First Ride: Liv Hail and Liv Pique

Liv’s all-new bikes rise to the challenge of more aggressive terrain and riding styles

In the time since Giant launched Liv as a standalone women’s brand two and a half years ago, mountain bikes across categories have become notably more capable, encouraging more riders to gravitate toward more challenging terrain. The demand for women’s bikes that make no compromises in performance is increasingly visible, too. (Fun fact: Liv says its top-end, $9,000 carbon-fiber Lust Advanced 0 mountain bike was the highest-selling off-road bike in all of Giant’s line last year). For 2017, Liv has overhauled its full-suspension off-road line to better serve the entire, evolving range of female riders, who are embracing the trend toward more technical and challenging terrain in XC and all-mountain riding. Gone are the 100mm-travel Lust and the 140mm-travel Intrigue. In their place are all-new models, including the super-light, XC race-oriented, 120mm-travel Pique; and the Hail, which Liv says is the first 160mm-travel enduro bike designed specifically for women. (Get all the info you need to be your strongest cycling self yet in the Bicycling Big Book of Cycling for Women!)

Updated Suspension Design and Boost

Both the Pique and the Hail feature Giant’s new, updated Maestro suspension design, released earlier this year.

first debuted on the 2017 Giant Trance

Maestro is a rear-wheel suspension design that features four pivot points—two above the shock, two below—and two linkages, which creates a “floating” or virtual pivot point behind the seat tube. This floating pivot, Giant claims, helps the suspension to pedal more efficiently, to remain active when the rider is braking, and enables both small-bump sensitivity as well as the ability to take big hits.

There are two key changes to Maestro in 2017, which Liv says improve the suspension’s ability to do all three things. A new trunnion mount now attaches the shock, mounting the shock to the upper linkage directly through the shock body. This lets Giant run a longer shock for lower air pressures and thus lower leverage ratios, enabling the suspension to be more sensitive to small bumps and helping it “float” over that type of terrain. It also enables better rebound control, and lets Giant lower the top tube for more standover on the Hail and the Pique.

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The Hail and the Pique also feature a stronger and lighter carbon-fiber, single-piece upper rocker that provides more torsional stiffness, allowing the front and back wheel to better track together in corners, says Liv.

Like most new trail bike releases for 2017, Liv’s entire off-road line also now features wider Boost hub spacing (148mm instead of traditional 142mm hubs in the back and 110mm instead of 100mm in the front), which provides additional lateral (side-to-side) stiffness to the wheels and also enables engineers to use shorter chainstays for a bike that handles more nimbly and is easier to loft in the front.

Both the Hail and Pique also feature lighter carbon frames than their 2016 predecessors, says Liv, though comparative weights were not provided. All of Liv’s off-road models roll on 27.5-inch wheels and will be offered in carbon and aluminum frames.

The Hail is a new all-mountain/enduro bike with women’s specific geometry and 160mm of front- and rear-wheel travel. Liv says the Hail was a response to a growing demand for a high-performance, big bike that is women’s specific and can handle very aggressive terrain. While Liv doesn’t like to compare its bikes to Giant models—it wants to emphasize that they were designed from the ground up for women rather than tweaking a standard bike’s geometry—the Hail is Liv’s equivalent to the Giant Reign, the bike of choice for Giant’s Enduro World Series (EWS) racers in 2016.

Liv designed the Hail using data from its global survey set of women riders to account for not only average proportional differences in women and men, but also differences in where women derive their strengths and hold their weight. Liv’s pro riders, Lindsey Voreis and Leigh Donovan (a former downhill world and nine-time national champion) were also deeply involved, and provided feedback that guided the bike through four iterations.

This is why, for example, the Hail sports a 66-degree head tube angle compared to the 65-degree head angle on the Giant Reign: a steeper head tube puts the front wheel slightly closer to the rider, making it easier to lift the front end for women who hold more of their strength in their lower body, says Donovan. (It’s also still a very slack head angle, and on par with bikes like the 150mm-travel Juliana Roubion by Santa Cruz.)

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Liv says the Hail also has a slightly higher bottom bracket compared to its all-mountain peers, to give women extra pedaling clearance. In technical terrain, Donovan said this gives the rider the ability to take an extra half or full pedal stroke without worrying about pedal striking.

The Hail is offered in two Advanced versions with carbon front triangles and aluminum rear triangles, as well as two versions with aluminum frames (just called the Hail). Pricing ranges from $3,250 for the aluminum Hail 2 with a SRAM NX 1x11 drivetrain, to the $8,250 carbon Hail Advanced 0 with SRAM X01 Eagle.

How It Rides We took the Hail on a test ride at Liv’s global launch in Sedona, Arizona, last week. The Hail is a bike that’s capable enough for EWS racing, says Liv; the brand reps admitted that most of the terrain we were able to access on this short test loop wouldn’t come close to the steeps, gnar, and opportunities for air that this bike was built to handle.

Though my impressions of the Hail are thus limited, I had a lot of fun on this bike. We’ll start with rider position. I’m 5’6” and typically in between a small and a medium depending on the bike. The Hail’s longer reach (a roomy 16.5 inches on a size small) enabled me to get the long and low riding position I prefer without having to size up to a medium as I do on some models.

The Maestro delivered on its promise to resist bobbing when I was climbing or pedaling on flats, so much that I never thought twice about leaving the shock wide open. I also tried riding with the RockShox Lyric RCT3 Dual Position fork in its 130mm-travel configuration on some gradual climbs, which did slightly improve the sense of efficiency in the front. But either way, the bike provides a firm pedaling platform for such a long-travel bike, and though I don’t have a claimed weight on the $5,350 Advanced 1 version I rode, it rode lighter than many of its all-mountain peers in its price range, and the top-of-the-line Advanced 0 model weighs a claimed 27.75 pounds in a size small—impressive for such a long-travel bike. The bike also handles nimbly and feels like a smaller-trail bike in corners, without feeling long or “trucky.”

But in terms of travel and spec, this is a big bike. The suspension has the very plush feel of some enduro-specific, almost “mini-DH” models I’ve ridden. While descending an armored-up, rocky chute, and ripping faster through a dry creekbed that alternated between loose sections littered with babyheads and smooth berms, the Hail remained very composed and gave the overarching impression of flowing through this constantly changing terrain. When I hit a larger loose rock that pinged out from under a tire, the Hail didn’t get knocked off line and maintained straight-ahead momentum.

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In general, the front wheel felt very easy to pick up for such a big bike, and when technical climbing involved lifting the front end to get up a large step, traction was good and the light weight of the bike made muscling it over the top feel easy. It did provide some peace of mind to know the bike had extra BB clearance—indeed, I got over numerous step-ups with zero pedal strikes.

From my short test ride, my two general impressions are that this is definitely a bike that will light up for a woman who rides fast, often in rough terrain, and likes jumps and drops. But if you could only have one bike, it would not feel like too much of a handful just riding around, like some other 150mm- to 160mm-travel models I’ve tested. A lot of our day was spent on flowier trail and at slower speeds, but the Hail was still fun on these trails. And the tire combo—a Schwalbe Magic Mary in front and a Schwalbe Hans Dampf in the back—rolls respectably for such aggressive tires. I do think the bike should come with a longer-travel dropper post than the 100mm Giant Contact it is spec’d with across the board—125mm to 150mm is more common on bikes like this, and would give me the maneuverability I’m now more accustomed to having in very steep terrain.

Certainly riding this bike got me excited to get a test bike for long-term testing on steeper, faster, and rougher trails.

Liv positions the Pique as its top-end cross-country race bike that is also trail-capable; the closest thing on the Giant side would be the new Anthem. Like the Anthem, the Pique has more travel (120mm of travel front and rear) than many pure XC bikes, and is 27.5-only. Where it does show its XC roots is in its 70-degree head angle, which is definitely steeper than many short-travel trail bikes that claim to also be XC-capable; and in its light weight—a size small top-of-the-line Advanced 0 carbon model weighs an impressive claimed 23.5 pounds.

How It Rides

This light weight, and that efficient-pedaling Maestro suspension, make this bike a great climber (I was on the $4,950 Advanced 1, which is a step down from the top-end Advanced 0). If you don’t like climbing, the Pique will make it feel easier; if you do like it, you’ll find climbing to be fun and pleasant on this bike.

A steeper head angle is often associated with quicker handling and a “twitchy” personality, but despite its positioning as an XC racer, the Pique is actually a very easy-riding bike, meaning that I think almost any rider at any level could hop on it and find it easy to handle. On a couple tricky sections, where precision was key to make it over a little rock bridge or up ledgy climbs, the bike hit the necessary line precisely and offered good traction to crawl over square edges, too.

On descents, the extra travel also made the Pique ride more like a short-travel trail bike than a stereotypical XC bike, allowing the bike to shoot down sandstone ledges with stability, and to inspire confidence through flat and downhill rock gardens. It has a wider bar than more traditional XC race bikes, which provides trail bike-like stability. The Pique's longer stem is appropriate for the bike’s cross-country nature, putting your weight just a little more over the front end for better front-end tracking and pedaling.

One note on fit: This bike does have a shorter reach than the Hail, so being between sizes, I sized up to a medium and found the longer reach I like. One smaller tester in our group, who usually rides smalls, commented that the reach was longer than she was accustomed to in a short-travel bike like this.

The Hail may get more attention since it’s such an aggressive bike, but I was actually very impressed by the Pique. With its unique mix of light weight, more travel, and smaller wheels, and being offered down to $2,375 for the aluminum Pique 3 as well as in the more descent-capable SX versions; this bike is a great option for an everyday trail bike, with good parts, for a lot riders, even if you don’t race cross-country. I recently tested another higher-end, 650b, 120mm-travel women’s trail bike that was a little slacker, but positioned toward riders who may be looking for their first full-suspension bike. The Pique climbed better, descended just as well, and was just as easy to ride. If you want a pure XC race bike, you may still consider other models that have 29-inch wheels. But for something a little more versatile that will just be fun to bang around on with friends, get to the top easier, and will be capable in a race, too, the Pique is a solid choice with good value.

Gloria Liu is a writer-at-large, and formerly the features and gear editor at Bicycling. Gloria’s love for cycling spans disciplines from road to gravel to ’cross to mountain. She’s written popular features for Bicycling about a wide range of subjects, from the (at times hilarious) self-discovery gained by going #FullEnduro, to the intersection of #MeToo and cycling.

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