EB17: Ritchey updates road, gravel & cross forks, plus wheels & much more…

Tom Ritchey made his name building steel bikes, and chatting with him at Eurobike he has no intention of moving away from working with his own premium steel. But what’s actually new on the Road Logic, Outback & Swiss Cross framesets this year is not their steel frames, but their full carbon forks. But there’s a lot more new to show from Ritchey, including new tubeless carbon road wheels for either rim or disc brakes, carbon mountain wheels, a new SuperLogic handlebar & the long awaited dropper seatpost.

Ritchey Carbon fork updates

Each of the road riding Road Logic, gravel riding Outback & cyclocross racing Swiss Cross framesets pair a steel frame with a straight steerer full carbon fork. But even though they each have different brake setups – standard rim brake road calipers, post-mount disc brakes & traditional cross cantis – Ritchey has spent time developing new forks for each bike to bring improvements to these core steel framesets.

Road Logic

The new Road Logic fork was all about bringing more tire clearance to match the trends of ever fatter tires, even on traditional road bikes. The bi-lam triple butted steel frame actually got its updated heat-treated tubing set as well earlier this summer, with shorter butts for a little weight savings and a more lively ride. Paired with the new carbon fork there is now room at both ends for proper 30mm wide tires in the 1300€ frameset or the new 2400€ 105 complete bike.

Outback

The steel Outback gravel adventure bike gets a new fork as well. It seems that the carbon fork was in fact the sticking point as to why the bike didn’t make it to market sooner, after its debut last year at Eurobike. The Outback couldn’t just get a repainted cyclocross fork – the Ritchey straight steerer, disc-brake cross fork was only available with quick release dropouts anyway. So it needed its own shorter (383mm axle-crown, 47mm offset) dedicated gravel bike fork with clearance for up to 40mm wide gravel tires and a 12mm thru-axle. That gave Ritchey the opportunity to redesign the fork layup too, going with a bit more lateral stiffness and a big boost to its fore/aft compliance & bump damping. With the new fork, the steel Outback should now be available as a 1500€ frameset from October 15.

Swiss Cross Canti

Even the classic cantilever cyclocross bike gets a fork update, too! Who else besides Ritchey is putting time, effort & money into improving a cantilever brake cross bike?! The iconic Swiss Cross frame gets a completely new WCS Cross fork with much stiffer & stronger fork legs that takes the same full carbon improvements made on the road & gravel bikes and puts them back into the 1300€ classic cross racer frameset.

In addition to new forks and updated framesets, Ritchey also had a few new wheelsets to show off at Eurobike, and some more cockpit components…

WCS Apex 38 & 50 tubeless carbon rim & disc brake road wheels

This is actually a grouping of three wheelsets. Ritchey has a new set of WCS Apex full carbon tubeless ready rims that they are lacing into both rim brake & disc brake wheels. That does mean that the disc brake wheels use the same rim, just without the braking surface treatment. The rims use a 19mm internal width and 26mm outer width for an aero profile and come in 38mm & 50mm depths. Both are built with j-bend DT Swiss New Aero spokes and brass nipples, with the rim brake hubs hiding the spoke ends inside the hub for a look like straight pulls.

The centerlock disc brake wheels appear to only be available in the 38mm depth for now and sell for 1740€ for the set (702g front/845g rear) with 12mm axles standard, and QRs optional. The rim brake versions get a laser etched braking surface and are available in either 38 or 50mm depths. The deeper Apex 50 wheels sell for 1800€ for the pair (725g front/894g rear.)

WCS Carbon Vantage mountain bike wheels

The Carbon Vantages are a new tubeless carbon trail bike wheelset built around Boost spaced, centerlock hubs. Available for either 27.5″ or 29″ wheels, the both share the same 26mm internal/32mm external offset hookless rim profile. Both wheelsets use 24 DT Swiss Competition spokes and alloy nipples and sell for 1600€ a set. The 27.5″ wheels claim a total weight of 1553g (736g front/817g rear) and can opt for either a Shimano freehub or SRAM XD driver.

SuperLogic Low Rizer mountain bike bar

They’ve also added a 15mm low-rise mountain bike bar to the SuperLogic family. At 220€, the new 31.8 Super Logic Low Rizer mountain bike bar gets a 9° backsweep and a weight of just 145g in a 710mm width, making it even lighter than the narrower flat SuperLogic bar.

WCS Kite Dropper Post

Last year we got the details on the Ritchey dropper post – then called the WCS Trail Dropper. Now it has been renamed the WCS Kite Dropper Post. Details remain essentially the same though for the 390€ seatpost. Available in two diameters 30.9 & 31.6mm, and comes in two travel options 90mm or 125mm, both with a 3-position drop (intermediate drop 30mm down from the top).

The key to the fixed drop points is a more simple mechanical internal mechanism that promises improved reliability and low weight. For the 30.9 model without the remote, Ritchey is claiming 449g for the long travel and 417g for the short version, making them among the lightest on the market. The air sprung WCS Kite should be available now and comes with a standard, stealth routed remote or optionally with integrated mounts for the trigger.

RitcheyLogic.com