Ribble bike company?

Has anyone had experience with this company? They’re aero road bike comes in around $3.1k for full ultegra, disk, custom paint, and carbon mavic wheels. Not even canyon or orbea can come close to that value. Seems too good to be true.

Quite well known in the UK, have friends with their bikes that like them (but wouldn’t necessarily have anything to compare them to). Pricing does look competitive.

3 Likes

Existing threads with some mentions of “Ribble”:
https://www.trainerroad.com/forum/search?q=Ribble%20%23equipment

1 Like

There’s a FB Ribble Owners group if your on FB…

1 Like

I asked a couple months ago in another thread about their CGR gravel bike. The bikes seemed to get decent reviews but was just warned as a US customer about any warranty issue that might require shipping the bike back to the UK.

No one said anything stellar about them but for the price they seem to be pretty good.

I have two Ribble’s an R872 that’s 8 years old and now mainly my turbo bike but has done nearly 30,000km (including the De Ronde and Roubaix) and a 7005 (the winter audax blue one).

The R872 was rumoured to be the same bike as the De Rosa R838. Both Ribble’s were unbeatable value at the time that I couldn’t buy the groupset and wheels for less than the cost of the whole bike (di2 R872 was £1150). They seem to have gone a bit more up market with physical shops etc. of late so not as good as set of deals. The build quality, support when I need a new gear hanger etc. has all been good. Think they may have a longer than usaul build times at present and don’t seem to be doing amazing offers. Also check out Planet X maybe a bit more delboy ish in their marketing approach but some cracking deals to be had.

1 Like

I’ve had a number of ribble bikes over the last 20 years and have to disagree with Johnnyvee. Ribble bikes are far superior to planet x bikes.

There are a couple of smaller companies in the UK with bikes at much better spec and price than the big brand names. Whether you want to pay for the brand name on the downtube is up to you. I’ve got 4 planetx bikes for the price you’d pay for one big name bike, and all are really good bikes.

Ribble also have an elite team in case you’re wondering if the bikes can be raced.

3 Likes

I rode a cheap Ribble carbon offering in Altea last year. It was a hire bike so it had seen a fair bit of work.

That being said, it was a pleasure to ride for four days and I couldn’t fault it. If I could have got it in my suitcase, I would have.

If Ribble had a bike in their current range that I liked the look of, I’d be trying to arrange a test ride for sure :+1:

Also worth looking at Rose (if you haven’t already) similar business model but based out of Germany

Ribble are also the main sponsor of a European Pro Conti team. Some of their riders double as members of the Huub Wattbike track team too.

Not a scam.

Happy Ribble Endurance SL Disc owner here.

Parked next to an old phone box just … because :grinning:

(integrated bar/stem was a cost option)

4 Likes

Ribble an ok company. A lot of their bikes are open molds from China but that is not necessarily a bad thing - they choose ones that they are happy to slap a warranty on.

Very competitive prices like you say.

Out of the British budget brands I’d say planet X and Ribble are on par with each other with Dolan just being that little bit cooler.

2 Likes

What about US budget brands?

After deliberation last year, I went with a Ribble R872, 105-7020 DIsc. Even after shipping to Canada is was still several hundreds less for a comparable Trek, Specialized, Giant etc from a LBS here. Even bike shop employee deals didn’t beat it. I used the extra to buy some carbon fiber wheels. I have no complaints about the bike, the service, delivery. I haven’t had to deal with any kind of warranty but it was a hit I was willing to take since it would be unreasonable to ship a bike back except for anything less than a total failure. I also almost pulled the trigger on a Merlin Cordite.

It irritates the crap out of me that it is cheaper to buy things and have them shipped, often free, across the ocean by air freight than it is to get them in North America and shipped ground across the border. Free shipping US → Canada is almost non-existent for some reason and the rates aren’t even reasonable. Don’t get me started on getting stuff locally in Canada where many things are cheaper than the LBS can even get them for here.

1 Like

I have a Ribble SL, currently my ‘best bike’, but it’s not the one they sell now. The models been discontinued but got a end of the line steal on £1700 with dura ace mechanical.

The bike is great, i did have an issue with the bike not being as per the spec ordered. To be fair, they sorted it, but i’m reasonably local and so was able to just turn up with the bike and get them to sort it. That could obviously be a major issue if your 1000 miles away.

My TT bike is also a ribble.

I’m considering getting one of the new SLR’s to use for racing, I would gladly buy from them again.

Maybe not quite the same perceived value on the higher end model race bikes but compared to the same spec on big brands, still saving

2 Likes

I’ve got a Ribble HF83, I’ve had it for four years now and it’s great. Mine is the climbing bike with the lighter frame, I put Cosmics and Di2 on mine and light and aero components (e.g. I’ve got carbon aero handlebars). When they were building it, there were a couple of questions and they came back to me and we sorted it out pretty quickly. e.g. they didn’t have 44cm handlebars in the model i specced, so did I want 42cm or another handlebar. I know plenty of people who ride them with few complaints.

At the moment, they have quite a backlog as cycling has suddenly become popular. :wink:

1 Like

I have a Ribble Aero 883, rim brake version, from a couple years ago. Crazy light, added some Prime 50mm carbon wheels and the thing is hella fast. 105 groupset,11 speed and came in around £1500 with standard Shimano wheels.
Only gripe is the rear wheel needs a bit of manual adjustment to sit perfectly between the brake callipers, but the reason for that is beyond my expertise
Happy customer here

Being the correct side of the Pennines? West is best! :wink:

I’m considering their Ultra TT bike as my first TT bike…

https://www.ribblecycles.co.uk/ribble-ultra-tt/