Ridley

X-Ride - 2014

Carbon fiber is clearly the material of choice for high end race bikes. That said, if you race cyclocross, having a race bike and pit bike gets expensive. For many riders who use cyclocross for off-season fun and fitness, an aluminum bike is the ideal compromise. When your bike handles as well as the Ridley X-Ride it’s easy to see why. The triple butted tubeset yields a ride that’s both spirited, and surprisingly smooth, while the oversized, tapered head tube keeps the steering precise when the ruts start getting deep. Taken together, you'd be forgiven for not asking why you need anything fancier. 

The X-Ride’s 7005 aluminum tubeset features an aggressive triple butting profile, which yields thicker walls at the welded junctions, for strength, with the weight and ride quality advantages of a thinner tube in the middle. The geometry is nearly identical to the X-Fire, which is built around classic Continental handling. It maintains the relaxed head angle and higher bottom bracket, for aggressive cornering in the dirt. The standard, 68mm English bottom bracket sits slightly higher than the X-Night, which gives it a more responsive feel for those of us with the handling skills of mere mortals. A short wheelbase keeps the handling lively, and it means that you won’t have any issues throwing it into turns at full speed.

In addition to the aggressive butting profile, the X-Ride’s aluminum tubeset gets some external tube forming intended to help it cope with the stresses of cyclocross. Specifically, the down tube gets a horizontal squash — giving it greater weld surface at the head tube -- and manipulation on the vertical plane to provide maximum weld surface at the bottom bracket shell. When you factor in the slightly flattened portion at the bottom of the top tube, which enhances carrying comfort, the X-Ride’s race-bred heritage is obvious. But since you’ll want to ride it pretty much everywhere, it gets dual water bottle mounts to enhance the versatility.

The 4ZA Oryx fork is built entirely out of carbon fiber, for superior strength, and the tapered head tube fights chatter under hard braking.

The Ridley X-Ride Frame is available in 50cm, 54cm, 56cm, 58cm, and in the color White/black.