After first peeking at the two prototype gravel bikes at Unbound Gravel, Giant and Liv have officially revealed that we all guessed correctly – the new Giant Revolt Advanced SL and the Liv Devote Advanced SL gravel bikes.
It was a textbook move by the Taiwanese brand, which just two years ago pulled a similar stunt by strategically leaking a prototype of the current-generation Giant Revolt Advanced Pro ahead of its then official launch.
As two of the best gravel bikes, the new models move away from the do-it-all adventure roots of previous generations, with both platforms completely reimagined with a single aim: unconditional race speed.
Engineered as fully integrated, holistic speed systems rather than a collection of standalone parts, these new platforms claim to deliver large aerodynamic drag reductions, dramatic weight savings, and aggressive geometry tailored for demanding gravel races, and doing away with the gravel adventuring modus operandi of the previous models.
While marketed to different audiences, these two elite platforms are cut from the same cloth. Built in the same specialised facilities, they share the same composite manufacturing processes designed to achieve weight savings and aerodynamic efficiency.
Shared carbon architecture
(Image credit: Liv Bikes/ Giant Bikes)
Shared carbon architecture
To truly understand these bikes, you have to look at their identical underlying skeletons. Both the Revolt and Devote Advanced lines utilise Giant Bicycle Group’s most proprietary high-modulus carbon resin. This shared advanced composite framework relies on a triad of manufacturing systems:
Carbon Nanotube Technology (CNT): A resin blend that boasts strengthened microscopic bonds between fibre layers, aiming to improve impact resistance.
Continuous Fibre Technology: The application of long, unbroken sheets of carbon fabric, which aim to eliminate overlapping joints, and therefore strip away dead weight while maximising structural strength.
Precision Cold-Blade Cutting: Laser-precise, mechanical cutting of individual composite swatches, which claims to ensure a flawless, minimised layup with zero wasted material.
Translating this industry jargon into plain English: both brands are using high-tech glue, longer carbon strands, and a much sharper knife to craft their frames. This carbon-equivalent aerospace-grade alloy allows engineers to strip away unnecessary material, ensuring both frames remain featherweight yet stiff enough for the highest echelons of racing.
All in all, it’s a relatively new, though not cheap, process for Giant Bicycles.
(Image credit: Giant Bicycles)
Translating shared tech to unique metrics
Because they share the same technological foundation, both bikes have achieved performance improvements over their predecessors.
For the Giant Revolt Advanced SL, this system-engineered approach yields a complete bike that is claimed to be 288g lighter than the previous generation. The bare frame boasts a drop to a scant 839g (a 151g reduction), while its fork shaves down to 385g, saving a combined 176g on the chassis alone.
Meanwhile, the Liv Devote Advanced SL uses the exact same layup process but with Liv’s female-specific ergonomics. Optimised in the wind tunnel using “Georgia,” its 3D-printed mannequin modelled after professional athlete Georgia Baker. Its core racing setup (frame, fork, wheels, and cockpit) tips the scales at a claimed 4,223g, cutting nearly 300g from the previous model.
(Image credit: Liv Bikes)
Integrated cockpits and progressive geometry
The similarities extend beyond the carbon sheets. Both platforms integrate their front ends to optimise stiffness. The flagship builds for both models utilise ultra-light integrated handlebars, the Contact SLR XR, which weighs a claimed scant 295g.
They also share a major shift in progressive gravel geometry. Both the Revolt and Devote feature lower stack height, longer reach, steeper head tube angles and reduced fork trail. With the framesets more closely resembling road-faring bikes.
Giant and Liv both say these reworked geometries deliver substantial aerodynamic savings, with the Giant Revolt boasting a claimed 18.99-watt advantage and the Liv Devote promising a massive 20.03-watt saving, both over the previous incarnations.
Looking at the Revolt at a granular level, Giant says that total wind-tunnel testing confirms a 13.81W linear drag, 3.03W rolling resistance, plus rotating-wheel savings.
Compared to the previous generation, the new Revolt SL has a lower frontal profile (557mm stack height vs 586mm), 10mm more reach (395mm reach vs 385mm), and a +1.0-degree seat tube angle (74.5 degrees vs 73.5 degrees).
Sliding the microscope over the Liv Devote and the numbers are even more impressive. Taking advantage of ‘Georgia’, Liv’s 3D-printed, fully adjustable mannequin modelled after the exact body dimensions of professional Liv AlUla Jayco athlete Georgia Baker, the brand claims to have optimised the Devote’s AeroSystem Shaping to maximise real-world efficiency.
The new Devote is much more aggressive. Across almost all sizes, with a lower Stack and a longer Reach. Taking a size medium, for example, the stack is now 17mm lower and 8mm longer than the outgoing model.
To make it even more aggressive, the Devote comes specced with longer stems across the board (70–90mm vs. the original 50–80mm).
It is slightly disengenous however, to claim that the full wattage saving comes from the geo alone, with Liv confessing that the two bikes were measured differently in the wind tunnel, with the original Devote configured in a more upright, traditional all-road position.
Back to the joint launch statements, and both brands state that this reworking of the Revolt and Devote promise highly stable front-ends to achieve a composed ride feel, even on high-speed fire roads and in loose, unpredictable corners. Furthermore, they both offer a maximum 53mm of tyre clearance, giving racers total flexibility to adapt to changing course conditions.
(Image credit: Giant Bikes)
Mirrored wheelsystems
While the heart of any bike is the frameset, it could be argued that the lungs are the wheels.
It will come as no surprise by now that this is another shared platform for Liv and Giant.
The top models, the Liv Devote and Revolt Advanced SL, use the brand new Cadex Max GRX Wheelsystem, which is a carbon 50mm hookless wheel with carbon spokes, fitted with Cadex GXR 45c tyres.
The Giant Bicycles house-brand wheelsets were launched just a couple of weeks ago, with the Advanced SL models being the first to be specc’d with the wheel-tyre combo.
The team behind Cadex say that the wheelset weighs just 1320g (1280g without valves and tape). Weight with the tyres is, as yet, an unknown quantity, despite the system-based approach, and the Cadex and Giant is quick to share stats such as the total aero drag reduction (linear + rotational) is now -15.96W and the total system resistance reduction saves 18.99W, both when compared to the previous Cades GX 40mm wheels.
It’s worth noting at this stage that the wheelset can also take up to 53mm tyres, which, according to Cadex, isn’t the optimal set-up for speed, but I would say it could be for the gnarlier gravel.
Purchased on their own, the Cadex GRX Wheelsystem is priced at $ 4000/£3499, and the GRX tyre is $ 85/£65 each.
(Image credit: Liv Bikes)
The Reality Check: old vs new
When you look past the matching marketing claims – like Liv’s “25% Better Pedalling” and “38.5% Better Handling” – the shared physical reality of these frames comes down to raw stiffness-to-weight efficiency.
Making a frame harder and lighter means less energy is lost when you pedal. It doesn’t mean 25% more speed; it means they cut weight and used a better carbon layup and resin than in previous iterations.
Without some context, you’d think the previous models rode like wet spaghetti;
However, understanding that Advance SLs that gain (or lose) these headline numbers are totally new bikes.
The range name is about all they now share, so it feels very disengenous of both Liv and Giant to make any comparisons on improvements between old and new.
To be honest, I suspect it’s only down to the immense cost and time involved in registering and trademarking a new range that these new bikes fall under the Devote or Revolt umbrella at all.
That’s no shade on the brands for this naming-keepsake move; it’s a cost that would have been passed down to end consumers, so it saves money in the right places. However, to try to wow us with the ‘improvements’ is pretty naughty.
Will that stop me loving the new bikes – probably not. There aren’t many Liv bikes I haven’t wanted to keep forever, and I suspect the same for my colleagues with their thoughts on Giant; I can’t see why either of these two gravel platforms would be any different.
Specifications: models and prices
I’ll spare you the granular specification charts for both new bikes and every model in the range and share more on that when we have the bikes.
But as a quick summary, the Advance SL tops the range, and both the Devote and the Revolt use the same SL-grade carbon for the frame and fork, Giant Contact SLR XR D-Fuse carbon seatpost, and, interestingly, the same Cadex Amp saddle.
The Contact SLR XR integrated handlebars differ between the Liv and Giant brands, but only in size: Liv specifies slightly smaller cockpit dimensions depending on size; for example, on size-small bikes, the Liv Devote uses a 70x420mm setup, while the Giant Revolt scales up to 420mm.
The other area that is matched, but not identical, is the SRAM Red cranksets. This time, both smalls run 165mm cranks with a powermeter as standard, but the 1x chainring on the small Devote is 42t, while the small Revolt again sizes up to 44t; both, however, get the same 13-speed 10×42 cassette.
As expected, both top models run the flagship Cadex Max GRX wheelsystem mentioned above.
Depending on the model, the bikes will cost between $7,300/ £5,499 and $12,000/ £10,000 for either the Liv Devote or Giant Revolt.
We’ll bring you more details about all the models and their specifics once the new bikes have landed with us, but in the meantime, both bikes will be available to purchase in the EU and UK only, while Giant’s CEO still unpicks the import tangle. which is currently still enforced in the USA.
