What are some of the inspiring qualities of a great sports coach? It is not surprising that many still view brilliant players as essential to any successful sports team in the modern era of massive pay for professional athletes in any sport. The most crucial member of the team is the efficient sports coach, although owners of professional teams and spectators sometimes ignore this. Owners of sports franchises should spend as much money as possible on the most successful sports coach rather than outrageous sums to get the top players to the team. Inspiring qualities of a great sports coach In this post, we will discuss some of the traits of a successful coach. If you were to research the history of excellent coaching, you could not help but note that these coaches frequently create teams that are incredibly cohesive. Image: www.nytimes.com 1. Determine the success or failure He will decide whether the squad succeeds or fails. But what qualities does a good coach have? How does a good co...
How to choose a mountain bike size for women? There are some significant distinctions between mountain bikes made for men and women, despite the fact that the gear may not appear to be that different.
Bicycles have been pinked and shrunk. And the issue of gender-specific bikes in the mountain bike community is still debatable today. Manufacturers disagree on whether or whether female-specific frames are efficient, required, supported by research, desired by sufficient numbers of consumers, or cost-effective.
Everything related to mountain bikes may be and frequently is specifically designed for women. The most apparent examples are just the sizes of the gloves and shoes. Although many women can ride a normal mountain bike, the female rider frequently modifies this key component.
Most female bikers are just as skilled and tenacious as their male counterpart. However, guys often have bigger thighs and stronger upper bodies. As a result, motorcycles may occasionally be reduced in a number of ways.
Lighter materials are used in the construction of women's mountain bikes to keep weight to a minimal. To compensate for their lesser average height, the frame's ground clearance has been reduced significantly. On women's mountain bikes, bigger 29" wheels are less common, although occasionally being preferred by males. In order to accommodate shorter arms and torsos, the head angles usually tend to be sharper.
The seat might change in some way. The saddle will be made broader to account for the larger pelvic bones in women. On a woman's mountain bike, butterfly seats (a triangular shape) are far more typical than on a man's. In order to meet the acute "sit points," gel packs are more prevalent in women's bike seats.
Even grips may be modified for female users. A smaller diameter grip is advantageous for hands that are (again, on average) smaller. End-winged specialty grips provide more control while requiring less wrist and finger effort to achieve the desired outcomes.
A woman's demands might also be properly catered for in hydration devices. They drink different kinds of fluids in varying amounts. During the ride, both sexes need to replenish their minerals and water, but the amounts of potassium, sugar, and other nutrients are adjusted to meet their unique demands. Another choice is bottles with a smaller diameter.
On average, women's internal body temperatures are a little lower than men's and they produce heat more slowly. As a consequence, different genders were considered while designing riding shirts and shorts. Special consideration is given to the position and intensity of wicking, cushioning areas, amount of back movement, and more.
As of now, just one business, Liv Cycling, a cycling label owned by Giant Manufacturing Company, focuses only on producing mountain bikes for women. Liv Cycling was established in 2008. Beyond women-specific bicycle frames, Liv is governed by an all-female workforce, from marketing to engineering.
When Giant CFO Bonnie Tu participated in the annual Tour de Taiwan in 2007 but was unable to locate a bike or clothing that fit her comfortably, the firm was founded. Tu, who is passionate about finding solutions, created Liv to empower female cyclists in all disciplines, including road, gravel, and off-road riding.
According to Jen Audia, senior product marketing specialist at Liv Cycling, "Historically, bicycle designs have been designed with and by mostly male engineers, designers, and test subjects." Liv therefore discovered anatomical and physiological studies to assist their goal. Liv's "3F Design Philosophy" utilizes data from over 15 sources, including NASA, Aerospace Medical Research, and PeopleSize, a worldwide anthropometrics database, to lawfully create female-specific frames. The Liv team uses this information to adapt their bike designs to women's body types, muscle activity, and strength patterns.
The core of every Liv bike design, according to Sophia Shih, Liv Product Development Advanced Engineer, is made up of these three layers of data. Additionally, "Our method is also greatly aided by our international team of riders and ambassadors. We improve goods based on customer input to deliver the best performance. This includes component selection, location, and the design and rigidity of the frame.
What does it really mean to be a mountain bike designed specifically for women? Let's examine in detail what Liv specifically concentrates on and modifies in their bikes.
According to Liv, women have a unique morphology with smaller shoulders, shorter arms, and shorter crotch heights. When I chatted with Audia, she revealed further information:
"There is overlap in our proportionate analyses of men and women, but the bell curves are distinct. Women's torsos are typically shorter, although as they grow taller, this difference becomes less noticeable. As a result, each size, frame, and bike model we create has a distinct design and geometry. We don't take our size medium bikes, cut the top tube by 10%, and call those our size small bikes. We are not simply applying percentages and combining all bike sizes. We acknowledge that ladies who are 5'4" or 5'3" can have certain proportional tendencies that women who are 5'7" or 5'6" don't always exhibit.
Let's look at some basic bike anatomy: The top tube, head tube, down tube, seat tube, chain stay, seat stay, and fork make up the bike frame, which is the skeleton of the bicycle. In order to make each frame appropriately match the majority of women's bodies, Liv modifies certain parts of each frame.
The seat-tube angle is important to note first. According to Audia, Liv bikes use steeper seat-tube angles to facilitate the activation of the rectus femoris (external thigh muscle), which is a women's superpower. A 2017 research that was published in the International Journal of Exercise Science found that a steeper seat-tube angle encourages the use of power-producing muscles and lessens the load on supporting muscles. Furthermore, a higher seat-tube angle "produced considerably increased rectus femoris activity during the upstroke of the crank cycle," according to another research published in the Journal of Applied Biomechanics.
Additionally, the material density is changed across the frames of Liv bikes to enhance women's muscle activation. For balance and leverage, we adjust [various stiffness] throughout the sections of each frame. For each and every bike, we also tune the suspension specifically, says Audia.
As a writer for the outdoor and adventure travel industries, gear testing is an integral part of my profession. Having said that, I've never used Liv bikes, so I was interested in reading reviews from respected writers.
Bike Magazine's managing editor Nicole Formosa put a medium Liv Pique Advanced Pro 29 through its paces. She typically rides medium frames with a 450mm reach, but the Pique Advanced Pro 29 has a 427mm reach. (Reach refers to the horizontal distance between the centre of the head tube and the center of the bottom bracket.) Formosa noted that the bike was incredibly enjoyable, that she "didn't feel cramped," and that she "thought it was the appropriate fit" despite her initial concerns about the size.
Additionally, five-foot-tall experienced outdoor journalist Kelly Bastone tested a Pique Advanced Pro 29 with an extra-small frame size. She said in a review for Outside that the design addressed most, if not all, of the problems generally associated with smaller frames and 29-inch wheels, including pedaling effectiveness.
During our phone chat, Audia said that the reason Bastone found the bike to be responsive and nimble compared to other 29ers that felt sluggish was "because the rear center is really short and it helps produce that quick, flowing feel you're looking for in this sort of bike." The distance between the bottom bracket and the rear axle is known as the rear center. Although Bastone agreed that many female riders have found satisfaction on gender-neutral bikes, the choice is ultimately one of personal preference. Overall, Bastone had nothing bad to say about the bike. She also emphasized how expensive the bike is at $12,300.
A few mountain bike manufacturers have reduced their selections for women. Trek is gradually discontinuing its line of women's bicycles in favor of a platform that is gender-neutral. Specialized and Yeti Cycles stopped producing women's lines in 2020.
"The ladies who work here were the driving force behind our decision to end the line.
To improve performance for riders of lesser weights, we created a special rear shock tuning for the Beti bike range. Following extensive internal research, we discovered that the improved tunability of FOX's new suspension allows us to achieve the same ride performance over a larger range of weights—for both men and women—in a press release.
The Yeti Beti bikes didn't officially provide distinct frames, unlike many other brands of bikes for women. The motorcycles came in several color schemes, with various component selections and suspension settings. When Juliana Bicycles was introduced in 2013, they used identical frames from Santa Cruz, its parent business, but with unique colors and parts. Despite criticism for "being all marketing, no product development," the brand has been profitable, according to Bike Magazine.
Numerous businesses have also discovered that the anatomy of men and women does not differ much enough to support various bike geometry. For instance, according to the paper "When to Share Product Platforms," Specialized collaborated with Retül, a business that specializes in bike fitting technology and is currently owned by Specialized, to examine data from an 11-year period that recorded 7,750 fits of individuals riding bikes. Researchers discovered that there is little variation in bike size between men and women.
According to Sam Benedict, Specialized General Manager and USA Market Leader, "We used to make women's specific bikes, but the more we continued to innovate and look at [research], the more we realized that women-specific bikes were based off of studies that were done many years ago by the military, which weren't that thorough. "We support fit, body geometry, and very accurate measurement. After fitting people to the bikes and analyzing tens of thousands of data points, we discovered that there is no difference in how men and women fit on bikes. Saddles? Chamios? Shorts? They are distinct, yes. And the data points are available.
Undoubtedly, ladies are capable of using a man's mountain bike, sitting in the same position, dressing similarly, and more. In fact, because we're talking averages, that may be the best choice for a particular lady. But for the majority, it's advisable to seek for bikes, gear, and clothing with a woman's qualities in mind to maximize the ride.
Bicycles have been pinked and shrunk. And the issue of gender-specific bikes in the mountain bike community is still debatable today. Manufacturers disagree on whether or whether female-specific frames are efficient, required, supported by research, desired by sufficient numbers of consumers, or cost-effective.
Overview
One the one hand, sales and popularity of mountain riding have increased. According to the Industry Overview 2015 published by the National Cycling Dealers Association, mountain bikes made up 25% of all bicycles sold by specialty bicycle shops in 2012. According to the Outdoor Industry Association's (OIA) 2018 Outdoor Recreation Participation Report, the number of people participating in mountain and non-paved biking nationwide climbed from 6.9 to 8.6 million between 2007 and 2017. Most recently, front-suspension mountain bike sales increased by 55% in March, according to market research company The NPD Group.
What about women in particular? In research for a recent news article I published, I discovered statistics showing a rise in the number of female mountain bikers. Compared to the previous year, attendance at REI's women-only cycling programs doubled in 2017. Women's Introduction to Mountain Biking was the most well-attended course. The International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA) saw a 10% increase in female membership over the same year. According to the 2019 OIA Involvement Report, however, male mountain bikers continue to exceed female counterparts two to one, both in terms of total and first-time participation.
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| Image: curated-uploads.imgix.net |
How to choose a mountain bike size for women?
Everything related to mountain bikes may be and frequently is specifically designed for women. The most apparent examples are just the sizes of the gloves and shoes. Although many women can ride a normal mountain bike, the female rider frequently modifies this key component.
Most female bikers are just as skilled and tenacious as their male counterpart. However, guys often have bigger thighs and stronger upper bodies. As a result, motorcycles may occasionally be reduced in a number of ways.
Lighter materials are used in the construction of women's mountain bikes to keep weight to a minimal. To compensate for their lesser average height, the frame's ground clearance has been reduced significantly. On women's mountain bikes, bigger 29" wheels are less common, although occasionally being preferred by males. In order to accommodate shorter arms and torsos, the head angles usually tend to be sharper.
The seat might change in some way. The saddle will be made broader to account for the larger pelvic bones in women. On a woman's mountain bike, butterfly seats (a triangular shape) are far more typical than on a man's. In order to meet the acute "sit points," gel packs are more prevalent in women's bike seats.
Even grips may be modified for female users. A smaller diameter grip is advantageous for hands that are (again, on average) smaller. End-winged specialty grips provide more control while requiring less wrist and finger effort to achieve the desired outcomes.
A woman's demands might also be properly catered for in hydration devices. They drink different kinds of fluids in varying amounts. During the ride, both sexes need to replenish their minerals and water, but the amounts of potassium, sugar, and other nutrients are adjusted to meet their unique demands. Another choice is bottles with a smaller diameter.
On average, women's internal body temperatures are a little lower than men's and they produce heat more slowly. As a consequence, different genders were considered while designing riding shirts and shorts. Special consideration is given to the position and intensity of wicking, cushioning areas, amount of back movement, and more.
Liv Cycling, Leader for Women
As of now, just one business, Liv Cycling, a cycling label owned by Giant Manufacturing Company, focuses only on producing mountain bikes for women. Liv Cycling was established in 2008. Beyond women-specific bicycle frames, Liv is governed by an all-female workforce, from marketing to engineering.
When Giant CFO Bonnie Tu participated in the annual Tour de Taiwan in 2007 but was unable to locate a bike or clothing that fit her comfortably, the firm was founded. Tu, who is passionate about finding solutions, created Liv to empower female cyclists in all disciplines, including road, gravel, and off-road riding.
According to Jen Audia, senior product marketing specialist at Liv Cycling, "Historically, bicycle designs have been designed with and by mostly male engineers, designers, and test subjects." Liv therefore discovered anatomical and physiological studies to assist their goal. Liv's "3F Design Philosophy" utilizes data from over 15 sources, including NASA, Aerospace Medical Research, and PeopleSize, a worldwide anthropometrics database, to lawfully create female-specific frames. The Liv team uses this information to adapt their bike designs to women's body types, muscle activity, and strength patterns.
The core of every Liv bike design, according to Sophia Shih, Liv Product Development Advanced Engineer, is made up of these three layers of data. Additionally, "Our method is also greatly aided by our international team of riders and ambassadors. We improve goods based on customer input to deliver the best performance. This includes component selection, location, and the design and rigidity of the frame.
Women-specific bicycle frames
What does it really mean to be a mountain bike designed specifically for women? Let's examine in detail what Liv specifically concentrates on and modifies in their bikes.
According to Liv, women have a unique morphology with smaller shoulders, shorter arms, and shorter crotch heights. When I chatted with Audia, she revealed further information:
"There is overlap in our proportionate analyses of men and women, but the bell curves are distinct. Women's torsos are typically shorter, although as they grow taller, this difference becomes less noticeable. As a result, each size, frame, and bike model we create has a distinct design and geometry. We don't take our size medium bikes, cut the top tube by 10%, and call those our size small bikes. We are not simply applying percentages and combining all bike sizes. We acknowledge that ladies who are 5'4" or 5'3" can have certain proportional tendencies that women who are 5'7" or 5'6" don't always exhibit.
Let's look at some basic bike anatomy: The top tube, head tube, down tube, seat tube, chain stay, seat stay, and fork make up the bike frame, which is the skeleton of the bicycle. In order to make each frame appropriately match the majority of women's bodies, Liv modifies certain parts of each frame.
The seat-tube angle is important to note first. According to Audia, Liv bikes use steeper seat-tube angles to facilitate the activation of the rectus femoris (external thigh muscle), which is a women's superpower. A 2017 research that was published in the International Journal of Exercise Science found that a steeper seat-tube angle encourages the use of power-producing muscles and lessens the load on supporting muscles. Furthermore, a higher seat-tube angle "produced considerably increased rectus femoris activity during the upstroke of the crank cycle," according to another research published in the Journal of Applied Biomechanics.
Additionally, the material density is changed across the frames of Liv bikes to enhance women's muscle activation. For balance and leverage, we adjust [various stiffness] throughout the sections of each frame. For each and every bike, we also tune the suspension specifically, says Audia.
A Broad Range of Frame Sizes
The availability of extra-small frames across all bike models and wheel sizes is one difference in mountain bike designs. Liv thus made the essential decision to purchase one of the most varied sizes of women's mountain bikes available, including extra-small, small, medium, and large for bike frames with both 27.5- and 29-inch wheels, otherwise known as a 29er. Extra-compact or tiny frames for 29-inch wheels are rarely created by businesses.
Although the two wheel sizes provide the rider a different sensation and experience, the wheel size has an impact on the overall geometry of the bike frame. A 29er rolls more quickly, absorbs ground impediments better, and has more grip than a 27.5-inch wheel. According to Total Womens Cycling, a 29-inch wheel elevates the front end, requiring tiny frames to have shorter handlebars and standover heights as well as revised steering geometry.
The tiny Ripley LS, a 29er full-suspension bike from Ibis Cycles introduced in 2018, was created by co-owner and lead designer Roxy Lo. Contrary to common belief, if you're five feet tall, you don't absolutely need a 27.5-inch wide tire. According to Scot Nicol, founder of Ibis Cycles, "bike designs are now developed to the point that even a five-foot tall individual can ride a 29-inch wheel without any issue.
That iconic design "returns to Roxy's proficiency in bike design." She can design the bike frame extremely suited for shorter riders, even for that larger tire size, and she can put everything where it has to fit, he claims. Ibis does not intend to make many little Ripley LS bikes since there is little demand for a size small 29er, according to Bicycle Retailer.
Then, in 2019, Liv pioneered one of the first-ever 29er extra-small bike frames, pushing the industry forward. The 2020 Pique Advanced Pro follows the Pique 29, Liv's first-ever 29er design. There is a complete size run on both bikes. And the public praised both models widely.
The creation of an extra-small frame size for a 29er was a difficult product design undertaking. "This is going to be tough, said Sophia Shih, the Liv Product Development Advanced Engineer working on this project. No issues with small, medium, or big. Being extra-small will be difficult. It was undoubtedly a labor of love, according to Audia.
Even a downtube water bottle may fit on the extra-small frame. Because of the size of the top tube and the down tube, it is uncommon to create a "29er bike with space for a water bottle cage. Pique 29er innovation, according to Audia, "was about giving in to what our customers were demanding of us and doing something that not many others in the business are even now trying to achieve.
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| Image: asset.scott-sports.com |
What Women Who Test Bikes Say
As a writer for the outdoor and adventure travel industries, gear testing is an integral part of my profession. Having said that, I've never used Liv bikes, so I was interested in reading reviews from respected writers.
Bike Magazine's managing editor Nicole Formosa put a medium Liv Pique Advanced Pro 29 through its paces. She typically rides medium frames with a 450mm reach, but the Pique Advanced Pro 29 has a 427mm reach. (Reach refers to the horizontal distance between the centre of the head tube and the center of the bottom bracket.) Formosa noted that the bike was incredibly enjoyable, that she "didn't feel cramped," and that she "thought it was the appropriate fit" despite her initial concerns about the size.
Additionally, five-foot-tall experienced outdoor journalist Kelly Bastone tested a Pique Advanced Pro 29 with an extra-small frame size. She said in a review for Outside that the design addressed most, if not all, of the problems generally associated with smaller frames and 29-inch wheels, including pedaling effectiveness.
During our phone chat, Audia said that the reason Bastone found the bike to be responsive and nimble compared to other 29ers that felt sluggish was "because the rear center is really short and it helps produce that quick, flowing feel you're looking for in this sort of bike." The distance between the bottom bracket and the rear axle is known as the rear center. Although Bastone agreed that many female riders have found satisfaction on gender-neutral bikes, the choice is ultimately one of personal preference. Overall, Bastone had nothing bad to say about the bike. She also emphasized how expensive the bike is at $12,300.
Alternative viewpoint: Bikes that are gender neutral
A few mountain bike manufacturers have reduced their selections for women. Trek is gradually discontinuing its line of women's bicycles in favor of a platform that is gender-neutral. Specialized and Yeti Cycles stopped producing women's lines in 2020.
"The ladies who work here were the driving force behind our decision to end the line.
To improve performance for riders of lesser weights, we created a special rear shock tuning for the Beti bike range. Following extensive internal research, we discovered that the improved tunability of FOX's new suspension allows us to achieve the same ride performance over a larger range of weights—for both men and women—in a press release.
The Yeti Beti bikes didn't officially provide distinct frames, unlike many other brands of bikes for women. The motorcycles came in several color schemes, with various component selections and suspension settings. When Juliana Bicycles was introduced in 2013, they used identical frames from Santa Cruz, its parent business, but with unique colors and parts. Despite criticism for "being all marketing, no product development," the brand has been profitable, according to Bike Magazine.
Numerous businesses have also discovered that the anatomy of men and women does not differ much enough to support various bike geometry. For instance, according to the paper "When to Share Product Platforms," Specialized collaborated with Retül, a business that specializes in bike fitting technology and is currently owned by Specialized, to examine data from an 11-year period that recorded 7,750 fits of individuals riding bikes. Researchers discovered that there is little variation in bike size between men and women.
According to Sam Benedict, Specialized General Manager and USA Market Leader, "We used to make women's specific bikes, but the more we continued to innovate and look at [research], the more we realized that women-specific bikes were based off of studies that were done many years ago by the military, which weren't that thorough. "We support fit, body geometry, and very accurate measurement. After fitting people to the bikes and analyzing tens of thousands of data points, we discovered that there is no difference in how men and women fit on bikes. Saddles? Chamios? Shorts? They are distinct, yes. And the data points are available.
Final thought
Undoubtedly, ladies are capable of using a man's mountain bike, sitting in the same position, dressing similarly, and more. In fact, because we're talking averages, that may be the best choice for a particular lady. But for the majority, it's advisable to seek for bikes, gear, and clothing with a woman's qualities in mind to maximize the ride.
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