CLASS WORLD
You’ve decided to splash out on a superbike, but what’s best for you? Do you go race? A carbon lightweight to get that edge on your riding mates. Or do you opt for a more exotic titanium bike that’s designed to tackle everything the road can throw at it, with the promise of solo pursuits and long days in the saddle?
The obvious choice when looking at superbikes is to go for the biggest global players: carbon from Asia, race bikes from Italy, exotic handmade metal bikes from America. However, we thought mid-Covid crisis and the effect that’s having on the UK economy that we should be looking to support home-based brands. But does our homegrown talent match up to the rest of the world?
First up it’s Lancashire’s finest, Ribble, with its latest, lightweight race machine from a superbly re-invigorated range. Ribble has completely redesigned its online bike builder with a myriad more options with the added ability to custom-specify the paint finish alongside parts choices.
It’s been a while since we’ve looked at its pure race offerings and we decided to opt for a top-of-the-line Endurance SL R replete with Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 and Ribble’s own aerodynamic Level 62 wheels and one-piece bar, not forgetting an eye-wateringly bold, metallic-green fade paint scheme. This is a complete superbike specification and if you were considering the global competition with the same level of equipment on a race-focused bike from Specialized, Pinarello, Colnago, Trek, or BMC you’d be looking at close to £10k.
“IF YOU WERE CONSIDERING A BIKE WITH THESE KIT LEVELS FROM ONE OF THE MAJOR GLOBAL BRANDS YOU’D BE LOOKING AT £10K”
RACING THROUGH RIBBLE VALLEY
The Endurance SL R frameset was designed, developed and tested in the UK by the team at Ribble led by ex-Boardman Bikes head honcho Andy Smallwood and former WorldTour rider (U23 world champ and US Postal rider) Jamie Burrow
