This is not my first bike review, but it might be my last.
There's a lot of pressure that comes with riding a bike enough to feel confident telling you, the reader, why it is or isn't a bike worth looking into. I've ridden many a bike in my time – Trek, Felt, Factor, and Bianchi are just a few of the brands I have vast experience with. So it's not that I don't know what a quality bike feels like. Personally, I feel like bikes are similar to ski boots. Or therapists. It's all so personal.
That said, when Liv reached out about their new Langma, I was keen to try it. I got the chance to ride the previous version of the Langma, and I was curious what kind of changes had been made to make the race machine more ... race-friendly. Unfortunately, as much as I wanted to write this review a year ago when the bike was actually released, life had other plans for me.
Better late than never, as someone who has a good amount of experience riding a bike but next to no experience writing about bikes, here are my thoughts on the 2025 Liv Langma, and my review journey to get them on the page.
Highs: Light, stiff, easy and fun to ride.
Lows: Integrated seatpost impacts resale value, which is already limited as it's a women's specific frame. Oversized stem limits upgrade options.
Price: Langma Advanced SL 0: US$11,000 / AU$17,000 / £10,500 /€12,500. Liv also offers the bike in two other, cheaper versions: the Advanced (cheapest) and the Advanced Pro (middle).
Why this review now?
In order to review a bike, it needs to be ridden at least a handful of times. Liv reached out to me about the bike in June of 2024 and sent the bike soon after, but due to delays receiving the bike, it arrived when I wasn't comfortable riding it, literally. I was five months pregnant with my second baby, living at altitude in the mountains.
I took it on a few spins around the block in those early days, but for a race bike like the Langma Advanced SL 0, there was no way I was writing a review with the front end setup I was rocking. Did you know that when you're pregnant for the second time, generally, your belly pops sooner than with the first? Some people are lucky and don't experience this; I am not one of those people.
So, after giving birth in January (2025) and then impatiently waiting for the snow to melt, the first time I got to really put the bike to the test was the second quarter of 2025. By then, it had been hanging in my garage for months, just waiting to get the tarmac under the tyres, and I had been waiting to fit back into my bibs.
You can take the racer out of the peloton, but you can never take away the competitive spirit. By the time I finally got to hop on the bike, I was battling a lot of pent-up angst, which, as it turns out, is great for bike testing.
The bike
The Liv Langma Advanced SL 0, used by Liv AlUla Jayco, is billed as a bike for all-around performance. Since this review is coming late, that means that the results speak for themselves when it comes to the bike in races. Piloted by Mavi García, the Langma won a stage of the 2025 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, and at the end of the season, Georgia Baker and Josie Talbot each won stages of the Tour of Chongming Island. So, in terms of where the bike performed when ridden by professionals, it was at the pointy end of races across both sprints and mountains.
One of the biggest upgrades from the 2021 model is the weight (now approximately 123 grams lighter) and marginally increased stiffness. The frame and fork are manufactured using Liv's Advanced SL carbon composites, the same technology behind Giant's Advanced SL construction and its TCR Advanced SL. With this frameset, Liv employs a true monocoque layup method for the frame (where the frame is moulded as a single piece).
James Huang
Where the old Langma performed best, in my opinion, was on rougher roads, but the frame wasn't compatible with tyres wide enough for gravel or even Paris-Roubaix Femmes. They changed that on this new bike. This new frame offers room for up to 33 mm tyres.
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