Ridley

Noah SL 40 Ultegra Complete Road Bike - 2016

If you're looking for an unapologetically twitchy carbon machine worthy of joining you in your summer race lineup, add Ridley's 2016 Noah SL 40 Ultegra Complete Road Bike to your shortlist or better yet, take it out on a ride. When creating the Noah SL, Ridley's intense focus on aerodynamics resulted in a pedigreed frame analyzed from every angle to provide you with the types of small aerodynamic advantages that add up on the roads. Ridley then reinforced its careful construction by spec'ing the Noah SL with Shimano's incredibly competent Ultegra 6800 drivetrain, which at this point, is barely heavier and equal in function to its big brother Dura Ace. So yeah, the Noah SL is a race bike worth taking a look at.

Ridley trusts high-modulus carbon fiber to mold the frame and fork, equipping the Noah SL to be capable of both dampening road vibrations and remaining light on its feet in a pack. It carefully shapes the tubes to follow a teardrop design to reduce drag and save valuable time over the course of a race, and then covers them with its FAST F-Surface material to help save more watts and enable the frame to more efficiently slice through the air.

In addition to surface material, Ridley's FAST technology manifests itself again on the Noah SL's fork design in the form of the F-Split Fork channel, which works to guide air away the spokes where it typically would create added resistance and drag. Whether you're mashing down on the pedals to hold your own in a sprint or working to maintain cadence on a breezy mid-race climb, the Noah SL's power-transferring oversized tubes and frame construction work to help you expend less effort at higher speeds, truly working along with you in a race.