Joe Skipper won IMUK on a Ribble Ultra Tri bike

[tie3]

Interesting no one has mentioned this here. I’ve ordered parts/wheels from ribblecycles.co.uk before, but never thought of them as a serious bike builder. Would Joe Skipper’s win give them a boost in triathlon community?

https://www.tri247.com/triathlon-news/industry/joe-skipper-bike-sponsor-ribble

Ribble Cycles (www.ribblecycles.co.uk) are excited to announce that Joe Skipper – winner of the 2018 UK IRONMAN title yesterday (15th July) – has joined Team Ribble’s roster of sponsored triathletes and cyclists.
“When I first saw the Ribble Ultra TRI bike I thought wow, that looks a fantastic bike for long course triathlon; integrated nutrition and hydration storage and an aero looking frame. I got in contact with Ribble and they let me test the bike out and it didn’t disappoint. I broke my PB on a training loop the first time I rode the bike!
“Aerodynamics is a massive part of cycling and triathlon and I truly believe the Ultra Tri is up there with the top bikes – it’s certainly the fastest bike that I’ve had the pleasure of riding. I was excited to get on the Ultra Tri at Ironman UK on Sunday and given the win, I’m looking forward to be racing it for the remainder of the season.”

https://blog.ribblecycles.co.uk/joe-skipper-on-his-ironman-bolton-win/
How did the bike perform?

The bike performed really well, it was comfy and I felt like I was holding good speed for the power on the flat parts of the course. For the race it was set up with syncro-shift which pre-determines which chain ring you’re on depending on rear gear selection – I’ll need to switch this up for hillier races, switching syncro-shift off so I have independent control of the front derailleur.

[Stevie_A]

Interestingly he didn’t run the integrated front hydration.

Like all Ribble frames this is a re-badged frame from the far east, not that it makes it a bad bike at all. It was also ridden at the Commonwealth games time trial earlier this year.

I actually ordered the rear storage box and (with a little bit of fettling) have retro-fitted it to my Orbea tri bike

[scott8888]

I feel like its only fair to point out that its a £6-8k bike so it should be expected to perform as well as pretty much with anything else on the market.

The frame set is £1599 (which does seem like a good value as it includes the brakes and base bar) but an Ultegra Di2 build with training wheels is £3200 and the top spec bike which includes race wheels but no power meter is £7000. No matter how you chose to build the bike its never going to be significantly less than equivalent offerings from any of the big brands.