Ridley Dean FAST Review

So here we are, another bike review.

This time around I am doing a review on this:

This is the Ridley Dean FAST and it is the bike that I have been riding for the past 4 months or so. I have been meaning to do this review for quite some time, but just haven't quite managed to get there up to today. Now that I have done a few races on the bike though, including an Ironman, I figured it was time to finally get on with it and do this review. I have found that with these reviews I tend to start them off with a bit of a description of the bike and then follow that up with a review of how the bike is. That approach seems to work well and so I will probably use it again here.

Okay, so first up, a bit of a description, what is the Ridley Dean FAST? The Dean FAST is the top TT bike from Belgium brand Ridley. Being handmade in Italy it is officially the nicest bike I have ever owned.

Looking at the Dean FAST you can see that it solidily fits the mould of Euro TT bike. In my opinion if you look at the TT bikes from Bianchi, Colnago, Look and even Pinarello against the Ridley you will see a lot of common elements. That isn't a criticism, more just an observation that perhaps there are only so many ways of making a TT bike go fast. The Ridley is certainly not a 'wild, out there design', there is not a beam in sight, big deep aerofoil sections or any other of the features you often find on Tri bikes. Similarly on the Ridley you will not find, integrated storage, hydration bladders, top tube mounting bolts, non UCI legal 6:1 aerofoil sections or anything else that is triathlon specific (or UCI illegal). In fact when I first saw the bike my first reaction was that is a road TT bike not a Tri bike and I was skeptical that it could be made to suit a long course triathlon at all, but more on that later.

Despite the fact that the Dean FAST shares some aesthetic elements with a lot of other TT bikes, that isn't to say that it is derivative. In fact the Dean FAST has a number of very clever aerodynamic tricks that set in apart from many of its competitors and also display just how much Ridley has thought about this bike. This is where the FAST part of the name comes into it. The FAST in the name refers to a suite of aerodynamic features that Ridley applies to their aero bikes.

Of these features the most normal in today's TT bike market is the F-Brake. At first glace this appears to be a fairly standard behind the fork brake, which really it mostly is.

This particular brake has a couple of unique elements that set it apart from most tri bikes though. Firstly this brake was actually designed and built for this bike. This allows the brake to be integrated into the fork, resulting in better aerodynamics.

The design of the brake and the associated internal cable run also means that there is no brake cable sitting out in the wind, which is a common problem that behind the fork brakes have and one that always annoys me greatly.

The behind the fork brake on this bike is very clean. Does it work? I will get to that later.

The second FAST feature is the F-Surface. How Ridley implement the F-Surface varies from bike to bike, but on the Dean it takes the form of a shallow channel that runs along the leading edge of the downtube, which I will try and illustrate in the photo below.

The idea behind these grooves is to create a turbulent boundary layer next to the frame and, therefore, preventing the air flow from detaching from the frame, which would create drag.

When brands describe this sort of 'technology' it often sounds a bit dodgy, a little bit pseudo science. The websites are usually purposefully vague, light on details and heavy on technobabble. They often seem to take the approach of 'if we throw enough impressive sounding terms at people they will assume we know what we are talking about'. When I first read about the F-Surface it seemed to be following this standard pattern. My first reaction was, 'yuh, huh, suuuure'. However, from what I remember from third year engineering, the idea behind the F-Surface has a pretty solid basis in fluid dynamics. Plus, Ridley is not exactly the first brand to use the idea. BMC has used a similar feature before, I have seen helmets with laminar flow 'tripwires' before which once again is a similar idea, and of course everyone has heard of the dimples on Zipp rims, yep similar idea again. So there is a precedent for this being an effective aerodynamic feature. Ridley certainly seems to think so, the feature appears on lots of their bikes.

The final, and perhaps most interesting part of the FAST arsenal is the F-Split Fork.

The idea behind this funky split fork is that it draws air flow away from the front wheel and the front spokes. This is effective because turbulence caused by the spokes creates a lot of drag. By directing airflow away from the spokes, this drag is reduced. One again a reasonable enough idea and one that Ridley uses on all its aero bikes.

So there you go, there are some of the unique technologies that Ridley use on the Dean to try and make it both slippery and UCI legal. This approach to aerodynamics always makes me think of death by 1000 cuts. None of these aero features are going to make a bike super quick on its own, but put them all together and the benefits start to add up. These features are why the Ridley Dean looks conventional, but isn't.

For me the suite of FAST features tells me something about Ridley as a brand too. It tells me that Ridley is a brand that does its research and isn't afraid to push the boundaries. It doesn't just follow others and then put a marketing spin on what they have done to make it sound innovative, which is exactly what many bike brands around the world do. Sure the technology may seem kind of subtle compared to some brands, but that doesn't mean that Ridley isn't focused on making the fastest bike they possibly can. Don't forget that Ridley is a large brand with a lot of resources. They have a dedicated cycling wind tunnel on their grounds in Flanders, their bikes appear in the Grand Tours, the Belgium Olympic Track team rides Ridleys. This is a company that knows what it is doing. When you are considering the design of the Dean FAST, it is worth keeping these facts about Ridley in mind, it means you can have confidence in the brand and the bikes they produce.

Moving on from the FAST features, the Ridley also has a number of other cool aero features, some of which are normal and some of which are less so.

Like most TT bikes the Ridley has a underslung rear brake sitting below the bottom bracket. In the Dean's case this is a dual pivot caliper, the frame comes standard with a TRP brake.

The mounting and cable routing for this brake is fairly clean and aero, however, the brake has no cowl, which I think is a bit strange. It is a feature you see on pretty much every other TT bike with an underslung brake and I would have thought it would be an easy aero win. I am not sure if the lack of cowl is some sort of UCI compliance thing, but I would have thought it would have been easy enough to incorporate a removable version.

While I am talking about brakes it is probably worth mentioning that this bike happily accepts wider wheels. The Caden wheels I use are 26mm wide and the bike has no problem with them.

The other aero feature that is impossible to miss and that draws the most attention is that front end. How slick is it?

The front end is certainly very clean, with nary a wire or cable to be seen. Very aero. Well designed too, with the bar essentially being a Ridley branded fully intergrated Pro Missile Evo. The aero bars look very aggressive, but in reality they have a fair bit of adjustability, although I should point out that the set up in this photo is using all the spacers the bike comes with.

If you need to get your aero bars higher then it is possible, but you will need to order more spacers from Pro. Other than that the bars have a good range of adjustability both in height, width and elbow pad position.

That is important because it brings me to a rather import aspect of the front end.

Like any fully integrated front end it does have its practical limitations. Need a shorter stem? Too bad. Want to add some spacers? Nope can't do that either. Basically the configuration of the stem as you see it in this photo is the only one available. The rest of the adjustability has to come from the bars. Lucky they have so much range.

The front end has some other practicality limits too. I may have bought an entirely new bike bag so that I could travel with this bike without having to remove the handle bars. When the guys at Churchill Cycles built the Dean up for me they basically said, don't remove the front end unless you absolutely have to, you will never get it back together again. Take from that what you will. There definitely is a little birds nest of wires and cables under the stem cap which you need to access occasionally to charge the Di2. Putting it all back together after charging is a fiddle, but it isn't impossible. Those tight confines do mean though that this is a Di2 only bike. There is simply not enough room to run mechanical gears.

All this may sound like I really dislike the front end of this bike, but that isn't true. It really is a thing of beauty. The reality is that most bikes with a fully integrated front end are going to be similarly complicated, it is the price you pay to have everything tucked away and nicely hidden. Believe me there are others that are worse (Trek Speedconcept anyone).

Beyond that the rest of the aero features of this bike are how you expect. Most of the aerofoil shapes are of the truncated aerofoil type. The seat post is held in place with a single, wedge style binder which has almost become the standard these days.

All up, very nice design. Very, very pretty. I have had more comments about this bike than I have had about any other and I used to ride a beam bike, so that is really saying something. Adding to that, in Australia Ridley has a partnership with Paint My Bike, which means fully customised bike designs can be had at reasonable prices and with very quick turn arounds. All that means that you can have a very striking looking bike without the pain that usually comes with customisation.

What else to say about the bike. Hmmm. It is very long. It looks long in photos and in the flesh and that is because it is. With that long low stem the bike really stretches you out. My frame is a medium, which according to the Ridley online sizing tool, is the right size for someone my height (182cm). Having said that though, this bike is almost too long for me. See where my elbow pads are, behind the base bar, that is where they have to be to avoid the bike stretching me out too far. It took me a while of fiddling to land on this position, but now that I have it I am pretty happy with it. The long and low nature of this bike doesn't mean it won't fit you, but it does mean you have to be willing to experiment a bit with the bars to get it right.

I would also say that this is one bike where you will probably be a size smaller than you expect. As I have said I am on a medium, but I suspect I could have happily fitted a small. I have a friend on a large who usually rides a 58cm frame and they think they would probably be happy on a Medium. You get the idea. I would still take the advice of the online sizing tool though, or even better try the bike out in store.

Speaking of medium, my bike weights 9.0 kg as it appears in this photo, wheels, bottle cages and all.

So that is about all I can think of about the bike. Moving on to how it is?

When I got the bike I had several items of concern and I expect a lot of other people may have similar thoughts, so I thought I would address them.

 Does the behind the fork brake work? Short answer is yes.

Longer answer is that yes it works fine. I suspect the brake cable goes through some impressive acrobatics to get down to the front wheel through the stem, but that doesn't effect the braking of the bike. The front brake works reliably and consistently and with adequate power. I think it probably doesn't grab quite as well as a front mounted caliper, but it still works fine. I have never had it worry me or let me down. Also it is pretty easily adjusted by screwing this little bolt in and out.

In the past I have always preferred a nicely integrated front mounted brake, behind the fork mounted brakes have usually annoyed me as they seem like an easy but sub-optimal solution to aerodynamics. However, bikes like the Dean and also the current Giant Trinity have forced me to admit that a well designed behind the fork mounted brake can work pretty well.

Is it comfortable?

As I have said, this bike looks very aggressive, and in many ways it is. If it is designed for cyclists to ride on really quickly for 40 to 50km, can it really work in a long course triathlon? After two half Ironmans and an Ironman, plus countless training miles I can emphatically say yes it is comfortable. Thanks to risers and a very adjustable front end the bike isn't actually as aggressive as it looks. When I first got the bike I had the elbow pads too far forward (above the basebar) and I felt like the bike was stretching me out too far. I felt like the hip angle between my body and quads was too small and I was too compressed, I had a few moments during racing where I felt like I couldn't breathe. However, after some fiddling we moved the elbow pads back and I have been much happier since. I have more room through my hips and I feel like I can hold the aero position more sustainably. This bike is an aggressive bike, no two ways about it, it will ask you to get into a solid aero tuck, but if you can do that, then you shouldn't have a problem with it. If you aren't as flexible as you once were, but still like the bike then don't despair, it can still be for you, you might just need the additional spacer kit from Pro to get comfortable.

Is it a Tri bike?

As I said right back at the start, this bike looks like a TT bike rather than a Tri bike and I suspect that is because it is. I have no doubt that Ridley build this for Grand Tour TTs rather that transition areas. That doesn't mean that it can't be made to fit though. As I have said I have done two Half Ironmans and a full Ironman and the bike has worked well. I haven't had to have gels taped to bars, tubes stuck to top tubes, or big stops at special needs. Rather I have been able to pack all that I have needed for these longer races on the bike and on my body, keeping the bike smooth and slick.

My race set up is to have a bottle between my arms, a bottle behind my seat and occasionally an aero bottle on the frame. The bike accepts all these bottles with ease. My one gripe with regards to set up is the lack of top tube mounting bolts, meaning that I have to velcro a bento bag into place. This is no great problem as the velcro bag works well, but it always just annoys me and detracts from the smooth lines of the bike's front end. Melodramatic of me I know, but it kills me a little inside each time I strap that bag into place. All for the sake of a couple of little mounting points. But on the whole, yes, the bike works fine as a Tri bike, seems to work well for Holly Lawrence.

Okay, so I think that covers the main areas of concern that I had when I first got the bike. Now to the important bit, how does the bike ride?

My first impression of this bike was that it rides like a road bike. My previous TT bike was a beam bike and before that I had a P5 and so I have come from a background of very Tri specific bikes. This was the first bike I had ridden that was more of a TT bike than Tri bike and the thing that struck me was the extra agility that it bought. The bike handles easily and predictably through corners, accelerates well etc. As I have said, it rides like a roadie.

I am never a good judge of stiffness. I know some guys who can judge the stiffness of bikes, cranks, wheels etc by the seat of their pants. I am not one of those guys. I can tell when a bike is a wet noodle though and this bike isn't that. I wouldn't say the bike is aggressively stiff or anything either, although that is quite subjective.

Is it fast? Well yes. It is a TT bike and so by association it is going to be quicker than your average Joe. I have said before that in the past I used to ride a P5 and during the testing I have done my gut feel has been that it isn't as quick as the super high end Tri bikes like the P5. Looking at my testing there could be as much as 10 Watts in it at 40km/h, but that is only based on one test of each bike and they were under different conditions, so hardly a conclusive data set. My feel from training though was that it isn't as quick a bike. But then as an alternative to that I have had some quick races on it. At the recent Ironman WA I did a time of 4 hours 37 for the 180km, giving me an average speed of 39km/h, done at 77% of FTP. That seems about right for what I would expect in an Ironman. In the end though, even if it does give up a bit of speed to something like a P5, it isn't giving up a lot. I have always said that when it comes to super high end Tri bikes you are measuring the differences between them in terms of 1 or 2 percent, rather than 10 or 20. The Dean would certainly sit comfortably in amongst the other bikes at the pointy end of the TT market.

In summary, I am very happy to be riding the Ridley Dean FAST. It may not be a bike that first occurs to you when you are looking for a Tri bike, but it is certainly worth your consideration. It can be comfortable, carry all that you need, go fast and look really, really good. If you want to stand out in transition in a sea of Cervelos, Specialized and Treks, then the Ridley Dean FAST is a great way to do it.

So that is that I think. I hope this review has been of help and hopefully interest to people. If there are any specific elements of the bike that people would like to know more about feel free to comment below and I will add some more details.