Ridley Bikes uses the slogan 'We are Belgium' and indeed, despite the 1997-founded company’s relative youth, its brand is woven into the fabric of the Flandrian cycling scene. As well as having a huge presence in cyclocross, Ridley sponsors WorldTour team Lotto Soudal, and the smaller ProConti outfit CULT Energy.
Our small test bike featured a non-standard Campagnolo Chorus EPS build
ADVERTISEMENT
Like many bike manufacturers, Ridley has divided its road range up to accommodate a variety of tastes. The Noah FAST and Noah SL are pure aero machines, the Helium SL is a lightweight climber’s bike, and the original Fenix Classic was, as the name implies, built for the rough and tumble of Europe’s gruelling spring races. Ridley placed an emphasis on strength and stiffness, and the result was a bike appreciated by the pro-powerhouse likes of Andre Greipel, but which we felt lacked the comfort-oriented features of a machine designed to take on the cobbles.
Ridley obviously thought so too, and so came about the all-new Fenix SL, first spotted by BikeRadar in an anonymous guise at the Scheldeprijs. Even a cursory inspection reveals that this is a quite different design. The top tube now curves downwards slightly, the seatstays have slimmed, and the 31.6mm seatpost (and correspondingly fat seat tube) has shrunk to a more forgiving 27.2mm. In a similar vein, clearances have increased, with Ridley claiming a maximum possible width of 30mm – impressive for a bike with rim brakes. To facilitate this change without compromising on power transfer, the bottom bracket has gone from PF30 to the wider BB86 standard, which makes extra room to add material and boost chainstay stiffness.
You can read more at BikeRadar.com
via BikeRadar All the latest from BikeRadar.com http://ift.tt/1J01CCv
No comments:
Post a Comment