RIDLEY DAMOCLES/SRAM RIVAL COMPLETE BIKE
The Ridley Damocles boasts a streak of victories in the professional peloton that includes the Australian, Dutch, Belgian, and British national road race championships; umpteen wins in field sprints under Silence-Lotto's Robbie McEwen in the Tour de France and the Giro d'Italia; plus a glorious mountaintop solo victory for American Chris Horner in Switzerland's prestigious Tour of Romandie. It's thanks to this diversity of wins -- in the rolling courses that define national championship races, in the dead flat sprinters' stages of the Grand Tours, and in the dizzying finishes on the ski stations of the Alps -- that we're convinced of the Damocles' versatility as a race bike. It's this very versatility that made it a day-in, day-out bike of a ProTour team no less revered than Belgium powerhouse Silence-Lotto.
The Damocles is built using the most advanced method available for carbon fiber construction: It's a monocoque frame, which thanks to its seamless design gives it both durability and lightness. But where the Damocles is unique amongst its monocoque counterparts from other brands -- and where it should capture your attention -- is in its ride quality. The true test of a carbon bike is to big ring it down a chip-and-seal country road (after all, every bike feels great on smooth pavement). We've had countless experiences drilling monocoque bikes in the boonies and we're almost always jackhammered by road shock and annoyed by the constant noise that reverberates in their oversized tubes. Take just one test ride on a Damocles, though, and you'll come to a happy conclusion: It's the exception to the monocoque rule. Even on chip-and-seal, there's a distinctive forgiveness to its tubes. It has a smoothness and a silence absent from nearly every other pro-quality carbon bike in the market. In a "me too" world of homogenous carbon fiber framesets, the ride quality of the Damocles will breathe new life into your belief of what's possible with carbon.
As smooth as the Damocles is, there's no disputing its race pedigree. Ridley optimized it for sprinters by building it with a tapered headtube. 
The bottom bearing in the headtube is an oversized 1.5" in diameter, and it tapers up to a standard 1-1/8" at the top, giving the front end supreme stiffness when you're out of the saddle. And the BB/downtube interface is massive, giving the drivetrain area the rigidity you need when you're throttling it in a sprint or a climb or are otherwise at top power. Ridley designed the Damocles tubes using their "Sharp Edged Design", triangulating the cross-section of the top tube where it mates to the headtube, and by making the downtube hexagonal where it feeds into the BB shell. The net effect is to give the Damocles maximum resistance to flex under power. By pairing this rigidity with its capacity for absorbing road vibrations, the Damocles has a finely balanced ride of which most other manufacturers can just dream.
Why do we have this bike on sale, you might ask? It's because Ridley offered the Damocles in other paint schemes previous to 2010, then changed to a different color for 2010. The beauty of this package, though, is that the SRAM Rival componentry you'll get here in 2010-era -- in the new black color. And rather than use Rival shift levers, we've upgraded these with 2nd edition 2010 Force carbon fiber Double Tap shift levers. It's more of a 2010 bike than 2008.
Do a quick cost analysis and you'll see that no other bike in the marketplace can match this package. The retail price on an '08 Damocles frameset was $2,299. You're basically paying for the frameset and getting an entire SRAM component package for free. The Damocles frame is ProTour proven, and SRAM's Rival component package has all of the technological upside of Red and Force, but at a huge cost savings since Rival makes greater use of alloy instead of carbon fiber. We round the package out with a top-notch FSA handlebar, stem, and seatpost. You get a Fulcrum Racing 7 clincher wheelset and Vredestein tires. Out of the box, this is a ready-to-ride, throw-down race bike.
The Damocles is available in 4 sizes from Small to Extra Large. Given its compact geometry, we suggest that you focus on the virtual top tube length as you make a determination of the proper size. The frame comes with a Ridley 4ZA monocoque full carbon fiber fork and a proprietary FSA integrated headset. It has a 5-year warranty from manufacturing defect.
Share this PageDamocles/SRAM Rival Complete Bike Price: $2399.00 (Was $3600.00)
2008 Ridley Damocles/SRAM Rival Complete Bike Geometry
Size |
Seat Tube c-c |
Seat Tube c-t |
Actual Top Tube |
Effective Top Tube |
Head Tube |
Seat Angle |
Head Tube Angle |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| XS | 44.0 | 48.0 | 51.0 | 52.5 | 13.0 | 74.0 | 72.0 |
| S | 47.0 | 51.0 | 53.0 | 54.5 | 14.5 | 73.5 | 73.0 |
| M | 50.0 | 54.0 | 55.0 | 56.5 | 17.5 | 73.0 | 73.5 |
| L | 53.0 | 57.0 | 57.0 | 58.5 | 20.5 | 72.5 | 73.5 |
| XL | 56.0 | 60.0 | 58.5 | 60.0 | 23.0 | 72.5 | 74.0 |
