“If we had a WorldTour team, it would be a Tour de France bike”: Ribble’s flagship Ultra-Race “bridges the gap between pure aero and ultra-lightweight”

Ribble has introduced a new Ultra-Race road bike at the top of its range that’s designed to sit somewhere between pure aero and ultra-lightweight race models. Made from MT65 carbon – a first in bike production, Ribble says – the Ultra-Race frame weighs a claimed 775g (size medium) with the top-specced build coming in at just 6.58kg. Complete bike prices start at £3,699. The Ultra-Race inherits tech from Ribble’s Ultra-Aero race bike – previously just called the Ultra – and takes over from the Endurance SL R in the lineup.

> Check out Ribble Weldtite Pro Cycling’s Ribble Ultra SL R aero road bike 

Jamie Burrow, former pro rider and Ribble’s head of design and product development, says, “Specialist aero race bikes still have a place in cycling, that’s for sure. The Ultra-Aero is an incredibly fast bike. However, specialist aero road bikes do have their limits. Additional materials used to aid aerodynamics also result in a bike that’s less optimised for racing on mixed parcours and everyday racing. Enter the new Ultra-Race.

“The Ultra-Race takes its aerodynamic concepts from the Ultra-Aero, and it combines all of the material technologies to produce a super-fast, lightweight bike that’s stable and planted on the road. The Ultra-Race is the bike if you’re looking for something that doesn’t compromise on weight, aerodynamics or control.”

New material

About that MT65 carbon, then. Back over to Jamie Burrow for the materials story.

“When we set about this discovery process, we knew we wanted to push the boundaries, as we did with the Ultra-Aero,” he says. “We realised this wasn’t possible using conventional carbon layups and, just like we did previously with the Ultra-Aero, we wanted this to be an evolution in bike design, which meant using materials never utilised in bicycle production before, at least to the best of our knowledge.

“Ultimately, we landed with a new product, MT65 carbon, which we’ve adapted into this frame, used in key areas to reinforce the structure in a way that, traditionally, would have added weight.

“We’ve managed to create an ultra-light platform. However, this is only one part of the design story. Our testing phase does not only utilise machines and gauges, we also use real people, and this bike has taken a serious pounding over the last year and a half on the roads of northern England around our HQ. These bikes take a proper punishment to make sure they stand up to the test. When we’re talking about an ultra-light bike, which this is, we want to make sure it’s also bombproof on the road.

“The new Ultra-Race is built around a blend of 33-ton and 46-ton carbon, which we introduced in the Allroad SL R last year. Then, with experimentation, we finally ended up adding the third carbon, which is a super-high modulus 65-ton fibre.”

Ribble says the MT65 carbon is used to increase strength, stiffness and reduce weight in certain areas – around the bottom bracket, for example, to improve power transfer.

As mentioned, Ribble claims an Ultra-Race frame weight of 775g. That compares with 850g for the outgoing Endurance SLR.

Jamie Burrow says, “Being able to maintain such a lightweight frame whilst maintaining considerable aero profiles was no mean feat. Using the new 65-ton carbon, if we’d have gone for a pure climbing bike with round tube profiles, we could have gone easily under 650g, which would have been outstanding.

“But where you’ve got a lot of truncated aero profiles, any sharp edge – in the forks, the down tube, back of the seat tube, and so on – they all add weight. Maintaining a frame at that weight with these aerodynamic credentials… we’re really happy with the outcome.”

We’ll likely see MT65 carbon used elsewhere in the Ribble range in time, but not just yet.

Aerodynamics

As we said up top, the Ribble Ultra-Race is designed “to bridge the gap between pure aero and ultra-lightweight race models”. Lightweight AND aero… we’ve heard a lot about that over the past few years.

> One bike to rule them all — are lightweight aero bikes the ultimate race weapons for the pros?

“The Aerodynamic thinking trickles down from the Ultra project [the bikes now called Ultra-Aero] with the head tube shape into the fork crown into the down tube – without compromising any stiffness,” says Jamie Burrow.

“We’ve taken a lot of the understandings and learnings from the Ultra, but this bike replaces the Endurance SLR, which has been our race-proven bike for many years. That was our benchmark in this project, to make sure we came up with something that performs better in aerodynamics, stiffness, and weight. This chassis delivers both a higher lateral rigidity and additional vertical compliance so every watt goes into the road.”

Aero shaping has been applied to the down tube and the head tube while flared seatstays are said to “complement the wider fork profile and aid aerodynamics”.

The bottle cages are designed to match tube shapes and further reduce drag (something we’ve seen on various other bikes, including the Giant Propel, for instance).

> Check out our review of the Giant Propel Advanced Pro 1

“We know from testing that bikes are faster with bottle cages, so we optimised our down tube and seat tube profiles together with our in-house Ribble bottle cages to perfectly seal that void between them and offer the best drag results in that key area.”

The cable routing is fully integrated, and there’s a new integrated carbon cockpit.

“The bikes come default with a brand new Ribble integrated carbon cockpit that is more traditional than the Ultra bar,” says Jamie Burrow. “The relatively new UB-2 bar, which is a two-piece version of our Ultra bar that features the patented trips and direct mount brake levers, is available as an option.”

Ribble’s RB-2 carbon round bar is another alternative.

Ribble says that it did extensive CFD (computational fluid dynamics) work in the development of the Ultra-Race, and then tested the bike in the Silverstone Cycling Wind Tunnel with a rider in place and a yaw sweep from 15° to -15° (the bike was fitted with a Shimano Dura -Ace groupset and Zipp wheels with 30mm Pirelli tyres).

According to this testing, the Ultra-Race is very slightly slower (by 2.8 seconds) than the Endurance SLR over 40km at 29mph and 0° yaw, but 5.8 seconds faster at -10°, and 15.1 seconds faster at 10°.

If you average those three figures, you get a 6.03 seconds advantage for the new bike, although that does give equal waiting to the three different yaws (and there’s no mention of what happened at +/-5°, for example; many other brands use a wind averaged drag for calculating their aero data, but there is no industry standard).

According to these figures (based on 0°, 10° and -10° yaws at 29mph), the Ultra-Race offers a 0.76% drag reduction and a 2.6-watt saving over the Endurance SLR.

“If we combine the extras – an 8% improvement in lateral stiffness and power transfer, and the 12% weight reduction – you’ve got a considerable gain over the outgoing bike,” says Jamie Burrow. “If we had a WorldTour team, it would be a Tour de France-level bike, as capable on the big climbs as it is on the flats, on cobbles, pretty much everywhere.”

Geometry and details

In terms of geometry, the Ultra-Race does pretty much what you’d expect of a performance-minded bike, with a stack height of 550.8mm for the medium-sized model, and a reach of 388mm. That gives you a stack/reach of 1.42.

“It’s a very race-focused geometry and comes in six sizes,” says Jamie Burrow. “The clearance accommodates tyres up to 32mm, following modern trends, even though all fixed specs are leaving the building with 30mm, which offers a great balance between speed and comfort for most people’s riding.”

Speaking of comfort, the narrow D-shaped seatpost, available in 350mm and 400mm lengths, is intended to add a little flex.

Specs and prices

The Ribble Ultra-Race is available in these suggested builds:

Groupset Shimano 105 Di2
Wheels Mavic Ksyrium 30
Tyres Pirelli P Zero Road 30mm
Price £3,699

Groupset Shimano Ultegra Di2
Wheels Vision SC45
Tyres Pirelli P Zero Road 30mm
Price £4,999

Groupset Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 (inc power meter)
Wheels Zipp 303 Firecrest
Tyres Pirelli P Zero Race 30mm
Price £7,999

Groupset SRAM Red AXS E1 (inc power meter)
Wheels Zipp 303 Firecrest
Tyres Pirelli P Zero Race 30mm
Price £7,999

All of these builds include Ribble’s Aero Road Carbon Integrated handlebar.

As usual with Ribble, you can adjust the builds according to your preferences and budget. Various other wheel and handlebar options are available.

The top spec, with a SRAM Red groupset and Scope Artech wheels, is £10,499 and weighs a claimed 6.58kg.

> Read our SRAM Red AXS review

The Ribble Ultra-Race is available in three colours: Satin Black, Pearl White, and Team Edition Red.

www.ribblecycles.co.uk