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TECH NEWS

Halfords have designs to please women riders

Halfords bike brand 13's innovatively named Intuition, Intrinsic and Intuitive women-specific bikes

Halfords are stocking a trio of new women-specific road bikes from 13: two drop-bar models, the Shimano Tiagra-equipped Intuition Lambda for £849.99, and the Claris-equipped Intrinsic Lambda at £549.99, plus a flat-bar hybrid for £499.99.

They’re expecting the hybrid, the Intuitive Lambda, with its Suntour triple chainset and Tektro hydraulic disc brakes, to be particularly popular, but the two drop-bar models look likely to appeal too.

The Intuitive Lambda has a flat bar and disc brakes

Both have triple-butted aluminium frames and carbon forks, and though both fit easily under the Cycle to Work scheme threshold, the designs have been wind tunnel tested and sport such aero touches as brakes tucked behind the bottom bracket and behind the fork, internal cabling, and aero profile wheels. The press spiel describes the rims as ‘deep section’, but not sure I’d want to go diving into their swimming pool if that’s what they call deep…

TRP's Aero brake tucks behind the fork on the Intrinsic Lambda

The £850 model uses a higher grade and slightly lighter alloy than the Intrinsic, and both have full-carbon forks, including the steerer.

Both also have 50/34 compact chainsets. While the Intrinsic’s 8-speed 11-30 cassette offers a higher top gear and a lower bottom than the Intuition’s 12-28, the Intuition’s is 10-speed Tiagra so the jumps between gears are smaller, making it easier to maintain a smooth pedalling cadence.

Narrow and compact bars, 165mm cranks and grooved Velo saddles are all female-friendly details. The only thing I’d criticise both bikes on - before riding either of them - are the 23mm tyres they’re specced with. Surely everyone else in the world is going the 25mm-at-least route, which is meant to be faster and more comfortable?

Halfords also showed us their new women-specific Voodoo mountain bikes – no “shrink it and pink it” going on here, as Jim Berkeley, head of trading at Halfords, put it, but ground-up designs based on the typical female form. They even took us for a ride on them in the New Forest, which was fun!

We’ll be testing the £550 Intrinsic soon, so we’ll let you know how it fares. In the meantime, you can check out all three 13 women's road bikes, and the Voodoos, here. They’re already in the shops.

Tass is our production pedant, who boldly goes hunting for split infinitives, rogue apostrophes and other things up with which she will not put. She joined road.cc in 2015 but first began working on bike magazines way back in 1991 as production editor on Mountain Biking UK, then deputy editor of MTB Pro, before changing allegiance to road cycling as senior production editor on Cycling Plus. She's ridden off-road but much prefers on, hasn't done half the touring she'd like to, and loves paper maps.

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10 comments

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Beaufort | 8 years ago
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Women cyclists deserve better than Halfords - The Last Resort as it's commonly known.

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Topcover | 8 years ago
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Pink aside, not "shrinking"? Women's range come in XS, S, M only. No L or XL like the men's range then. Stems are comparatively shorter in relative frame sizes, bars are narrower, cranks are shorter.

If the frames aren't just shrunk, why would a female spec bike need a shorter stem than an equivalently scaled male spec bike?

If the bike design and spec is to suit people with comparatively shorter upper bodies, what's the reasoning behind speccing the short cranks for their comparatively longer legs?

Did he mean "we *did* just shrink them and pink them"?

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skull-collector... | 8 years ago
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Looks like some cheap and shitty design inspired by Field Cycles from Sheffield.

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dottigirl | 8 years ago
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I will not ride or wear pink.
That's one pledge I will stick to.

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stem | 8 years ago
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"ground-up design it and pink it"

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Gkam84 | 8 years ago
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No "shrink it and pink it".....really, so one of the bikes features pink as it's main accent colour, that MTB also looks like it has pink forks...

The other two have that teal colour that loads of women's stuff uses. I guess there are only a couple of colours for women......since colours are obviously gender specific to designers  31

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Ordinary Cyclin... replied to Gkam84 | 8 years ago
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Gkam84 wrote:

No "shrink it and pink it".....really, so one of the bikes features pink as it's main accent colour, that MTB also looks like it has pink forks...

I was about to say the same thing. I so wish those people responsible for designing bikes and kit for women would realise there are more colours out there than pink! I actively avoid pink...no matter what shade it is. Please designers, think outside the box!

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Chuck replied to Gkam84 | 8 years ago
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Gkam84 wrote:

No "shrink it and pink it".....really, so one of the bikes features pink as it's main accent colour, that MTB also looks like it has pink forks...

The other two have that teal colour that loads of women's stuff uses. I guess there are only a couple of colours for women......since colours are obviously gender specific to designers  31

TBF he didn't say there was no pink though, he said they haven't just taken a mens design and made it smaller and pinker.
Still, you're right about how hard it seems to be for designers to see past these colors when it comes to women specific stuff.

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eezytiger | 8 years ago
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For this sort of money you should be looking at the Planet X RT-58 Alloy. I picked up the version with SRAM Rival 22 groupset a few weeks ago for £500 plus pedals. Fabulous bike at a bargain price.

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mikroos | 8 years ago
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Sweet paintjobs!

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