Any thoughts on Ribble’s new handlebar? I find the Ribble, the bike brand, a bit odd and wasn’t sure whether they were branding open-mould frames to resell, but at least this seems reasonably unique.
The “Triathlon” edition has a bolt on ‘Spinaci’-style aerobar - would make a pretty sweet one-bike-to-rule-them-all bike.
Woahhh. I think I just found a contender for my next bike…
Same!
Impressive that they paid attention to the front end geometry for the smallest size.
It looks like they set the trail so the bike wouldn’t handle like a truck. I’m going to have to look at their other offerings as well, they’ve never been on my radar.
Looks cool, but no off-the-shelf clip-on compatibility? That’s a kinda a deal killer.
33cm bar with 140mm stem!! Looks like I’ve found the next track bar once they are sold separately. The bike looks nice. Would love to try one but I don’t think that’s going to happen from the US.
Any thoughts on Ribble’s new handlebar? I find the Ribble, the bike brand, a bit odd and wasn’t sure whether they were branding open-mould frames to resell, but at least this seems reasonably unique.
The “Triathlon” edition has a bolt on ‘Spinaci’-style aerobar - would make a pretty sweet one-bike-to-rule-them-all bike.
My attention they have!
That’s smart.
Isn’t that a pretty small market for road bikes? I think Spesh Venge does similar, with a bespoke ITU style aerobar.
I think the thing that would give me pause is how the thing rides. I haven’t really followed Ribble but I think some of the earlier reviews they were a little ‘lifefless’. Not sure if that’s changed. They used to be a good source of cheap Shimano parts, but seem to be moving into their own brand bits now.
They seem to have out-Canyoned Canyon. Cool innovative tech at much more reasonable prices
I’ve had the CGR on my radar as a potential next bike. Not sure this one will make the list, but that bar is wild. I’m not sure how I feel about the levers being direct mounted though. That seems like an easy way to break the bars in a crash where the levers would otherwise just twist around a round handlebar.
This was my exact thought when I read through the article. Interesting concept but the slot where the bolt goes into looks like a recipe for breakage. You have to be careful enough about clamping carbon in the traditional way and this design will really localize the stress transferred to the bars from the hoods. Even outside a direct crash situation hitting a pothole at speed when on the hoods will put a good amount of brute force on the bolt and carbon doesn’t like being hammered in this way.
Ribble makes some absolutely solid commuter bikes and has done for decades. I have never seen a Ribble product and doubted the quality but at the same time fancy handle bar and/or fork innovation has bitten even the biggest players in the industry in terms of recalls (Specialized, Cervelo and Felt certainly come to mind but I am sure there are others). I don’t think there is a good standardized testing rig in this area and so I won’t be lining up to be an early adopter of the bars. I hope it works but I will not be putting my face on the line as a early tester.
I’m waiting for some one to ditch the whole hood idea altogether. Electronic shifting via buttons and hydraulic braking via a squeeze bulb. Opens up lots of design possibilities for bars.
I’m sure first iterations would suck but it would be interesting to play around with as a designer.
As someone that regularly rides a drop bar bike without shifters, it’s nice to have the hoods to hold onto.
I would hope designers would include a similar hand position.
I owned the bar of the original Zipp Vuka bar where the brake levers were fully part of the base bar (https://www.bikeradar.com/reviews/components/handlebars-and-stems/aero-bars-and-clip-ons/zipp-vuka-aerobar-review/)
The concept never caught on because it was easy to chip the levers and then you had to replace the whole unit which were expensive. It was also not clear the design was really an improvement over the traditional setup.
Given SRAM and Zipp are sisters companies it would be super easy for them to collaborate and create a great integrated solution. Shimano could leverage Pro and do something similar. I do suspect this is the way it would have to work though rather than having a bike company try to develop a product independently of the component manufacturers.
The basebar on the Shiv Disc has a similar bulge (for folding during travel). Wonder if it serves a similar purpose aerodynamically.
This was my exact thought when I read through the article. Interesting concept but the slot where the bolt goes into looks like a recipe for breakage. You have to be careful enough about clamping carbon in the traditional way and this design will really localize the stress transferred to the bars from the hoods. Even outside a direct crash situation hitting a pothole at speed when on the hoods will put a good amount of brute force on the bolt and carbon doesn’t like being hammered in this way.
I did read somewhere (cant find it now) that they have thought of this and the hoods will be located via a sacrificial part (think derailleur hanger) that can be easily replaced and will take the forces so that the bars and shifters aren’t damaged.
If Ribble can show that they are close enough to the big boys aero-wise with this bike, then I will place an order right away.
Hambini has a video out specifically about this bike… (not an endorsement of Hambini, but it’s still interesting)
In all honesty, I think this bar is a piece of marketing hype. Even in the article you can see the CFD where the bars only create a few inches of turbulence behind them. Your knees at the middle of the downstroke is probably 4-5 widths of the bar behind the bar and even more at the middle of the upstroke.
Same principle as drafting, I could draft a rider 3â€away and travel at 30mph for 200w move a few feet back and you start increasing resistance. Move several bike lengths back and the draft is only a few watts.
I really like the ITU bars though. I have a 3T Zefiro bar. Comes with a ITU bar standard but I also have a set of ski bend extensions and pads for hilly triathlons.
Aerodynamics is hard. Real world, air is never laminar. Wind gusts, changes direction, affected by cars, trees, bushes, hills. No one actually rides in a CFD simulation(maybe if you have a Tron bike) or a wind tunnel.
That being said, I own a pair of Zipp wheels, not because I think the dimples save watts just because I liked how they looked.
Edit: Google Diamondback IO.
Edit: Google Diamondback IO.
Interesting but Diamondback IO seems to have died pretty early (the page is from 2018). If it worked I would have assumed that someone else would have run with it. Also it’s interesting that the testing still had it 10% slower than their Tri bike at the time.
It sure didn’t help that this road bike wasn’t UCI legal from the seat stays being too low. I also fail to understand how the divots are supposed to work. Pretty sure the intent was for these to be vortex generators, but the execution is pretty bad.