Ridley has launched its latest bike, the Grifn, which it says you can use to ride a range of terrain both on and off-road. Ridley classifies the Grifn as an all-road bike and it’s designed to fit in its range between the Fenix SLiC endurance road bike, the Kanzo Fast gravel race bike and the Kanzo Adventure gravel bike, that’s designed for tougher off-road excursions.
Ridley says that a medium size Grifn frame weighs 990 grams unpainted, a fork 445 grams and complete bikes around 8.5kg for a Shimano GRX Di2 gravel-oriented spec.
Gravel-ish geometry
As you’d expect for a bike designed to be able to hit the gravel, the Ridley Grifn has wide tyre clearance: 38mm with a 2x set-up, 40mm when set up 1x and 32mm with mudguards. Ridley reckons that a 30-32mm tyre is best for road riding and 35-38mm for smoother gravel tracks.
There’s more to the bike’s geometry than just wide tyre clearance though, with a 1021mm wheelbase for a size M frame that’s halfway between the Fenix SLiC’s 992mm and the Kanzo Fast’s 1026mm. The head tube angle splits the difference at 72 degrees versus 73.5 degrees for the Fenix and 71.5 degrees for the Kanzo Fast.
The chainstay length, at 420mm, is also an intermediate between the Fenix’s 410mm and the Kanzo Fast’s 425mm, while the bottom bracket drop is greater than both at 73mm versus 66mm for the Fenix and 72mm for the Kanzo Fast.
The result, says Ridley, is a bike that is more nimble than its gravel bikes and with a more aggressive feel when accelerating and cornering. At the same time, with a slightly higher stack of 587mm than the Fenix SLiC’s 565mm, but a similar 391mm reach, the Grifn is designed for a more stable and comfortable, less tiring ride over long distances than Ridley’s endurance road bike.
Versatile configuration
Like the best gravel bikes, the Ridley Grifn has all the mounting points for load-lugging. That includes the usual three-bottle cage mounts, with the two sets of down tube mounts having triple bolts so that you can vary the cage’s position. You can bolt on mudguards (Ridley has its own custom version designed by mudguard specialist Curana) and there is also a top tube bag mount concealed under a panel. This doesn’t look to be weathertight and so might accumulate dirt.
Ridley includes internal dynamo…
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