This article was produced in association with Ribble
The measure of intelligence is the ability to change, so it’s said. Smart adaptation strategies have allowed humans to evolve and to survive in challenging environments. Our ancestors deployed technological innovations such as fire, clothes, weapons and of course the wheel, which advanced agriculture, industry and transport. As is also frequently pointed out, there are no wheels in nature and we are not going to evolve them any time soon.
The speed at which we can devise solutions far outpaces our genetic ability to adapt, and this is something intuitively understood by modern bicycle designers, whose job it is to refine and improve the way humans traverse the landscape on two wheels.
Ribble’s new Allroad platform arguably represents one of those significant two-wheeled turning points in the bicycle’s relatively short history: the British brand has adapted the leading-edge features of its existing bikes and simultaneously devised some new ones to create what could be the most uniquely evolved road bike of the current generation – one that, in Ribble’s words, “redefines road”.
Head of product Jamie Burrow has a great deal of direct experience of the way road bikes have evolved over the last 30 years: as one of the UK’s most promising racers he turned pro with Lance Armstrong’s US Postal team in 2000 and raced professionally through the 2000s. “It feels like a long time ago that I was racing,” he says. “But it’s actually a relatively short space of time, and everything has moved along massively.”
The Ribble Allroad, which consists of three distinct models – the SL R, SL Re and SL – takes aerodynamics from the brand’s Ultra race bike and combines mixed-surface capability, resulting in a bike that can tackle challenging terrain without compromising on speed or comfort.
“It’s a natural progression,” says Burrow. “Road surfaces have been getting worse, which has made riders look for more comfort, and in the background gravel has grown as a category. People want a bike that can fulfil more of their needs. We’ve created a lightweight, high-end, carbon performance bike that also has those off-road capabilities. It’s clear that anyone who gets on a bike wants to feel fast whether they’re racing or not – and that means good aerodynamics, low weight and the ability to maintain speed even when they’re not on perfectly smooth tarmac.”
Burrow continues: “We took studies from the Ultra, which was a few years in the making, and having already done that work it made an easier starting point for the Allroad. We knew what to do.”
With its groundbreaking Ultra SL R race bike, launched in 2021, Ribble introduced a radical new cockpit on which the shifters were mounted directly and which incorporated ‘wake generators’, drag-reduction zones within which the rider’s legs operated. These produced, according to Ribble’s testing, a 2.1 per cent drag reduction.
For the Allroad SL R and SL Re, Ribble carried over the direct-mount shifters and the wake generators, but in order to improve bar and stem sizing options, made it compatible with a standard 31.8mm stem, instead of integrated, and renamed it UB-2.
“That was probably the biggest single feature we trickled down from the Ultra,” says Burrow. “The front of the Allroad also has the same shape as the Ultra – the same fork silhouette, width of the blades and the overall width of the fork with the idea of taking the wind around the rider’s legs.”
The Ultra’s down tube shape was also borrowed, which for Burrow was “one of the biggest savings”. The down tube flares dramatically at its mid point so that it’s the same width as a bottle, and continues at the same width down to the bottom bracket. This makes the bike faster with a bottle than without.
At its rear, the Allroad borrows the Ultra’s dropped, wide-stance seatstays, which mimic the shape of the fork in order to maintain optimal airflow attachment. As Burrow points out, this is a shape we’ve seen used in the design of track bikes used at the Paris Olympics and something Ribble started working on four years ago.
The comfort, says Burrow, was achieved through geometry, carbon layup and tyre size. The Allroad SL R and SL Re have clearance for 38mm tyres – unheard of for a road bike not so long ago. “Clearances were much more limited when rim brakes were still in the game and we didn’t know how quickly we were going to come out of that,” says Burrow. “I remember in 2017, when we renewed the range, we did every model in rim and disc, because we didn’t know how customers were going to react. Now, seven years later, it’s obvious, which means there’s no limit on tyre size.”
In its layup, Ribble includes Toray’s latest high-modulus M46 carbon alongside T1000. “There are certain areas of the bike where you need more carbon,” says Burrow, “such as the bottom bracket through the rear stays and head tube, where the torsional forces are. So instead of adding more layers of one grade, if you can have fewer layers of something else because it’s stiffer – for example one ply is the equivalent of three plies of something else – weight can be saved,” says Burrow.
The Allroad SL R has a frame weight of 870g, impressive for a bike with deep tubes that can handle rougher terrain as well as smooth tarmac. The geometry is designed for all-day comfort without sacrificing performance and is based on Ribble’s existing endurance rider position.
Burrow sums up: “The Allroad SL R could be a race bike for anyone who’s not pro or elite. With its aerodynamics and carbon structure it’s got everything of any other elite level race bike on the planet, it’s just the geometry that’s not what a WorldTour rider would be looking for. But for everyone else it’s much more suitable than a pro race bike. We positioned it so it’s for anyone who loves to ride, however they ride.”
The Ribble Allroad is not just intelligent in its ability to change the landscape of road cycling, but democratic too.
