Liv Langma Advanced SL 0
The versatile Liv Langma Advanced SL0 has comfort, ef "iciency and speed and comes with a strong racing pedigree to boot, as AoifeGlass "inds out
In the 2016 women’s Olympic road race, the winner, Anna van der Breggen, used a bike which eagle-eyed tech aficionados noted was not strictly sponsor correct. Instead of being the Envie, the top-of-the-range bike produced by her trade team headline sponsor, Liv Cycling, she rode what appeared to be a Giant TCR. Usually such divergence would cause a stir, but in this case there was barely a murmer. Women use men’s bikes as a matter of course and in this particular case, Liv Cycling was a brand umbillically connected to Giant. Liv, at the time, did not produce a very light, high performance bike suited to the particularly hilly Olympic road race course in Rio.
Liv and Giant, Van der Breggen and her team-mates, were negotiating a familiar old issue: the difference between a womenspecific bike - say a man’s bike that is sized and equipped to suit a woman - and a bike specifically for women - a bike whose conception, design and engineering is based firmly on what women need from a race bike.
But first some background on that link between Liv and Giant. Liv used to be the the women’s line of bikes and equipment inside Giant. Bonnie Tu, a senior figure within the Giant corporation, set up Liv to produce women’s kit and bikes that fitted, worked well and looked good. “I was about to ride the Tour of Taiwan and while I was the CFO of Giant, I couldn’t seem to find a bike or gear that I felt comfortable using,” she said. “It just wasn’t quite right for me, which made me think, ‘If I can’t find the right gear and bikes for myself, how do we expect other women to find cycling?’ We are not making it easy for them to enjoy this beautiful sport.” Liv proved successful, and it was spun out as an independent though affiliated brand in 2014. Tu, now chairwoman for the Giant Global Group, is still a strong driving force behind the brand.
The whole ethos of Liv Cycling is designing and engineering products for women from scratch. Using a combination of global body dimension databases, feedback from product testers and sponsored athletes such as Team Sunweb, the range encompasses road bikes, cyclo-cross bikes, commuter bikes and mountain bikes.
Each Liv bike is designed to fulfil a specific purpose, so while it might have a sibling in the Giant range that occupies the same niche, the bikes are not the same. For example the Liv Envie pairs with the Giant Propel as complementary aero bikes.
Of course, as the Olympics illustration demonstrates, there was a glaring omission: Liv did not have a thoroughbred all-round race bike. That was until the Langma came along last summer. If the name rings a bell, that’s because it’s based on the Nepalese name for the most famous mountain in the world: Langma, Chomolungma, or Everest.
Racier and lighter than the Liv Avail, more versatile than the aero-focused Liv Envie, the Langma is a bike that was designed to be raced hard; to sprint, to feel comfortable on long, sustained climbs, to be light and stiff – and to win.
Liv say the frame has been engineered using Giant’s most advanced manufacturing techniques, according to Sophia Shih, one of the main engineers on the project. A size-specific carbon layup and tubing shape was modelled to produce the most efficient balance between light weight, stiffness, compliance where needed and aerodynamics. Wide down-tube, headtube and bottom bracket areas sit in stark contrast to the impossibly thin top-tube and seat-stays. Liv calls this ‘tuned stiffness’, with bulk only in areas where it’s needed to help with efficient power transfer. An Overdrive 2 steerer and a Powercore bottom bracket both aid stiffness in critical areas.
It’s not the only innovation. Using larger sections of carbon composite in the frame build means there are fewer joins, saving more weight. And the junction between the top-tube and seat-tube has a one-piece construction. A bladed seatpost with an aero-shaped downtube helps reduce drag, and while the Giant Contact SLR Flux stem might look chunky, it’s designed to channel airflow smoothly over the handlebars and bike, aided further by the shaped headset spacers. One of the issues many pro riders have faced until recent times is a question of size. Small bikes are exceedingly rare, meaning many racers, and general riders for that matter, have to make performance-compromising changes to their bikes in order to ride them. Can you really get the same out of a bike when you’ve had to slam the bars, saddle and - in at least one case - fit a negatively inclined stem?
The Langma comes in sizes M to XS, which covers a height range from 180cm down to 160cm, according to the Langma sizing chart: great news for shorter women. The size medium tested here weighs in at an impressively minute 6.48kg, and despite the narrowness of some of the tubing, the Langma manages to combine a stiff, efficient ride feel while still maintaining enough vertical flex through the seatpost to provide comfort.
The saddle uses an external clamp system with several degrees of adjustability to attach directly to the seat tube, meaning less weight as there’s no need for a seat-post. This also results in greater compliance, noticeably smoothing out the worst of the chatter through the rear. The stiffness of the downtube and chunky bottom bracket is also tangible, with almost instantaneous transfer of power from cranks to wheels to forward momentum. On climbs, combined with the light weight, this means you feel like every part of every pedal stroke counts, with no wasted power.
When it is time to sprint, power transfer through the Langma is instantaneous; it almost accelerates out
On climbs, combined with the light weight, the stiffness means you feel like every part of every pedal stroke counts