despite explicitly stating in the OP that she doesn't want a man's bike. Thanks

The advice was look at all bikes as they are not really any different. My bike isn't a man bike, its just a bike that fits me in a colour I like.

How about the Canyon Neuron AL 6.

Thanks those for the suggestion of the female bossnut and the canyon. Both are interesting alternatives.

To those that have suggested men's bikes. I have looked but it still can't see much of a comparable spec for the same £1200 price as the lust. What am I missing?

You're quite right - there's very little out there for £1300.
Even that Lust is £1600 full price.
Also, would a Medium actually be big enough for Mrs S?
Would you consider second-hand?

[url= http://www.bikescene.co.uk ]BikeScene[/url] in Guisborough have some reduced 2016 Spesh bikes:
[url= http://www.bikescene.co.uk/Specialized-Rumor-9893-0-0.html ]Rumor[/url] down from £1600 to £1200
[url= http://www.bikescene.co.uk/Specialized-Rumor-Comp-9890-36-0.html ]Rumor Comp[/url] down from £2000 to £1500

In terms of women's models that [i]actually[/i] have different geometry to the unisex models, there isn't much out there. It tends to be different colours, an offering in XS, different contact points, and [i]hopefully[/i] a suspension tune for lighter riders out of the box. Cannondale, most Specialized models, Cube, etc. all update everything but the geo for their women's range

The Canyon Neuron looks like it ticks most of your boxes, although standover on S size is 766mm. Looking around at other "women's versions" I didn't find many with an extremely low standover. The Specialized Camber (rrp is a little more than £1200) for example, has a standover of 728mm in Medium (which should match your wife at 5'6"). The Cannondale Habit is only marginally better at 722mm. The Lust has 719mm.

I am only 5'2" and after starting on XS sized bikes (first a Specialized Safire, then a Pivot Mach 5.7), I up-sized last year to a Small size, as I wanted the extra stability as my skills and speed increased. I did a huge amount of research, and the first things I looked at were reach and standover. Here are two options worth investigating if standover is the first concern after price:

The Commencal TR V4 has a ridiculously low standover of 680 and is 1500 euro (without taxes).
The Radon Skeen 120 Lady 7.0 has 706mm stand over and is £1200 on bike-discount.de.

Good luck!

Magszh. Thanks for that comprehensive response, very much appreciated. Your suggestions are good and I wil look into them. The skeen is only in large unfortunately, I like radon bikes.

My oh has a canyon nerve woman's version, she loves it, great bike although it's a bit of a bmx for me!

The lowest standover on the market is the kona process 134. The trek lush used to be the lowest, but they've stopped doing that this year. However you could get a last year model if you can find one. Then I think the yeti beti has quite low standover.

Good thing is, with larger bikes the standover is lower and you have more room between the saddle and the stem to move about on.

Women don't need womens geometry, they're not so much different so as to need different geometry - just a smaller model if she is short. Shock tunes can be an issue if she is light as well, so best to have those revalved.

Lots of companies do XS frames, eg Kona - have a look at those.