Overview: Is the Ridley ASTR RS the way forward for gravel race bikes?

Ridley’s new gravel bike will turn into a blueprint for a way the very best gravel race bikes might be designed over the following handful of years. That is a robust solution to start a assessment, I do know, however I need to seize your consideration as a result of though that assertion is nothing greater than my very own opinion, I actually need it to be true. 

As we lead into the UCI Gravel Worlds, Ridley is right now asserting a motorcycle that was first sighted on the often-dubbed ‘unofficial gravel worlds’, Unbound Gravel, in June. Group Categorised-Ridley rider, Piotr Havik, was given the bike simply 10 days previous to the race and regardless of having the Kanzo Quick at his disposal and dialled in, he determined he needed to race the brand new bike. He completed 4th. 

Coincidentally, I too completed 4th after I rode this assessment pattern on the British Masters Gravel Championships, a 90km undulating race over tough floor on the finish of August. On the identical day within the elite races, Annabel Fisher rode hers to victory within the ladies’s race (technically 2nd behind Alison Jackson however as a non-Brit, she was ineligible for the title), and Toby Perry rode his into 2nd within the males’s race behind Connor Swift. 

The bike in query is the Ridley ASTR RS, a motorcycle that, put very merely, pairs an aerodynamic body with slender handlebars, huge tyre clearance, respectable weight, and a geometry that pairs an extended wheelbase with a racy, aggressive match. Couple that with the brand new SRAM Crimson XPLR AXS groupset (in my particular take a look at spec) and you’ve got an enormous inexperienced examine towards every merchandise on my gravel race bike wishlist. 

Ridley says it’s a mixture of the Kanzo Journey, with its extensive clearance and lengthy wheelbase, and the aero wants of racers in gravel occasions with extra technical terrain and better common speeds reminiscent of Unbound, the Traka and Huge Sugar. Curiously, it is not set to switch the Kanzo Quick however relatively will reside alongside it within the vary.

Why I feel it is the long run

There isn’t any denying that gravel bike racing is getting quicker because it will get extra critical. The successful common pace on the Males’s Unbound, for instance, has grown by 2mph in simply 4 years. The quicker it will get, the extra aerodynamics issues. It is the rationale we noticed Lachlan Morton sporting a skinsuit with an inbuilt hydration bladder at Unbound 2024, for instance. 

However gravel continues to be comparatively sluggish in comparison with street racing. The place the lads’s professional street peloton speeds are actually approaching 50km/h, the quickest gravel racers are averaging extra like 35, and most novice racers extra like 30. Aerodynamics nonetheless issues loads, however the resistant drive of airflow is smaller. 

Then when you think about that the tough surfaces of gravel programs imply that absolute rolling resistance is considerably larger than on the street. The breakdown of the forces appearing towards a rider is massively totally different. Aero nonetheless issues most, however that proportion of rolling resistance is far larger. Relating to optimising your setup for a selected course, tyre alternative is important.

With wider tyres usually providing decrease rolling resistance, it is smart that the broader you go, the quicker you may be. The rougher the course, the more true this may turn into, and it additionally enables you to run decrease pressures, decreasing your likelihood of punctures and enhancing grip in corners. Clearly, there is a restrict to this; fats bike tyres might not be the following frontier of efficiency, however the business has but to choose simply how extensive is optimum. The present development is someplace round 40mm, however the ASTR RS goes a lot wider. 

Loads of bikes presently provide one or the opposite. The BMC Kaius 01, for instance, pushed the envelope with aerodynamics – its 36cm handlebars the massive differentiator – however the 44mm tyre clearance continues to be fairly limiting. The Lauf Seigla goes the opposite method, going all-in on tyre clearance with house for 57mm, however the focus for the body is extra on vibration absorption relatively than aerodynamics, and if you happen to purchase it in a dimension L or XL you may get frankly ridiculous 44cm extensive bars. Sorry Lauf, however I actually dislike extensive bars.

On paper a minimum of, the Ridley ASTR RS is the bike doing each of these issues effectively, with none actual detriment to weight, and as effectively get into under, it interprets off paper and into the actual world fairly properly. 

Design, specs, and the way they have an effect on the experience

The bottom of the brand new ASTR bike is a semi-aero body that would not actually look misplaced on the street. There isn’t any main aero trickery, only a easy mixture of aerodynamically profiled tubes and general I feel it seems to be respectable. 

There are two variants of the brand new bike. The ASTR RS is the higher-spec mannequin which you see right here. This take a look at mannequin is the top-spec mannequin within the vary, priced at €11699 (worldwide pricing to be confirmed). 

In the meantime, the ASTR (with out the RS suffix) is a extra entry-level mannequin with a lower-grade carbon fibre layup. This bears a really related silhouette, however with a spherical seatpost relatively than the D-shaped publish on the dearer mannequin, and lower-spec fashions include a two-piece bar and stem, relatively than a one-piece possibility. The worth right here begins at €3299 for a mechanical 2x Shimano GRX setup. 

The tyre clearance on each fashions is 700 x 52mm, or 29 x 2.0in mountain bike tyres. That is not the widest available on the market, so far as I’m conscious that crown goes to the Lauf Seigla as talked about above and the 3T Extrema Italia, nevertheless it’s nonetheless one of the progressive round. 

Each are suitable with 1x and 2x groupsets, though the latter possibility reduces the tyre clearance all the way down to 47mm. The ASTR RS is suitable with digital groupsets solely, whereas the ASTR can also be workable with mechanical groupsets. 

Most likely the simplest solution to comprehend the place of the ASTR in Ridley’s lineup, and within the wider market, is to match the geometry to the Kanzo Quick and Kanzo Journey. 

You possibly can see that the pinnacle angle and chainstays match the Kanzo Quick, serving to it to copy the quick dealing with and responsiveness of the bike, however the seat tube angle and wheelbase are extra alike the Kanzo Journey, a motorcycle which was initially designed to be secure and surefooted for long-distance rides and bikepacking. Whenever you pair that with a deal with conserving the load down for racing, with mounts just for bottles and the aero body baggage designed in conjunction by Apidura, you begin to get an concept of what this bike is about. 

And at 890g for an unpainted medium body, it is not the lightest available on the market nevertheless it’s aggressive.

Up entrance, the ASTR RS (and higher-spec ASTR fashions) are given a one-piece cockpit. Within the case of my take a look at bike, that could be a Nimbus Professional from Ridley’s in-house part subsidiary Forza. At 36cm extensive on the hoods and a 2cm flare to 40 on the drops, it places you in a quick, aero place when rolling alongside the flat terrain, however with out compromising on leverage within the drops while you’re descending technical terrain. 

Paired with the ergonomics of the brand new SRAM Crimson AXS hoods, management of the bike felt glorious, and given their form and my choice to angle them inwards barely for ergonomics, the gap between the guidelines of the hoods on my take a look at mannequin, in its race-ready state, was a very-progressive 31cm. 

My take a look at bike was paired with DT Swiss GRC 1400 wheels which have a 24mm inside rim width. I actually like DT Swiss wheels generally, and the GRC 1400 are among the many finest gravel wheelsets round, however there are extra progressive choices. The 24mm inside profile is not thought-about innovative, so their inclusion feels considerably at odds with the bike’s in any other case progressive nature. Once I paired the bike with Zipp’s 303 XPLR SW wheels (with their 32mm inside rim), the bike grew to become much more succesful and surefooted. 

My esteemed colleague Tom has already lined the professionals and cons of these wheels in a separate assessment, so I will save my ideas on these. You possibly can learn his ideas in our Zipp 303 XPLR SW assessment.

Only a few weeks in the past, my native cyclocross season opener (dry and quick, principally a grass crit) was an ideal take a look at to show that the longer wheelbase wasn’t holding the bike again on twisty terrain. These annoying banked hairpins the place you repeatedly go up and down the identical financial institution are normally my nemesis, however the Goodyear Inter XPLR tyres gripped brilliantly and both my bike dealing with abilities had reworked, or the bike was making me look good. I do know what my cash’s on. 

Per week later, with the DT Swiss wheels again on the bike, I took it to North Wales to race the 112km Graean Cymru UCI World Collection race. With a pair of two.0in Vittoria Terreno Dry tyres and Vittoria’s Air Liner Mild inserts fitted, I felt just like the bike may roll over something and the whole lot. 

The floor was very tough, with bits of damaged brick and paving stone strewn at random throughout the already-rocky gravel hearth roads. Regardless of deliberately taking dangers on tough strains at larger speeds to make up gaps on descents that I would earlier misplaced on climbs, I did not endure a puncture all day, and though that sounds extra like a constructive assessment for the tyres, it would not have been potential with no bike with such extensive clearance. 

Transferring onto the aero efficiency of the bike, I am not going to fake I may really feel it being quicker, however the whole lot I learn about aerodynamics would argue that it’s. As we realized in our latest wind tunnel superbike exams, round 80% of my whole frontal space when using is me, with solely 20% coming from the bike. 

Wanting on the 20% portion, the design of the bike matches all of the widespread themes with fashionable aero bikes, with well-shaped truncated tubes, a one-piece cockpit, dropped seat stays and a D-shaped seatpost. Though I’ve not examined it empirically, I’m assured it’s throughout the ballpark of what an excellent aero gravel bike needs to be. That ballpark would seemingly imply it is throughout the margin of error of testing anyway, though once more, I recognize that is primarily based on assumption relatively than proof.  

Extra importantly, focussing on the 80% – me – given the ASTR RS places me into an extended and slender place, it is secure to imagine it is web quicker than an equal bike with much less optimum geometry or extensive handlebars. 

What I would do in a different way

With all of the positives I’ve talked about to date, you are in all probability pondering Ridley has backhanded me a clean cheque. Sadly, a lot because the Fb commenters wish to counsel as a lot, I do not receives a commission by manufacturers for my opinions. I in all probability would not drive a Peugeot if I did. 

To revive a way of steadiness, listed here are just a few negatives I have to name out concerning the bike that cropped up throughout testing. Specifically, just a few construct high quality considerations that I would be sad about if I would paid for the bike.

Hopefully, most of those will not make it to paying clients, as I am advised my bike is a pre-production pattern. 

Firstly, the dealing with of my entrance disc brake mount was miles off, which means it took an age (and a whole lot of submitting) to get the entrance caliper to take a seat parallel to the rotor. For an excellent whereas I assumed I would be racing with that annoying ‘ting ting ting’ of rotors touching pads, and it took an excellent two hours to repair, however fortunately I finally received it to take a seat straight. 

The second is a slipping seatpost. Fortunately this did not occur throughout any of the races I did, however on a few earlier take a look at rides, the advisable torque wasn’t sufficient to maintain it in place, so a liberal quantity of carbon paste and a slight overtorquing was wanted. It goes with out saying that I would not advocate going past manufacturer-recommended torque specs your self.

The third is fragile paint. On the rear seatstay, a reasonably innocuous knock from a multitool when eradicating the rear wheel was sufficient to take a chip out of the paint. Not a considerable one, nor one that may actually have an effect on the bike in the long term, however I can think about considerably larger knocks from stones flicking up, and common knocks like this rapidly start to make a motorcycle look worn. Importantly, it is solely occurred this as soon as, regardless of having raced it on a number of events, so perhaps I am overanalysing that one chip, however I would nonetheless hope consumer-facing merchandise would have a barely more durable coating. 

The ultimate destructive is one thing that may positively make it to customers, and can both be a complete non-issue or a dealbreaker: the press match backside bracket. Due to my impending races, I selected to swap the underside bracket out for a CeramicSpeed model, and I’ve not had a single situation with it creaking or changing into contaminated. However given the regularity of water and filth ingress when using gravel, particularly contemplating the poor manufacturing tolerance elsewhere within the body (the disc brake mount), I fear this may result in the dreaded press-fit creak over time. 

Verdict

I preserve my opening line that the ASTR RS will turn into the blueprint for gravel race bike design. The one query left unanswered is whether or not 52mm clearance is extensive sufficient, or whether or not, with larger clearances, wider tyres on wider rims, and a greater understanding of how they steadiness towards aerodynamics, gravel bike tyres ought to go wider nonetheless. Solely time will inform. 

I do know that Ridley is not the primary model to acknowledge that aero issues in gravel, neither is it the primary to allow huge tyre clearance, however for anybody on the lookout for a gravel race bike proper now, I feel the ASTR RS is the present forefront of what is accessible when you think about each of these approaches collectively. 

It is quick, it handles excellently, it is comfy, mild, and surefooted but nimble. Positive, there are just a few minor considerations that may hopefully be ironed out by the model, however general, it is an excellent race bike and one I would fortunately commit to purchasing.