£4,279 Where endurance meets gravel
Weight 8.66kg Frame Carbon Fork Carbon Gears Shimano 105 Di2 12-speed (50/34, 11-34) Brakes Shimano 105 Servo-Wave Wheels Forza Norte Gravel DB Finishing kit Forza Cirrus alloy-carbon seatpost, Selle Italia X-LR saddle, Forza Cirrus Pro Integrated Gravel handlebar/stem (40cm, 100mm), Vittoria Corsa N.EXT 32mm tyres
RIDLEY’S GRIFN IS A BOLD STEP for the Belgian bike brand. It’s designed to be as at home on fast gravel roads as it is on fast roads over big distances. Ridley already makes the Classics-proven Fenix endurance bike and gravel bikes including the aero Kanzo Fast and bikepacking Adventure, and classes the Grifn as “all-road’. It’s a great looking bike, with a silhouette like Ridley’s Falcn road bike with its slender tubes and fork and skinny dropped stays. Its clean looks hide a wealth of fittings that make this one of the most versatile all-road bikes available.
Bikepacking-ready
Dual-position bottle-cage mounts on both the seat- and down-tubes allow you to fit a large frame bag for bikepacking. The flattened top-tube keeps top-tube bags more stable, and the top-tube mounts are hidden under a neat flush-fit cover. There’s a third set of bottle bosses under the down-tube, and mudguard/fender mounts front and rear, holding a set of dedicated ’guards.
Ridley has also included internal routing through the fork for a front dynamo hub, with an exit port for the cable in the top-tube so the dynamo can power a rear light. Tyre clearances allow for 38mm tyres with a 2x chainset, and 40mm with 1x. With mudguards, clearances drop to 32mm. A claimed weight of 990g for the frame (Medium) and 445g for the fork fits into the mould of endurance bike or racy gravel ride.
Our Grifn is based around Shimano’s latest 105 Di2. It has the same 50/34t chainset and 12-speed 11-34t cassette as the Ribble, which is the optimum gear range for a long-distance endurance bike. The brakes are perhaps 105 Di2’s highlight. Servo-Wave starts the braking sooner when you squeeze the brake levers, giving the brakes much more feel and making them much more progressive and among the best you’ll find for drop bars. Shimano has also increased the gap between pad and rotor, all but eliminating rotor rub that I’ve had issues with in the past.
Ridley’s in-house component line Forza provides the bulk of the finishing kit, with a sharp-looking Cirrus Pro one-piece bar/stem that routes the brake hoses internally right through to the frame’s head tube. It’s modelled on the Noah’s aero optimised u
