The Excalibur has long been a shining star in the Ridley line-up, so it makes perfect sense that they chose to expand upon it with the introduction of the Helium frameset. Like the Excalibur, the Helium is built in a monocoque design with oversized, round tubes. Its tubing diameters are equally beefy for optimum flex-resistance, and it has the same enormous-diameter tubing junctures at the headtube/down tube and down tube/BB, as well as the oversized integrated headtube with a 1-1/2" lower bearing.

But unlike the Excalibur, the Helium features the same integrated seatpost design of Ridley's Noah. We will literally cut down the carbon fiber seat tube of the frame based on your saddle-to-BB measurement. You'll use a custom Ridley seat clamp that seamlessly mates to the seat tube and offers three different positions to modify your effective seat angle. The use of this integrated seat tube/seatpost maximizes the stiffness of the Helium and it offers added frameset stiffness when you're putting the bike under serious in-the-saddle pressure, and of course it looks like a million bucks.

Even though the Helium is made with an integrated seat tube/seatpost, it weighs less than the Excalibur at 900 grams thanks to the fact it uses a superior grade of carbon fiber. The Helium uses 30-ton carbon with areas of 40-ton and 50-ton reinforcements (in comparison to the 24-ton carbon used on the Excalibur.) By using higher-grade carbon, Ridley can literally use less carbon in the production process, netting a lower weight bike. The Helium also utilizes full carbon dropouts and does not use any aluminum in the head tube bearing races to reduce weight further. And when you factor in the detail that you need to use a conventional seatpost on an Excalibur, but you don't on a Helium -- the real net difference is weight is well over a half-pound in savings with the Helium.

The Helium comes in 5 sizes from Extra Small to Extra Large. Given its compact geometry, we strongly suggest that you focus on the virtual top tube length as you make a determination of the proper size. Please provide us with your BB-Saddle Rail height in the "Comments" section of our order form so we can properly cut down the seat tube for delivery. The Helium comes with a matching Ridley 4ZA monocoque full carbon fiber fork and a proprietary FSA integrated headset. It requires an English bottom bracket, and a 34.9mm front derailleur. It has a 5-year warranty from manufacturing defect.

One final note on sizing: On all sizes the top of the seat tube is 235mm above the center of the top tube, not including seat mounting hardware.

2008 Ridley Helium Pricing
	Frameset	Record / Chorus	Centaur / Dura Ace	Ultegra SL / Red	Force / Rival
Helium	$2999	5649 / 5242	4647 / 5384	4546 / 5375	4759 / 4372

2008 Ridley Helium 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