Like many bike brands, Ribble has been expanding its gravel and adventure riding offerings as it becomes clear that this new discipline is here to stay. While it already offered cyclo-cross and ‘CGR’ machines, Ribble has gone no holds barred with this new Gravel range, which features carbon, titanium, electric and the bike on test here, the aluminium AL.
Like its gravel stablemates, the Gravel AL comes with many of the features boasted by the best gravel bikes, including flared handlebar bars and myriad mounting points for bikepacking bags. Being a Ribble, it comes in a variety of builds too, with this ‘Sport’, with its 2×10 Shimano GRX group kicking off the range.
Ribble Gravel AL Sport: frame and finishing kit
(Image credit: Future)
The frameset looks, first and foremost, like a Ribble frameset. Those telltale dropped rear chainstays have been appearing on the British company’s bikes for a few years now, which in theory increases both comfort and lateral stiffness. It can be a bit marmite on the eye, but somehow it suits the Gravel AL, with its smaller wheels and chunky tyres. Dialling up the comfort/stiffness equation is also going to be great for off-road use, where the need for those two things can be amplified.
The frame looks long and low, and with a 1,052mm wheelbase in this medium size, with 435mm chainstays, that’s hardly surprising. The slackness in the 71.5deg head angle is easy to see too – although it’s not as extreme as the most avant-garde of today’s gravel builds, which rake things out as far as 70deg
The seat tube is a more conventional, though, at 73.5deg. A longish reach at 397mm and compact 90mm stem further add to the bike’s gravelly credentials.
(Image credit: Future)
Perhaps more obviously, the frame is festooned with mounting points; there are three carryall eyes on each fork blade, mounts for a cockpit bag on the top tube, and three sets of bottle bosses – two in the usual place, one on the underside of the downtube. There are also mudguard eyes at the rear dropouts, though no standard rack mounts on the tops of the seatstays.
(Image credit: Future)
The frame is crafted in 6061 aluminium alloy (the fork is all-carbon) and finished rather nicely. With its (mostly) seamless construction, it could pass for carbon were it not for the welds down at the bottom bracket shell. The colour – ‘Satin Metallic…