Bikes Blog
Ridley Raft XC Path full-suspension carbon mountain bike
Oct
Ridley Raft versatile carbon mountain bike
It’s been a number of years since we’ve final seen a brand new full-suspension mountain bike design from Ridley. In that point, elite XC racing has develop into way more technical, so it appears becoming that Ridley’s new full-suspension XC bike is each extra succesful and extra of an all-rounder.
Ridley primarily breaks it right down to the truth that virtually each new mountain bike nowadays is extra succesful than even a couple of years in the past because of the evolution of lengthy, low & slack geometry. XC bikes can push more durable by means of technical terrain, and path bikes could be constructed lighter and extra snappy. Even their new ultralight Probe RS hardtail is usually a path bike now, too…
all photographs c. Ridley
So, that’s the place the brand new Raft sits – on the intersection of cross-country and path…
100mm XC or 120mm Path journey & versatile geometry
Choose the 100/100mm Raft XC construct if you would like the lightest weight and most responsive dealing with, to drift up the climbs. Or go for the singletrack-slaying 120/120mm Raft TR spec with an extended stroke shock and longer journey fork to bleed over into the light-weight Path bike class.
Geometry in both case is equally succesful in steep & technical terrain – with a 67.5° headtube for the XC mode or 66.5° in TR mode to go downhill, and steep 76/75.1° seat angles to get again to the highest of the mountain. Mix that with quick 435mm chainstays because of the simplified flex-stay single-pivot with a linkage-driven shock, and dealing with stays fast irrespective of the journey.
Raft Tech Particulars
The 2 completely different moods of the bike are so simple as sticking with the Raft XC’s 40mm stroke RockShox SIDluxe rear shock for 100mm or swapping within the 45mm stroke Deluxe damper for 120mm of journey. Each get the identical eye-to-eye size, so matching the fork monitor from the 100mm SID SL to the 120mm SID is what tweaks the geometry.
Whereas the brand new Probe RS is the load weenies mountain bike, Ridley made positive to maintain the carbon Raft gentle, too.
Ditching the dropout pivots of the Sablo helped get the carbon body weight right down to a claimed 1750g (unpainted M, with out shock), however even an entire Raft TR XX construct with the longer journey continues to be stated to weigh simply 11.5kg for a big bike (25.35lb).
Just like the hardtail, the Raft will get a 31.6mm seatpost, stealth dropper routing (right here internally by means of the 1.5″ higher headset cap), a flat mount rear disc brake, Enhance spacing, UDH, a PressFit BB92 backside bracket, and 29″ x 2.4″ tire clearance. Curiously, rear brake routing continues to be by means of a modular cable port within the left facet of the downtube.
It additionally will get a ton of bikepacking-ready mounts so you can adapt a marathon XC construct to tackle the hardest backcountry journey races. The carbon full-suspension bike will get toptube bag mounts, a seattube cage mount, and 5 mounting bolts on the downtube (simply 3 on dimension S), so you can mount an Something Cage and another device/accent mount, as effectively.
Ridley Raft – Pricing, choices & availability
Out there in 4 sizes (S-XL), it is possible for you to to customized configure the Raft in both XC or TR builds on-line beginning in January.
Full Ridley Raft XC cross-country bike builds begin at 4200€, whereas Raft TR path bike builds are a bit extra beginning at 5000€, each with mechanical SRAM Eagle construct kits and Ridley’s home model Forza wheels & cockpit.
The primary Rafts are anticipated to point out up in Ridley supplier bike outlets in Spring 2023.
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