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First Look! Ritte’s New Ace in the Hole is a Full Monocoque Carbon Road Bike

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2015 Ritte Ace road bike exclusive first look

Without knowing what it was (and Ritte wasn’t exactly ready to say), we spotted a rideable prototype of the all-new Ritte Ace earlier this summer.

Designed over the past 18 months, the Ace is a true monocoque carbon frame that’s made as a single piece over a hard inner mold, and it’s their design from the ground up. It borrows the geometry from the Vlaanderen since they liked its handling, but used hi-mod T700/T1000 carbon and added interchangeable cable ports to handle either mechanical or electronic drivetrains with ease.

It’ll be offered as a frameset come January 2015, and until then all the specs and techy details will remain under wraps. That said, we’ve got a few less blurred pics below and a bike on the way for our own pre-launch test. Stay tuned…

2015 Ritte Ace road bike exclusive first look

2015 Ritte Ace road bike exclusive first look

RitteCycles.com

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mudrock
mudrock
9 years ago

A single piece, as in one mold? I didn’t think that’s possible. Wouldn’t the rear triangle and front triangle be molded separately?

eadm
9 years ago

Factory tour! I want to see that process! Theoretically possible, really hard to do. Probably a bunch of stuff stuck inside they couldn’t melt and pour out or something.

mudrock
mudrock
9 years ago

I didn’t think it through. a complete frame mold with the plies wrapped around it. So how do they remove the mold? Or is it made of wax, that melts at a higher temp than the curing temp?

ms6073
ms6073
9 years ago

I think Giant has been marketing the TCR Advanced, TCX Advanced, and Defy Advanced as monocoque frames since there respective introductions.

chad
chad
9 years ago

If they make the frame out of foam, asetone would get rid of it.

HP
HP
9 years ago

Cipollini bikes makes a full monocoque frame – it was reviewed in Peloton mag a few months back. I think it was $6K for the frame.

Robbie Mubbledutt
Robbie Mubbledutt
9 years ago

What a waste of the possibilities of monocoque design… They could have made it so much more distinctive.

Souleur
Souleur
9 years ago

Monocock shock, not really news guys, just slick marketing like the fleet

theendinfrench
theendinfrench
9 years ago

I’m not really in favour of product bashing blog commentary but this is completely, crushingly disappointing… And I work at a Ritte dealer.

lawyerknowitalll
lawyerknowitalll
9 years ago

Souleur,

What do you think Trek, Specialized, Cannondale, and Giant are? If you saw how most of the corporations are organized and saw their business plans, you would see that almost all the companies are just marketing companies selling you the same thing.

Eyal
Eyal
9 years ago

How is this frame better than my Hong-fu FM-066 which has 8900 miles on it! I paid $650 for the hongfu! The hong-fu is also made with Toray T700/T1000. I’m not saying this frame is bad, I just want to understand…..

slammed
slammed
9 years ago

@eyal with the ritte you get a nice paint job and customer service.

Alex M
Alex M
9 years ago

“Some 23mm tyres may not fit!”

PsiSquared
PsiSquared
9 years ago

Eyal, there is no objective measure of which bike is better. There are things that you might think are better. Different bike companies have different metrics by which they determine what is better. Welcome to the bicycle marketplace.

If you want to see which is better for you, ride the Ritte and decide for yourself.

Eyal
Eyal
9 years ago

@slammed I can get a spectacular custom paint from Calfee for $300, anything I want! Hongfu for free shipped 2 cable hangers from China!

Ritte doesn’t offer full crash replacement, the same goes for Trek, Cannondale, Giant and Specialized. My questions are still unanswered 🙂

Antipodean_G
9 years ago

Monocoque, as in single piece out of the tool….? As @eadm said, theoretically possible but to pull it off would require tooling costs I am sure pretty much any company, let alone a small one, would run away from. Not saying it’s not but looking at the frame I’m seeing a multitude of sliding cores etc. – not a cheap exercise.

@Robbie Mubbledutt I agree but then I think that for 99.9% or carbon frames on the market. Imagine if F1 cars used carbon just to replicate cro-mo trestle frames of years past – a total wast of the material’s abilities.

PsiSquared
PsiSquared
9 years ago

Eyal, if your questions are unanswered, you didn’t formulate them properly. Perhaps you should ask questions which can be objectively answered instead of asking rhetorical questions designed that allow you to look down on a product that you don’t like.

cxfool
cxfool
9 years ago

Sweet wheels too!

AndyPandy
AndyPandy
9 years ago

@mudrock a couple of cuts in an airbladder and the entire thing could be slid out in one piece

jon jon
jon jon
9 years ago

looks like the same pedal force frame since day one

Mark
Mark
9 years ago

Looks awesome – love what the guys at Ritte are doing!

JBikes
JBikes
9 years ago

Pray tell, outside of a potential weight reduction, what is the actual benefit of a full monocoque frame? I get the technical allure, that’s about it though.

lander jennngs
lander jennngs
9 years ago

“monocoque” means only one coque right? Also, where can I buy a frame that jumps good, made of T1000 and a half carbon and costs less than that other guys?

clem
clem
9 years ago

@Eyal, asking how this bike is better than a hongfu is an extremely ignorant question; If you’ve ever rode a real, brand name bike side by side with some Alibaba China junk like Hongfu, its obvious as soon as you ride how much better they are in every way.

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