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Women have long legs, short torsos and like pink-coloured frames with a flower design. Not true?
Attempts to cater to the female target group with special women's bikes have been the subject of heated debate for years. Apart from feminine frame colours, with which you can only go wrong, marketing people and designers have never really been able to agree on geometry issues. This starts with the differences between the female and male anatomy. Many studies have come to different conclusions here in recent years. The bottom line is that the image of the long-legged gazelle probably stems more from an ideal of beauty than from reality. There are probably just as many female bikers with shorter legs and longer torsos as there are men.
So many manufacturers came to the conclusion that instead of special women's bikes, it would be better to design neutral unisex models for small and light riders. Because one thing is certain: small frame sizes are a major challenge for developers. For example, there is space for motors, batteries and retractable seat posts. The suspension also requires special tuning in order to work sensitively enough with little weight. Or the geometry, whose angles and dimensions should be adapted to the riding dynamics of smaller riders. A lot of development effort for - sometimes - little favour. After all, many women prefer the unisex model anyway.
So it's no wonder that there are only a few models explicitly labelled as women's bikes, especially in the e-MTB segment. Two of the rare exceptions: Giant has a whole fleet of women's bikes under the name Liv. And Scott has been established on the market for years with its Contessa line.
We invited the flagships of both manufacturers to a duel, and lo and behold: both bikes don't look as ladylike as you might expect. As if it had been agreed, the chassis of the Scott Contessa eRide and the Liv Intrigue X E+ 1 shine in a subtle dark purple colour. Both bikes also roll on large 29-inch tyres - also rather unusual.
- Liv Intrigue X E+ 1
- Scott Contessa Genius eRide 910
