Ridley Partner Development Philosophy: Strong collaboration with professional teams
The partnership with our professional teams is a key factor in the development of our products. The sponsorship and collaboration goes much further than only supplying the bikes. Ridley has a close relationship with both riders and mechanics to fine tune the development of our products. Feedback from the riders and mechanics is crucial and taken into account at every step of development. Our teams ride our stock frames, this allows us to test our products in extreme conditions. In this way, our product goes into the consumer market the best possible way. We call this Ridley Partner Development Philosophy. Our Flemish roots and sponsorship of the teams Belgian teams Telenet-Fidea and Sunweb-Revor explains our commitment to the local cyclocross scene. Feedback from the riders and mechanics resulted in specific cyclocross features on our frames and the first full carbon cross frame in 2005 named the X-Night. The riders helped us in the continuous search to improve our frames which resulted in the X-Night being the fastest and most advanced cross frame on the circuit.
In the beginning we worked with local U23 road teams, this gave us ideal testing opportunities because the riders were spending countless hours training and racing on grueling Belgian pave. In 2005 the Pro Tour was launched by the UCI and we signed a 4 year contract with the Belgian Lotto team (Silence-Lotto). The collaboration with Lotto took Ridley to a new level. Not only did we win numerous titles, more importantly, we established a good relationship with the riders and mechanics.
During this critical development timeframe we found two distinct requirements : superior stiffness vs light weight (or ideal ratio between stiffness and weight). Our sprinters wanted a superior level of frame stiffness and our climbers requested a lighter frame that did not compromise the frame’s responsiveness. We quickly attained the goals for both groups of riders in 2006. The Noah was constructed to surpass the Ridley standard for frame stiffness for strong sprinters like Robbie McEwen, whilst the Helium provided additional comfort combined with our best stiffness to weight ratio. In 2007 we set a new Ridley standard in further reducing the weight of the Helium so that a complete bike would weigh significantly less than the UCI 6.8kg limit. Conclusion : aerodynamics is our direction. With the production of our first Noah we found that we could build stiffer frames than the rider could handle. With the Helium we already had a bike lighter than the UCI required limit.
The goal was not only, like many brands do, improve the streamline of the bike. BUT for us a perfectly streamlined bike was just the basis to start looking for the real aero drag problems on a bike. Therefore, Ridley Bikes launched the Ridley Aero Project (now know as FAST-concept). After 2 years of extensive testing in the wind tunnel and on the track, Ridley Bikes introduced the new Dean and Noah to the market. Every detail of these frames has been studied carefully, equipped with F-Splitfork and F-Surface technology. In the Tour de France of 2011 we introduced the F-Brake, the first "real" integrated brake (for more info see FAST-concept p 11-18).
2009 an 2010 Ridley teamed up with the new Pro Tour Team Katusha. Since 2011 Ridley has a partnership with Pro Team Vacansoleil-Dcm. This Pro Team consist of riders such as Belgian champ Stijn Devolder, Bjorn Leukemans, Romain Feillu, … Both parties had the desire to race with the fastest bike in the world. The riders are all aboard the Ridley Noah and Helium for the road races and on the Ridley Dean for time trial. Ridley is also involved in triathlon with Belgian based U-Place team (Bart Aernouts, Tine Deckers), Italian based Peperoncino team and US based Zoot team. Obviously our FAST concept developments play a key role in our Tri bikes. Our future continues with aerodynamics. In 2010 Ridley Bikes moved to a 12.000 m² high tech building. The new building is equipped with the newest technology which allows us to build the best bikes in the world. Furthermore, Ridley Bikes will build its own wind tunnel within the factory setting in the Belgian headquarters which will allow us to develop our aero technology in the best possible circumstances.