RIDLEY HELIUM SL20 £3599.99
› Has the Belgian climber still got what it takes?
The Ridley Helium SL has been around for four years, and with pictures of its successor emerging from the last Taipei International Cycle Show, it’s likely that the 2016 Tour de France will be its swansong. A lot has changed in those four years and you might wonder if the Helium SL could still be superbike material. We think it is.
The recipe is a simple one: a svelte carbon frame with simple, angular lines, plus the usual modern trappings of a chunky press-fit bottom bracket, semi-internal cabling (not for the brakes) and a tapered fork. It’s not just any frame, claimed average weight is sub-800g, with a frameset coming in at a feathery 1050g or so; these are still highly competitive numbers.
There’s a pleasing restraint to the whole thing in a world where the drive for striking aesthetics sometimes seems to overwhelm engineering common sense. Granted, the chainstays are fat and asymmetric as on every other high-end racer, but the flattened top-tube is arrow straight, as are the dainty seatstays – there’s nothing you could accuse of being gimmickry. The ensemble is elegant and understated, this is not a bike SPECIFICATION 7.56kg (S) Helium SL 60T-40T-30T HM unidirectional carbon Helium SL carbon Shimano Ultegra, Rotor 3DF 52/36, 11-28 Shimano Ultegra Fulcrum Racing Quattro 4ZA Cirrus bar, stem, seatpost, Cirrus Pro saddle, Continental Ultra Sport 25mm tyres
Weight Frame Fork Gears Brakes Wheels Finishing kit
with something to prove.
Our test subject isn’t in full WorldTour guise, with Shimano Ultegra and modest Fulcrum clinchers standing in for team Lotto-Soudal’s posh Campagnolo componentry. (The retail spec is slightly different again, losing the Rotor chainset and giving you Racing 5 wheels rather than Quattros.) The frame is the very same one the pros ride, however, and hasn’t failed to impress.
Despite feeling almost delicate in the hand – one imagines a firm squeeze might crack its paper-thin tubing – the Helium is positively weapon-like on the move, with
The frame is the very same one the pros ride and hasn’t failed to impress