Ribble Sportive Racing review

This review first appeared in Issue 44 of BikesEtc magazine

We tested Ribble’s Sportive Racing in Di2 guise last year (see page 2), and were blown away by the way it provided a stiff, responsive ride combined with a fair amount of long-distance ability.

It was more ‘Racing’ than ‘Sportive’ in our book, which added to the excitement of the ride immensely.

Here, for less than £1,000, Ribble has concocted a mechanical 105-equipped version that seems perfectly equipped for anything the road throws at you.

Frameset

The frame is made from a mix of T700 and T800 carbon-fibre, from carbon giant Toray. Put simply, T800 is a lighter yet stronger lay-up, so this is used in areas such as the head tube and bottom bracket.

To bring a build of this calibre in under £1,000 dictates that you’d struggle to use T800 for the whole frameset.

The sloping top tube of the Ribble’s frameset has two purposes: it supplies a low standover height, but also reduces the size of the Sportive Racing’s rear triangle.

What you’re getting is a rear end that’s responsive to input, and a fairly long length of exposed seatpost to assist with soaking up the vibrations from the road.

The 31.8mm alloy seatpost isn’t the most forgiving, though.

The frame tubes are predominantly square in profile, which again aids rigidity in the design, especially at the bottom bracket and head tube (which is the most expansive area of carbon-fibre we’ve ridden with for quite some time).

The cabling is internally routed, and the frame is also ready for electronic groupset wiring, so it’s a future-proof arrangement.

Groupset

The Sportive Racing is equipped mainly with the ubiquitous 11-speed Shimano 105. A compact 50/34 chainset is linked to 105 front and rear derailleurs, as well as a 105 cassette (in nigh-on-perfect wide-ratio 11-28 format).

Mechanical brake/shift levers are also from Shimano’s mid-range catalogue, while brake callipers are FSA K-Force items.

Finishing kit

In this 53cm frame set-up, Ribble has opted for a sensibly spanned 420mm alloy compact-drop handlebar set-up from ITM, matched to a 100mm ITM alloy stem.

The bars do a grand job of dialling out harshness from the fairly rigid fork, yet are stiff enough to aid uphill smash-fests on the drops.

The CSN 31.6mm seatpost is a sizeable chunk of alloy – given that it extends through the seat tube almost to the bottom bracket at its full insertion, we reckon you could get this build down to under 8kg just by shaving off any unwanted length.

Selle Italia’s X1 Flow is a common addition to budget builds, and we’ve little to grumble about in the area of rump-related comfort.

Wheels

Mavic’s Aksium alloy clinchers are workaday hoops that fit the bill of durability and comfort demanded of this sub-£1,000 build.

They’re hefty, so do slightly hamper hard acceleration and climbing, but they’re virtually indestructible.

They wear Continental’s excellent GP4000S rubber, in 25c size – the widest you can fit to the Sportive Racing without interfering with frame clearance.

Conti’s flagship rubber is grippy, resilient and (in our experience) puncture-resistant.

On the road

The tall front end puts us in a decidedly upright position at first, but by taking one of the 10mm spacers from under the stem and putting it on top, the riding stance adopts a really decent combination of purposeful and practical.

For better or worse, the stiffness of the previous Sportive Racing we tested is still evident, but with a little air taken out of the 25c Contis, again we manage to achieve a decent compromise set-up.

An overriding sense of purposeful performance and super-stiff ride permeate the time spent on the Ribble. The front end is more buzzy than the smaller sized Sportive Racing we previously tested, owing to the much longer head tube and associated steerer.

Also, owing to the shorter length of exposed seatpost due to the larger sized frame, there are more vibrations intruding at the rear.

That said, Selle Italia’s Z1 Flow saddle, plus a set of extremely competent 25c tyres deflated to 85psi, do their part in mitigating the road buzz.

The bike’s eagerness to get up and go is there in spades, though. When we say the Sportive Racing is a superbike-baiter, we’re not exaggerating: if you were to replace the budget wheelset with something more keen to spin up with immediacy, you’d embarrass a lot of people on the Sunday club run who are riding bikes costing three times the amount.

In practical terms, the compact chainset allied to the 105-series 11-28 cassette provides an ample spread of available ratios – not the biggest gears for optimum power production, but plenty of scope for excelling on all terrain, whether flat, rolling or hilly.

The fact that this build weighs in just north of the 8kg mark is impressive, given it’s a size M frameset, too.

The Ribble handles as well as many carbon bikes we’ve ridden that would put a much more sizeable dent in your savings.

A larger size frame does temper the lightning-quick response we’ve experienced with this model before, but the rangier head tube and more upright riding position allows you to pile on the miles – and smiles – much more effectively.

That said, this machine is more than capable of giving you a shot of adrenaline. Egging you on to brake hard and late before slamming it into a downhill corner, the only two limiting factors we found were the FSA callipers’ willingness to grip the Mavics’ alloy braking surface, and potentially the UK road surface.

Take this bike on a cycling holiday to Mallorca, however, and you’ll have a near-perfect companion for the testing climbs and rocketing descents of Europe’s paradise cycling island.

The frameset is restricted to running nothing wider than 25mm rubber, but we reckon Conti’s GP4000S tyres are some of the best performing we’ve ever tested – grippy, durable, low rolling resistance…

Unlike some that we’ve tested in the same £50 price range, which frankly have about as much grip as an ungritted country lane in winter. 

RATINGS

Frame: A great mix of carbon for superb stiffness. 9/10 
Components: Mostly 105 kit – superb value at this price. 8/10 
Wheels: Decent Mavic wheels with excellent Conti tyres. 8/10 
The ride: Responsive and fast enough to give a real thrill. 9/10 

Verdict: When we say the Ribble Sportive Racing is a superbike-baiter, we're not exaggerating.  

Geometry

Spec

Ribble Sportive Racing review (2016)

Marc Abbott

30 September 2016

Similarly to Dolan’s Ares SL, the Sportive Racing from Preston-based Ribble is intended for those of us who like our sportives to be rapid, or even for riders looking for a cost-effective – and future-proof – entry into the world of road racing. Also squarely up against Dolan as one of the UK’s best-known direct-sales bike companies, it will be very interesting to see how the Ribble compares. Ribble says it’s the ideal mix of ‘position, comfort and speed’. But can you have all three attributes in one bike? Let’s find out…

Frameset 

The most obvious feature of the Ribble’s frame is its sloping top tube, which reduces the size of the rear frame triangle. This gives the Sportive Racing a rear end that’s particularly responsive to input, and also means a lengthy expanse of seatpost is exposed, to give you the best chance of adding some flex to the ride. The Ribble’s 31.8mm alloy seatpost isn’t the most forgiving, though. Ribble says it has actually increased the size of its wishbone seatstays to make the frame stiffer. Tube profiles are largely square, which again contributes to rigidity, especially at the bottom bracket and head tube, the latter forming a chunk of carbon roughly the size and shape of eight Weetabix stacked on top of each other. The Sportive Racing is available in a Shimano Sora build from as little as £900, while Ultegra Di2 builds start from £1,780 – that’s cracking value in anyone’s book.

Groupset 

Shimano’s excellent Ultegra Di2 shifters, plus front and rear mechs, are matched by the dual-pivot Ultegra brakes. These are quick to bite, and easy to finesse when the need to scrub off the speed arises. A compact, 50/34 Ultegra chainset works in conjunction with an Ultegra 11-28 cassette offering a spread of gears that will suffice for any terrain. 

Finishing kit 

Alloy Deda handlebars are a comfortable reach, with a not too-deep drop. They transmit a good deal of vibration to the fingers but that’s largely down to the vibey carbon fork. Deda’s 110mm stem allowed us to get a good set-up, though, achieving a position commensurate with this bike’s aggressive nature. Three 10mm spacers on the steerer would allow you to get slightly more upright, for better front end comfort. We’re big fans of Fizik’s Arione saddle – it’s a firm perch that befits the bike’s racy nature.

Wheels 

Mavic’s Ksyrium Elite wheels are some of the best we’ve tested in recent memory – quick to spin up, free of flex even under hard efforts, and light enough to fly up most of our local ascents. Although the rims would accept 28c tyres, we doubt the frame clearance will allow it.

The ride

If you have fillings, it might be worth jamming a bit of chewing gum over them if you’re riding this bike for any distance. The one thing it communicates to us above all else, even within 15 minutes of setting off on our first ride, is that it’s hugely stiff, indecently responsive, eminently thrashable. But not all that comfortable. Position, comfort and speed? Two out of three ain’t bad.

The feeling of stiffness is compounded as our ride progresses. The nicely sized 400mm bars that are matched to our XS frame do their very best to dial out road buzz, but they’re hampered by the rigid carbon fork in this respect. The steeply sloping top tube necessitates a sizeable length of exposed seatpost, which does eliminate the worst of vibrations from the rear, and Fizik’s race-ready Arione saddle does its bit to aid rear-end comfort. Let’s take a moment here, though. Yes, the jackhammer effect of riding this bike close to flat-out is going to get fatiguing for most riders in quite short order, but this assumes that comfort is the most important factor to a particular rider. If you’re buying this bike to go racing, you’ve come to the right place. Although the compact chainset and 11-28 cassette aren’t providing the biggest gears, there’s plenty there for most circumstances. This is easily the most direct bike here – direct in the way it lays down its power, direct in the way it changes direction. Take the word ‘Sportive’ out of its name, and you’ve an honest assessment of its true nature. That said, if you just want to set the quickest time on your next sportive, this bike will give you a good chance.

While your vision might become slightly blurred from the vibrations on less than perfect tarmac, there’s no denying this bike offers a decidedly affordable shot of adrenaline. Although the head angle isn’t as steep as the Dolan’s, a steeper seat tube angle positions the rider over the front of the bike, forcing the head down and positively egging you on to a bigger gear and a harder effort, and downhill turns are dispatched with lightning-fast velocity. Mavic’s Ksyrium Elite wheels perform as admirably in this package as on the Canyon Ultimate CF SL. The fact that two bikes in this test are wearing identical wheels and rubber gives us a rare opportunity to compare like with like, and the while the 25c Mavic tyres flatter the Canyon, they are masking the Ribble’s intense nature. Comfort is improved by running the tyres at 85psi, compensating for the rigidity.

Geometry

Spec