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news
Ridley launch their lightest bike ever.
To celebrate the launch of their 2013 Helium SL frameset Ridley have created a special edition - the Helium SL Limited 58. Called the 58 because the bike weighs only 5.8kg with pedals (but not in a small size where it’s a mere 5.74kg, but that’s being picky), it will be sold as a limited edition of 58 bikes with each frame being numbered.
We had a quick go on the standard Helium SL at Eurobike and liked it very much, so the Limited version has got to be 58% better, right? The Ridley SL frame uses a blend of 60, 40, 30 ton high modulus carbon to get that elusive mix of stiffness and featheriness, with a listed weight of about 750g. The Limited 58 frame has a special superlight paint finish to further shave weight.
The frame comes with all you’d want these days, a tapered 1-1/8” - 1-1/4” head tube, oversized press fit BB30 bottom bracket, flattened seatstays to give a bit of comfort without sacrificing stiffness, carbon rear dropouts reinforced with steel plates for increased durability and dual purpose internal cable routing for both mechanical and electronic shifting wires, all joined together with tubes designed with what Ridley calls their “form follows function” philosophy, which means no unnecessary kinks, lumps or bendy bits to create a clean and simple looking bike.
Ridley didn’t want to produce the lightest bike in the world with the Limited 58, but to build a superlight bike that still meets the high demands of the peloton re stiffness and day-on-day durability. That’s why there aren’t any exotic or dangerously light components in the build, just parts with a proven WorldTour background. The bike is assembled with the new Sram Red groupset, 4ZA Cirrus Pro finishing kit and a Zipp 202 Tubular wheelset with Continental tubulars. The total weight of 5.8kg is below the UCI limit but as they’re a bit busy with other things at the moment we think you’ll get away with it.
The price for the Helium SL Limited 58 edition is 5800€, actually no it isn’t, that would be nice but it’s actually a slightly more hefty 7999€ (without pedals) and will be available to pick up on 10th February 2013 at your local Ridley dealer. If you’re keen to make a reservation then click on the Ridley Limited’s mini-website, but only for the next 58 days.
Jo Burt has spent the majority of his life riding bikes, drawing bikes and writing about bikes. When he's not scribbling pictures for the whole gamut of cycling media he writes words about them for road.cc and when he's not doing either of those he's pedaling. Then in whatever spare minutes there are in between he's agonizing over getting his socks, cycling cap and bar-tape to coordinate just so. And is quietly disappointed that yours don't He rides and races road bikes a bit, cyclo-cross bikes a lot and mountainbikes a fair bit too. Would rather be up a mountain.
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20 comments
Criminey, but this is a popular post!
Ridley's PR guys ( I use the word in the inclusive sense) must be delighted.
Anyhoosup, I'm off for a cuppa and a hobnob. Or two.
And then I'll come back and read about Mr Giro's sox.
Damn it, The Peloton *are* in full flight. The Readership has their say. And then the Readership has its say. And then we all fell asleep with boredom and dreamt about, I don't know, doing something important with our lives.
Personally I don't like matt black carbon. It looks cheap to me. I also hate white bikes, and I have a white bike. A bike for the banker in search of kudos?!
those words were gleaned from the Ridley press release, where they refer to themselves in the plural, but as English is their second language i'm prepared to cut them some slack.
if you wish to complain i suggest you do so to Ridley themselves, in grammatically and stylistically correct Flemish
i like the colorway, even if black isn't technically a color
anyway, enough about words. the bike.
what do you think of the colourway?
the only really legitimate objection to using 'their' instead of 'its' is that you genuinely didn't understand what the article meant, which i'd suggest isn't the case.
i'd rather talk about the bikes to be honest, and if a stylistic choice you don't agree with annoys you to the point of leaving the site, i think you need to sit down and have a look at yourself. anyway, there are lots of things that are *actually* wrong on here
PS nice bike!
Pah! to plural companies I say. They're single entities, as handlebarcam says. It's a sense thing, not a style thing if you ask me. For a common sense explanation for why teams can be plural but companies aren't, see a *sensible* style guide: http://www.economist.com/style-guide/singular-or-plural
You missed the point. As I said, it's not a mistake, it's a style thing. Some people treat companies as singular, some as plural.
Read this if it's the sort of thing that interests you:
http://styleguide.yahoo.com/editing/treat-abbreviations-capitalization-a...
Everyone else: don't bother. It's really boring.
Does that mean that since i don't have any weight to lose off my body it's more of an appropriate bike for me?
if you've got any specific comments on the grammar, spelling, punctuation etc on road.cc you can direct them to grammar [at] road.cc
we won't read them but it'll probably make you feel better, and then other people can have more space for talking about cycling. thanks!
I wouldn't have thought that insulting readers is the best way to promote your site, but still...
It sounds like you think 'grammar, spelling punctuation etc.' are unimportant and boring. And you represent a site who's medium is mainly writing?
How things are expressed is important, not least because you leave yourself open to all kinds of misunderstandings if you are sloppy. It's about agreeing on how we can best understand each other, with the most accuracy, not just obeying 'boring' rules.
The collective noun question reminds me of Hugh Porter commenting on the tour of Britain. He kept using 'the peloton' as a plural, over and over, as in 'The peloton are in full flight' 'the peloton are giving chase'. It got right on my wick. Together with a lot of other linguistic oddities and cliches, like 'theirselves' instead of 'themselves'. It was so bad it distracted from the cycling, it marred the whole thing. 'A big ask'?, where's the remote?
If your business is words, albeit words about cycling, you need at least a basic knowledge of what is grammatical, i.e. makes sense to others. I wouldn't have thought that giving a bit of space to discussing language is too much to ask. Plus, some of us enjoy it.
Oh Dave, couldn't you offer a prize such as a copy of Eats, Shoots & Leaves to the most pedantic grammar complaint?
Ridley launches *its* lightest bike ever. Companies are always singular!
Nah, it's a style thing.
Who do you think owns the language and gets to dictate these rules?
Seconded. 'Their' is perfectly legitimate in this case as you're referring to the collection of individuals in the company rather than the association itself. It's like saying "Liverpool had a great game, THEY played well." You'd be stretching it to say 'it played well' (and you'd sound a bit knobby).
*cough*
Personally, I think grammar and spelling are important; and that companies, which generally cultivate a singular public image, should be referred to as a single entity. But everyone makes mistakes every once in a while. Especially on the interweb.
Looks like a Cervelo R5 and they're on sale at half price at the moment
Yeah - unfortunately, until I loose the extra three stone (approx 20kg?) I'm lugging around on my waist - spending money on weight-weenie bikes/components will just be a waste
Don't waste your money. If it was the ultimate in lightness, they would have called it the "Ridley Hydrogen". That's the trouble with these superbikes: by the time you've placed your order, waited for delivery, then waited for the summer to come around so you don't ruin your precious on winter roads, they'll have announced an even better bike, and your new toy will be old hat. In contrast, eating one less snack per day, or getting out for one more training ride per week, is virtually guaranteed to give you many times the performance improvement, or allow you to enjoy yourself on non-competitive rides far more.