Heading to team hotels before the start of any big race is always a privilege, it’s also a prime place to get chatting with the mechanics of the teams as they toil away outside on the team bikes while the riders are inside keeping warm with their legs up.
On a visit to the hotel who were hosting team Lotto-Soudal I managed to get a look at their new Ridley bikes that will be getting some attention even if they don’t come across the line first on Sunday.
Lotto-Soudal’s team mechanics had a row of all the new Ridleys lined up. All in stealthy black with white logos. I was told by Fredrick Holmes, the team mechanic, that the new Ridley frame is yet to be named, or more precisely, that Ridley won’t be revealing the name until July when the Tour de France visits the cobbles in the early part of the race.
The bike has been developed throughout the past year (since the end of last year’s Spring Classics campaign) where the people at Ridley in conjunction with a small group of riders at Lotto-Soudal have been working on the project.
Information on the new bike is pretty scarce, though we do know from simply looking at it that it has a longer than usual wheelbase, and the head and seat angles are a slightly more relaxed.
Tyre clearance is improved over Ridleys previous frames and now can accommodate up to 30 mm tyres. Ridley took advice from the mechanics who said that they need to take Dugast tubulars as the standard fit.
Most of the details are closely guarded, though one big bit of news is that Ridley have been working with a Dutch and a Belgium University who have experience in aviation design.
Fredrick Holmes when pressed gave his view on how the riders feel about the new bike:
“Everybody here is really really happy with it, it’s something that they’ve wanted for a while and it’s to go up against the likes of Specialixed (Roubaix) and Trek (Domane), it really is a truly high end frame, there is no doubt that this is built to battle it out with the other guys.”
When asked about its development he had this to say:
“The development to get the bike to where it is now has taken three steps, a computer modelled version, a 3D printed version that they have tested in the wind and then the final step of a singular sized prototype.
Jurgen Roelandts was the tester for the first bike as Ridley had to first make a single size due to only making one mould.”
Until further details are officially released by Ridley, here are some photos for your enjoyment:
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- Campagnolo and SRM’s new spider was on show which looks to be a very clean and integrated system.
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- Not masses of fancy graphics for the German champ. A simple flag on the fork and the same on the seat tube is all that distinguishes his achievement.
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- Ridley’s new headtube flows nicely in to the top tube, a small nose-like lump sits on the head tube. It has a similar look to that of the Trek Emonda.
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- Another look at where the headtube and the toptube of the new unnamed Ridley join.
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- Greipel had JagWires Elite cable housing helping with the shifting and braking performance.
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- Lars Bak had a Shimano camera mounted under his saddle.
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- Tacx supplied new designed cages for the team as they requested a cage with a tighter grip than their standard cage. No news as weather the cages will become available to the public as yet.
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- Teams often go for aluminum bottle cages for the Cobbled Classics, but Lotto-Soudal found the newly designed Tacx cages worked well.
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- Lotto-Soudal are rolling on Continental Competition Pro Ltd tubulars. They are 25 mm both front and back.
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- The bar tape for Lars bak’s bike is just a single wrap of the very grippy Lizard Skin tape. Many other riders prefer two wraps to add comfort for pounding over the cobbles.
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- K-Edge is the teams chain guide sponsor. Though K-Edge make camera mounts the Shimano camera mounted under Lars Bak’s saddle was made by Shimano.
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- The new Ridley dropout is alloy. It may add a few grams but it’s easier to replace after an incident rather than if the whole thing was a singular piece of carbon. The cable routing is very clean too.
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- The new fork of the unnnamed Ridley.
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- Skinny stays and a clean looking race number mount.
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- Greipels bike had the climbs and cobbled sectors stuck on before the race.
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- The cable routing on the new Ridley frames is very clean
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- The Super Record EPS front mech looked as though it had seen a fair bit of action already; clearly all the bikes don’t have brand new kit installed.
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- An extra band prevents the seatpost from any posssible slippage. Made by 4ZA, Ridleys in-house brand.
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- Selle San Marco have a newly shaped Concor on display. We’ll do some asking about to find out what is different or new, so stay tuned.
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- A side view of that “new” saddle.
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- Marcel Sieberg was using a Specialized Power saddle with the logos covered up. The team are sponsored by Selle San Marco.
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- Speed sensors are oddly placed on the rear seat-stays.
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- Valves may have not fitted as snuggly as expected and with bouncing over cobbles for hours on end the mechanics have stuck small pieces of plastic in the valve holes to stop the rattling. These are then taped over so they don’t draw too much unwanted attention.
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- All the new Ridleys lined up for racing the Tour of Flanders.