Last spring, when Ritchey introduced a top-tier 1-piece carbon Superlogic Butano Ridge cockpit, I thought it looked nice & sleek. But frankly, I’m often put off by the lack of adjustability of integrated designs, so I didn’t immediately think I needed to put one on any of my own bikes. But then, as I looked more closely at its details – specifically the sweep of the tops, the familiar smooth compact curve, and gentle flare of the drops – I thought maybe I should give these a try.
Review: Ritchey Superlogic Butano Ridge 1-piece carbon bar
Ritchey had done well for me for many years with light, affordable stems and comfortable, durable carbon bars. So, I figured, why not give the super-premium Superlogic Butano Ridge bar a try? I did, and a year later, it’s still on one of my favorite bikes of all time – my personal Festka One Gravel. My go-to bike for those longest rides around home – whether that’s road, gravel, or most often a healthy all-road mix that always involves getting my tires dirty.
It’s a killer fast and lightweight bike. But it sees quite a lot of year-round abuse.
So I’m very picky about what components end up on this bike. The Festka only gets parts I feel are comfortable for long days in the saddle. And only components I’m confident aren’t going to let me down, far from home. That often means test parts will start somewhere else first, before trickling up to this bike.
The result is that anything that ends up on this bike is essentially my Editor’s Choice as the best of the best.
But, the Ritchey Superlogic Butano bar took a shortcut straight to my Festka. Do you want to know why?
What’s special about the Superlogic Butano Ridge bar’s geometry?
Ritchey offers this bar in just 4 sizes. I picked the smallest – a 90mm virtual stem length paired to a 42cm wide bar, and with a smoothly curved compact bend with 73mm reach and 115mm drop. That still seemed fairly wide for a modern 1-piece cockpit, whether designed for road or gravel these days, but the angles are what really caught my interest. The 17.5° of flare is more than enough to offer more space for your wrists/forearms while riding aggressively in the drops. And yet it is still a small enough angle that it doesn’t really stand out to the eye on the bike. Plus, the small 5° backsweep to the flattened tops looked like just enough for a comfy, elbows-in aero position on the tops without getting extreme one way or the other.
I give a bit of the flare camouflage credit to the excellent Camp And Go Slow Eastern Rattler bar tape for that. I’m originally an Eastcoaster, so I would have to respectfully disagree with Ron about which snake should adorn my handlebar.
Actual widths
It is true that the bar is technically 42cm wide (center-to-center), taken at the front of the bend where your levers clamp. But thankfully, in these days of trying to get narrower to go faster with less frontal area, because of the 17.5° flare to the drops, the real measured width at my hoods is just 40cm. And that’s without any inward-turned lever silliness.
On paper, the bar is 49cm c-c at the ends of the drops, but the middle of your hand position in the drops is 1cm narrower because of the drop flare and further 2.2° of flare just to the ends.
In the end, I feel like this shape is a nice sweet spot for riding all types of roads. You get a relatively narrow position up top for fast riding, plenty wide position in the drops for more off-road stability, and nice ergonomics in between.
I’m perfectly happy with this size. But I suspect that gravel racers or even road riders likely would be happy with the 42cm width or potentially even narrower options if they were available. While I doubt many racer types looking to buy such an expensive cockpit would prefer the current wider 44cm options.
Fully integrated cable routing, or not?
You may notice a lot of cables flapping around beneath my bar setup.
Sure, the Ritchey Superlogic Butano Ridge handlebar is made to fully integrate and hide your cables. There are internal routing channels from the hoods and a cover under the stem to neatly direct all of your cables into the headset if your bike has a fully integrated cable routing solution. (Ritchey only offers fully internal spacers for their Switch HS headset routing system, or it will work with headsets that include routing holes in the top of their upper bearing covers.) That’s good if you are putting together a new custom build with a compatible frame. But I suspect, unless people are seriously unhappy with their bars, anyone who already has a fully-integrated cockpit setup isn’t often going to go through the expensive and time-consuming hassle to change everything out to a new handlebar.
Really, I don’t feel the need to overly complicate my own routing and bike maintenance just to save a watt or two of reduced drag. And I’m happy with more conventional cable routing. The 2-bolt mount under the stem does provide a spot for an out-front GPS mount, though – a necessity since there’s no other option for conventional round bar mounts. Ritchey also sells their own special universal mount for the bar with a GoPro interface (separately). But I got more creative with bolts & spacers to fit the carbon HideMyBell RaceDay SL mount that I felt was a nicer solution anyway.
Ritchey only officially lists the weight for the largest 44cm x 110mm Superlogic Butano Ridge bar at 417g. But my 42cm x 90mm bar was lighter at a real 389g.
But is it comfortable?
Ritchey describes the Superlogic Butano Ridge as a bar developed with a history of mixed-surface adventure riding in mind, but built for the modern all-road and gravel racer. They only offhandedly reference the wider Butano Ridge product family’s “supreme comfort and control” that comes from its shape, and say the Superlogic 1-piece bar is meant for the “union of comfort, control, and style“. But what I really wanted to know is if it would actually be comfortable? All the best angles won’t help 5 hours into a ride if you’re being rattled to death with too much stiffness, or if you are fighting to maintain control through the corners on a noodly bar.
Lasting thoughts on riding the Ritchey Superlogic Butano Ridge bar
And this is where I really come out pleased with the full UD carbon monocoque Superlogic Butano Ridge bar. It feels plenty stiff when my 85kg self is climbing steep hills out of the saddle or carving through tight tarmac turns. When I really pay attention and try hard to torque on it, I can definitely feel some flex in the stem. And there’s also a bit of give in each of the drops themselves. But the tops from hood to hood seem very connected, which gives a solid feel for predictable handling.
And that little bit of give in the stem and the drops really does a commendable job of soaking up the bumps – from rough asphalt to washboard gravel roads – whatever hand position you prefer.
I think honestly, the only downside at all to this cockpit is its $600 / 600€ pricetag, which is a lot. But if you read this far to get more details about a full carbon, 1-piece integrated bar+stem cockpit, that price shouldn’t really surprise you too much these days. And there’s always a solid alloy Butano Ridge bar & C220 stem that will get you much of the same fit for 1/3 the price and <50g weight penalty, if you have a smaller budget to work with.
