THE One
bike to rule them all
It has been just over a year since I started cycling and yet it feels like something that has been there all along. It all started with an idea that I could spice up my hiking activities with bikepacking. I bought a used gravel bike with alloy frame and GRX-400 drivetrain and quickly discovered that cycling was a lot more fun than I thought. Soon I realized that I wanted to try out a carbon road bike and so I bought a really old one in a decent shape. And it turned out to be exactly that - a really old carbon bike and so I was ready to move on pretty soon. The next step was to get a decent modern carbon bike which was a Vitus with SRAM Rival Etap from Wiggle. After riding it for eight months and having to repair the frame I couldn't convince myself that carbon was the material of my dreams. I started toying with the idea of titanium but that seemed to go way beyond the amount I was willing to spend. Also I had three bikes already... Then I came across Ribble CGR Ti and everything fell in place. I decided to make it the One.
On a side note even the maintenance side of cycling slowly started to appeal. The old road bike turned into my guinea pig eventually. At some point I had to completelly disassemble and then put the Vitus together again, including stripping all internal cables and re-bleeding the brakes.That was a really useful experience in retrospective.
On a side note even the maintenance side of cycling slowly started to appeal. The old road bike turned into my guinea pig eventually. At some point I had to completelly disassemble and then put the Vitus together again, including stripping all internal cables and re-bleeding the brakes.That was a really useful experience in retrospective.
Back to the subject, by design Ribble CGR Ti is a "do it all anywhere anytime" bike:
On top of this it is quite affordable for what you get (Ultegra Di2) and there are reasonable customization options.
Here is my final setup:
- The frame is titanium, so not much can happen to it
- The geometry is a hybrid of endurance and gravel, but much closer to endurance
- The fork clearance is huge and will accept pretty much anything plus mudguards
On top of this it is quite affordable for what you get (Ultegra Di2) and there are reasonable customization options.
Here is my final setup:
- size S (I am 176cm with 82.6cm inseam)
- 110mm stem (the default for the size is 80mm)
- 34/50 chainset
- Road wheels - Hunt Aerodynamicist 11/34 + Continental GP5000 28mm
- Gravel wheels - ZIPP 303 Firecrest 11/34 + Schwalbe G-One Allround 40mm
It takes about 15 minutes to change the setup including mudguards, pedals and fine-tuning the brake calipers. The cassette is the same on each wheelset with a maximum gear ratio of 1:1 which works for me. Let's see where this takes me.