Ritchey Road Logic

The Ritchey Road Logic starts as a collection of tubes, spec’ed by Tom Ritchey, available only through the Ritchey brand. The tubes are triple-butted to save weight. The short thicker ends ensure the tubes endure TIG welding heat during frame assembly.

Ritchey only offers the Ritchey Road Logic as a frameset and in just one color, a gunmetal gray with a subtle panel scheme accenting the Ritchey name on the down tube and a small Logic sticker across the top. The frame is matched with one of the excellent Ritchey WCS all-carbon forks, a concession to technological advance over the past 20 years. The frame is not radical in design, as you’d expect, but does include a number of nice touches. The fastback stays, sweep into a pair of nice looking Ritchey dropouts and the headtube is an hourglass shape, flaring outwards to house sealed bearings maintaining a smooth transition from frame to fork. The area behind the head badge, funnels down to a diameter just large enough to accommodate the fork. Not only does it look slick, it also saves a few ounces on a standard design.

The frame’s geometry is designed with long rides in mixed conditions in mind. My 55cm test bike had a spacious 56cm effective top tube, 73.5 head and seat angles, and a reasonably long wheelbase, consistent with tried-and-true road racing geometry. The frame is not in a pure double diamond design, but rather a compact: the top tube slopes slightly and the head tube length is more likely to appeal to a racer than a sportive rider. It’s 2.5 centimeters shorter than the head tube on the Sabbath Silk Road sportive bike in our test collection. Finally, like any good steel bike, the fork, chainstays, and seat stays offer plenty of room for fat tires; Ritchey claims 700x28c tyres fit easily, though I managed to fit 700x32s with little difficulty.

The frame weighs in at a shade under four pounds; definitely not close to some of the carbon and titanium super bikes out there, but still very respectable. Built up with the heavier Shimano Ultegra 6700 and various Ritchey aluminium components, the bike weighed in at a reasonable 18 pounds. Built with SRAM Red or Dura-Ace and lightweight racing hoops, the bike could easily get down to UCI weight limit. Pretty impressive for a steel frame!

 
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