RIDLEY

Ridley's prominence in the high-end road marketplace has spread like wildfire in the last decade for good reason. Why? It's because they're a 12-month-a-year manufacturer. What do we mean by this? It means they make world-class frames for every season and every discipline -- each race-proven at the highest professional levels of the sport. The Helium tips the scales at a feathery 900g, but its toughness over the pavé made it a favorite of Leif Hoste and the rest of the spring classics squad of Silence-Lotto during the '08 season, and it'll serve the same purpose for the new superteam Katusha in 2009. And the new-for-2009 Noah is the biggest step forward in road bike aerodynamics we've seen since the unveiling of the Cervélo Soloist Carbon 4 seasons ago. The Noah's R-Flow technology and unmatched stiffness made it the choice of Green Jersey-champion Robbie McEwen and his teammates on Silence-Lotto's Tour de France squad in 2008. And Ridley takes their R-Flow airfoils to the extreme with the Dean TT frame -- a bike designed with the single-minded purpose of guiding Cadel Evans to a GC victory in le Tour -- something he came within a whisker of achieving in 2008. And no professional cyclocross team has the palmares of Team Fidea. Bart Wellens & co have ridden the carbon X-Night and X-Fire to umpteen Superprestige and World Championship victories.

In their early years, Ridley built the reputation as a company specializing in bikes "tested on the pavé" -- and this Made-in-Belgium heritage was something appealing to anyone sensitive to the rich bike culture of Flanders. But in the years since, they've graduated to the top echelon of race bike manufacturers. They are leaders in every conceivable way: They build light-but-bombproof frames; they build ultra-aero road frames and time trial frames; and they are the undisputed leader of cyclocross frames. Their bikes -- no matter the discipline -- deliver a ride quality, a durability, and a beauty befitting their emerging position as Europe's most dynamic manufacturer of pro-caliber bicycles.

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