- This is the Ridley Noah Fast belonging to Caleb Ewan.
Ewan himself having transferred to the Lotto Soudal squad
for the 2019 season,
previously having ridden for the Mitchelton Scott team.
So for 2019 he's not only got himself a new frame,
he's also got himself a new groupset.
Let's have a look then at what's so special about this bike
for a rider that I like to call the Pocket Rocket.
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So this is the latest model of Noah frame from Ridley.
Now this is the aerodynamic road race offering bike.
I actually had one of the first models that they produced
and it was a super stiff bike with integrated seat mast
and everything, but, while most bike manufacturers
seem to have gone away from that kind of technology,
there are a couple of them still floating around out there.
But it's interesting to see it's gone away
because by having a separate seat post you do tend to have
just a little bit more comfort there on the rear end.
Now something else that Ridley trialed
and actually ran with for quite a number of years
was a fork that had a split in it
and the brakes were housed in there.
Now the split in the fork was actually to try and aid
wind or air move over the bike in order to keep you going
at, well, lower watts I guess.
However that's been taken away
and it's been replaced with something called
F-Surface technology.
Now that has been used on previous models of Ridley bikes.
So the purpose of the F-Surface technology
is that the wind and air is gonna move over the frame tubes
a lot more efficiently and effectively than otherwise
in order for you to keep going faster
for longer, if you like.
Now it's the same principle or same idea that we find
with golf balls, and the dimples on it,
also what we tend to see on some high-end skin suits
and also airplane wings too.
If we look down here as well,
on the ends of the forks
you can actually see something that Ridley call F-Wings.
Now the idea behind this is very similar to what we see
on the Pinarello Dogma, as well as on the Scott Foil.
The idea behind it is to actually try and reduce the
turbulence that the front hub generates,
because at the front of the bike
that's where the real mass of the wind is hitting.
So sprinters such as Ewan, while they pretty much obsess
over aerodynamics, be when it comes to battling away
for the sprint victory, they want nothing left unturned.
So in the case of Ewan, well, he gets super low
but check out these handlebars too.
So it's the Deda Superzero which do have
a slightly aerodynamic profile to them too,
in order just to get a little bit more gains.
And then, the cables are really neatly internally rooted
and then the EPS cables for the electronic gearing,
that is heat shrinked like nothing I've ever seen before.
It's done really well, it's almost like they've gone
all the way inside of the bar with it.
So I am gonna congratulate Steven the mechanic
who's a really old friend of mine.
Done a good job there, good job Steven.
Now I mentioned in the introduction
that Ewan was on a new groupset
and well, he's on something special here indeed,
because this is a Campagnolo Super Record EPS in 12-speed,
something which hasn't actually been released yet.
Now many of you may well remember '
that back at the Vuelta a Espana in 2018,
I did in fact use my eagle eyes
and I spotted that Maxime Monfort
was actually running a prototype of this groupset.
And well, it's great to see it here in the flesh,
official, with the Super Record logos there,
on the parts concerned.
Now, what has actually been added then
in that 12-speed cassette?
Well it is in fact a 16-tooth sprocket.
So previously it jumped from a 15 to a 17-tooth,
whereas now we've got the 16
which is probably gonna be pretty well used
because it is there,
down at the more racing end of the cassette, if you like,
but it's certainly gonna be valuable I reckon.
Now something I'd noticed on this bike, which is ultra cool
and what you can do with electornic groupsets
is actually customize the shifting patterns of the bike.
So what's Caleb Ewan actually done then
with his shifting controls?
Well, because previously he was using Shimano
I can see his thinking behind this,
and he's actually changed it around
so that when he's on the drops of the bars,
at least I think this is why he's done it,
he can change gear slightly easier,
because of course, with Campagnolo,
to change gear into the 11-sprocket for instance,
it's the little thumb shifter here
on the inside of the hoods.
So by using one of the paddle shifters,
when you're down there in the drops,
it is a lot easier to change gear,
so he's customized it so that
if he presses the one on the right hand side,
it moves into a harder gear,
so towards the 11-sprocket,
and then if he uses the one on the left hand shifter,
well, he goes up towards the 29-tooth sprocket.
But then with the thumb shifters
on the insides of the hoods, he's done the reverse,
so, the one on the right hand side
moves him into the small change ring,
and the one on the left hand side
moves him into the big chain ring.
I'm gonna try and get a few words from Caleb actually
and try and find out exactly why he's done that,
but, well, that's my thinking at least.
Wheel selection, well, Ewan, he's been rolling around
here at the Tour Down Under
on a pair of Campagnolo Bora Ultra 50 wheels.
Of course that can change depending on the terrain
that's being raced over.
They've got ceramic bearings fitted,
and then tires-wise, we've got Vittoria Corsa tubulars
in 25 millimeter width.
Now like every professional cyclist out there,
Caleb Ewan he's gonna wanna know
how much power he's kicking out,
both during the stage as well as afterwards
in order to actually have a look and analyze,
what exactly he's been doing.
So he's opted for the Campagnolo chainset
with an SRM unit actually mounted onto the spider there.
Chainrings, 53/39, and if we look closely,
just tucked away beneath those chainrings
or in the inside of them,
we can see a K-Edge chain catcher
with a magnet on the end of it,
and that's in order to actually trigger, or rather capture,
the cadence of the chainset whilst he's pedaling.
Now, attached on to those 170 millimeter cranks
are a pair of Look Keo Carbon Blade pedals
with a 20 newton meter blade in there,
so that's the release tension.
So he's opted for the highest there is,
because of course when you're in the heat of the moment,
battling out a stage win,
you don't wanna pull your foot out do you?
No you don't.
Right let's look at same of the finishing touches
on the bike then.
Well firstly, where he perches his behind
is on a Selle Italia team edition carbon railed saddle.
Course the carbon rail just saving
a little bit of weight there.
And the stem, well we've talked about the bars already,
but they're fitted into a Deda Zero 100 stem,
that's 140 millimeters in length, so pretty long,
and with a minus 20 degree angle,
so that is one of the, well, steepest stems
we are gonna see in the World Tour peloton.
We do see a few minus 17s, but minus 20,
that's pretty much signature actually to Deda,
and then fitted beneath that stem,
we've got what looks to be
a 3D printed headset top cap cover,
and it's a really nice looking bit of kit, that,
big fan of things like that I must say.
Handlebar tape, we've got some Lizard Skins DSP tape
which is wrapped only about 3/4 of the way,
just missing out the top flat part section there.
And then we've got some Campagnolo direct mount brakes
so they attach with two bolts rather than one,
which is kind of what you find
on a traditional style set up.
A pair of Tacx carbon fiber bottle cages.
Of course fitted onto those Deda bars
we've got the SRM PC8 power unit
which is in a, well, pretty good matching red color,
and then also, I must just say that the seat post too,
is unique to the Ridley Noah Fast,
and it also has that F-Surface technology grooves in there
to smooth out the airflow,
and then on the rear of the seat post
you can just about see Caleb Ewan's race number
from the Australian National Road Race Championships
that was just a few days ago,
and that's neatly double-sided taped
on the back of the seat post there.
No messy superglue or anything like that.
From the tip of the saddle
to the center of the bottom bracket, 64.5 centimeters.
And the measurements from the tip of the saddle
to the center of the handlebars is 52.2 centimeters
and the drop from the saddle to the handlebars
is 6.5 centimeters and the weight is 7.27 kilos.
Okay, okay, I know how much you love a freehub soundcheck.
Let's have a listen.
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So there we are, the bike of 2019 new recruit
for Lotto Soudal, Caleb Ewan.
Let me know though what you think of it
down there in the comments section.
Personally, it gets a super nice from me.
It's got gumwall tires after all.
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