Ingrid road drivetrain
Components from £127, ingrid.bike
The Leaning Tower of Pisa may have collapsed by now if it wasn’t for a decade of stabilisation work in the 1990s. Similarly, the bike industry may have collapsed by now if bike brands hadn’t been rescued by smaller groupset manufacturers stepping in when the big guns couldn’t meet demand. Manufacturers such as Pisa-based Ingrid.
Ingrid uses Cnc-machining to produce lightweight aluminium components that are compatible with parts from the Big Three. This 1x road group was launched in late 2021 having been in development since 2017, and consists of an 11-44t, 12-speed cassette that is part aluminium and part steel (€369/£315), a black aluminium direct mount chainring in either 44t, 48t or 52t (€149/£127), an aluminium crankset with a 148mm Q-factor (€449/£384), and a part 3D-printed aluminium rear derailleur (€549/£469).
The targets are reliability and functionality, as well as distinctive looks through Ingrid’s angular aesthetic and array of anodised crank arm colours. Weights are competitive: derailleurs weigh 270g, crank arms 445g and cassettes 318g (all claimed). A gravel version is also available with tweaked chainset and wider-range cassettes.