Women’s Road Bike advice

Mrs FD has signed up to her first triathlon next May, and has so far been borrowing a fiends Liv road bike

So we are starting looking at bikes for her. I’ve looked at the Liv Avail Ar1 and Canyon Endurance 7 both 105 equipped with hydraulic discs.

Is there anything else I should be loooking at? Like anything £1.5k gets you Shimano 105 and hydraulics, but wheels look heavy. Is there anything at a slightly higher price point that gets much better wheels?

finally women specific road bikes? Worth it or a red herring ?

Ta

Friends who ride Livs (my primary exposure to womens-specifc geo) greatly like them; especially for road (where seated fit is important), womens’ specific can be meaningful, as proportionally things can be somewhat different. (Also helps that they go small enough).

Hydro 105 is a good spec to aim at. OEM wheels are often heavy, but a) I’d ride them first and see if it made a huge difference and b) I still think you’d better investing in a reasonable bike + a better wheelset than climbing far enough up an overpriced spec chart to get better wheels all around. I also am happy to be corrected there.

My #1 advice would be: budget for a good saddle, possibly but not necessarily womens’ specific, regardless of what you do. Some women get on fine with whatever, others find unisex (ie: male) saddles agony. (Friends ride a variety of things, including regular Specialized Power; everybody is shaped differently downstairs, but I do know riders for whom no amount of chamois can counter a saddle that’s hard in the wrong place).

Good advice above. It definitely depends on the individuals body shape but the liv range typically have a shorter reach, narrower bars and shorter cranks. Giant / Liv are doing some great deals at the moment. Although expensive, I think electronic shifting makes a lot of sense for women as changing the front derailleur is such a big stretch for small hands. I also think the saddle is critical and the specialized women’s power saddles are very popular amongst the three female riders I know.

Some road bike sales with di2 groupsets around 2k atm.

You can’t good wheels at this pricepoint so you don’t even need to worry about it.

Women’s specific frameset doesn’t mean much, if anything, but liv/giant make great road bikes. So it’s a good place to start looking.

‘Women’s specific’ road bikes are usually identical frame to the mens/unisex version with a bit of pink/purple thrown on for good measure, and a little price increase.

The most important bits are the saddle and bars. 1000% get a saddle fit, most good bike shops offer this service. As mentioned above the perfect saddle may not necessarily be ‘women-specific’ as long as it is the correct size. I personally really rate the Specialized power saddle, and this seems to be the women’s saddle of choice on Rapha Women’s road rides, but that doesn’t mean it works for everyone.

Most stock bars are usually 44cm ish, ‘womens specific’ models usually spec 40cm ish. Again a bike shop should be able to advise on the ideal bar width. Easy enough to change out bars and stem if the rest of the bike is a mega deal.

As others have said, you won’t find many bikes with good wheel sets without all the other parts being expensive too. And unless the wheelset is branded it won’t be worth much second hand

oick up some light wheels from hunt in their Black Friday sale and worry about the rest of the bike later?

Women’s specific’ road bikes are usually identical frame to the mens/unisex version with a bit of pink/purple thrown on for good measure, and a little price increase.

This is not the case with Liv and Giant. The frames are different. The contact points are different. The prices are the same.

I don’t know how tall the lady in question is, but getting a sit on anything smaller than a 54 cm frame is really helpful as you reach a point where the manufacturer has to fit a lot into the wheelbase and suddenly there is a minimal change in length of top tubes between sizes, so things like toe overlap become huge issues.

IMO, there are still some great used bargains out there. For your budget, you have a lot of choice…

You didn’t give her size, but be advised that sourcing XS bikes is always a challenge because they are in such short supply. For such a sized bike, the wheels will be disproportionately heavy. We had a 651c 3/4 scale Trek road bike years ago and it was fabulous. Now it’s all disc brakes and 700c. I’ll third Liv as great bikes.

Thanks for all the advice. It does look to be between a Liv and a Canyon currently

She is 5ft 3 on a good day so will be very small !

I’d love to be pointed in the direction of some of these great bargains , I’m not seeing them 🙁 especially DI2 for £2k !?!

Balfe have a 2024 tcr di2 105 for 2k but it’s M or L, so not useful.

The van reysel tiagra bike is available in xs and s and cannot be beaten for a value purchase – £1400. Wheels are landfill in performance terms, but fine to ride around on a first road bike.  Could get some aftermarket 303s or equivalent for a nicer ride.

Have a look at buycycle for a 2nd hand bike, you’ll get more bang for your buck

This morning we went to have a ‘look’ at some bikes at a local ish Giant dealer

Looked at an Avail Advanced 2, and of course Mrs FD like the paint job of a more expensive bike.

Test road both around the car park, and to be fair although the same frame, the wheels , nicer saddle, DI2 really did make bike 2 much nicer

So ended up with a rather nice looking (expensive) Avail Advanced Pro 1 . At least it had 30% off

Great choice, I’ve had the defy advanced pro for 2 years and it’s been excellent. I run it with crud road racer mudguards throughout the winter and with Pirelli p zero tlr tyres all year round, much quicker than the standard tyres. Hope she enjoys it