The latest steed in for test is this steel beauty from Ritchey, the new Ultra. Freshened up, 30 years after its inception, the Ultra is a cross-country mile muncher with a tendency to get rowdy on the downhills. We take a first look at a full build of the Ultra here…
- Buyer’s guide to mountain bikes – get the best MTB for you
- The best mountain bikes for under £1,000 – the best budget buys ridden and rated
- First Look: Shand Shug
The Ultra mixes old-school cool with new school tech, steel frames always emit a classic look and this bike is no different. The frame weighs 2570g, is made of Ritchey Logic tubing, is sleek, chic and subtly retro, whilst elsewhere the bike is bang up to date with Boost spacing and stealth dropper routing.


Ritchey says this of the Ultra “the new Ultra occupies a unique ride space from cross-country riders looking to get rowdy and go big, to enduro riders lusting for some all-mountain shredding.” It looks like the bike to get some serious training in on whilst having a ball at the same time!


The bike is designed to be able to be fine-tuned for the rider’s preferences, meaning although the frame is optimised for a 120mm suspension fork, it can be compatible with other options too. Ritchey says they have seen bikes built up with rigid forks, rigid carbon forks as well as suspension ones.


Our bike has come equipped with a 1x drivetrain, but again Ritchey say that the bike is able to take 2x as well. To add further to the choices, the bike also has room for up to 27.5” x 2.8” or 29”x2.4” tyres. Elsewhere there is a threaded bottom bracket, tapered head tube and 30.9mm seat tube with stealth dropper routing .

Sold as a frame only for £900, the Ultra won’t bring any surprises to the table where geometry is concerned, it stays firmly in the XC trail bike category, but that is perhaps part of the draw. There is a 68.5 degree head angle, a 73.5 degree seat angle, a 445mm reach and a 628mm effective top tube on our large test bike.


Our test frame comes fully equipped as a Ritchey showcase bike with own brand bars, stem, dropper, wheels, tyres and saddle, Ritchey makes everything aside from brakes, forks and drivetrains. If you wanted something similar to razz you’d need to enlist the help of your local bike shop to source parts from the distributor Upgrade and build it for you.

Our bike is running 27.5″ wheels with 35mm internal diameter width rims (Ritchey WCS Trail 40 wheelset) and a set of Ritchey WCS Z Max Evolution 2.8″ tyres.


We are sending this bike off to our XC whippet and gravel aficionado, Dave Arthur for testing and will be back with a review soon.

For more info head to – www.ritcheylogic.com
