Ridley Kanzo Adventure Rival XPLR review

Ridley offers a gravel bike for all eventualities, from the racy Kanzo Fast to the slimmed-down Kanzo Speed, and the Grifn all-road bike.

The Kanzo Adventure, however, is the bike of choice if you want to explore as far away from tarmac as possible.

This has resulted in a bike designed from scratch – it’s not an adapted road bike or cyclocross bike (nor is it a mountain bike with drop bars).

At the heart of the design is a progressive geometry with huge tyre clearances. With plenty of other helpful features besides, it’s a great machine to accompany you on your gravel riding adventures, which sees it land a place on our Gravel Bike of the Year shortlist.

Ridley Kanzo Adventure frame details

The Kanzo Adventure’s frameset is remarkable for its very low-slung back end, with seatstays that meet the seat tube just above the bottle cage bosses.

The stays splay out, and taper and flatten through their midsection to allow for plenty of comfort-improving flex. They’re spaced widely enough, in tandem with the twin-dropped chainstays and seat tube cutaway, to allow for a 29x2.1in tyre, with room to spare.

The short head tube is generously oversized, while the fork is broad (for that high tyre clearance) and the legs taper to improve shock absorption.

The broad girth of the down tube is designed to provide plenty of stiffness at the centre of the bike.

The Kanzo Adventure couldn’t be more well endowed with bosses. The down tube alone has four bottle bosses on top and three underneath, while the seat tube provides another set of three. The Kanzo is certainly prepared for seriously thirsty work.

Additionally, the fork gets triple bosses on each leg (you can use these as luggage mounts to carry up to 3kg per side, or even more bottles). It also has internal brake hose routing, plus capacity for a dynamo cable on the other leg.

The frame also features mudguard mounts, and there are bento box mounts on the top tube too.

With all this carrying provision, I expected the Kanzo to be quite a hefty beast. In fact, a claimed 1,360g for a large frame (including mounts and paint), plus 415g for the fork, demonstrates this isn’t the case.

The overall weight of 9.09kg for my unladen complete test bike is impressive, especially considering the bike is running 700 x 47c tyres.

The frame is designed to be used with 1x drivetrains only, but that doesn’t preclude the use of Classified’s revolutionary hub-shifting tech, as seen on the Kanzo Fast (and it's an option in the range).

The frame uses a PF30 bottom bracket.

Ridley Kanzo Adventure geometry

With a slack 70.5-degree head angle combined with a high 617mm stack, front-end behaviour is designed to be predictable and easy-going, while the Kanzo Adventure is suspension-ready.

Despite this, the frame reach is long at 415mm on my large-sized test bike. This is offset by using a short 90mm stem.

The longer reach is partly a consequence of the tall stack, but by offsetting that with a short stem, the Kanzo Adventure avoids becoming sluggish to steering inputs. Yet, the tracking stability from the relaxed head angle remains.

At the rear, long 435mm chainstays extend the overall wheelbase for handling stability.

That said, the Kanzo Adventure sees a steep 74-degree seat angle, pitching the rider over the bottom bracket. This helps the bike respond quickly to pedalling inputs and adds plenty to its off-road confidence.

The huge 2.1-inch tyre clearances have naturally influenced the bike's geometry, simply because you need a longer wheelbase to accept bigger gravel tyres.

However, Ridley seems to have thought carefully about equalising that large capacity, to create a bike that rides and steers quickly thanks to the front-end shape with its short stem.

Ridley Kanzo Adventure build

The Kanzo Adventure can be bought with a base specification featuring SRAM Rival, Rival AXS XPLR, Shimano GRX800 or GRX800 Di2 groupsets.

You can also opt for specific setups, including a Classified rear hub, which comes in at €2,585 more than this Rival XPLR-equipped bike.

The Rival XPLR model on test here features a 10-44t cassette paired with a 42t chainring.

Rival hydraulic brakes complete the group, with 160mm rotors.

Up front, Ridley has kept things simple with a standard 1 1/8-1 1/2in headset, alloy stem and Ritchey Venture Max II gravel bar.

At the back is a similarly simple round 27.2mm-diameter seatpost. This is topped by Selle Italia’s X-LR saddle.

Forza, Ridley’s in-house component brand, provides its Levanto Gravel tubeless-ready carbon wheelset.

It features a 40mm-deep rim that's 30mm wide externally and 23mm wide internally. There are 24 DT Swiss Competition spokes per wheel, while cartridge bearing hubs bring the benefit of easier servicing. Forza claims the wheelset weighs 1,640g.

The wheels are fitted with large 700 x 47c Vittoria Terreno Dry tyres, set up clincher. The Terreno has a reputation as a fast, compliant tyre. I’d have preferred the bike to come set up tubeless rather than with standard tubes, but this is a relatively easy amendment to make at home.

On paper, the Kanzo Adventure is compelling when it comes to relative value.

This Rival eTap XPLR drivetrain and carbon wheel specification comes with a price tag that’s over £1,800 cheaper than Specialized’s CruX Expert in a very similar build. It's £1,000 less than Giant’s Revolt X (which features a hybrid mix of Rival eTap AXS and GX Eagle).

Ridley Kanzo Adventure ride impressions

The Kanzo Adventure crushes it in the rough, but (as you might expect) can feel ponderous on the smooth stuff.

The ride position created by the long reach, short stem and slackened front end gives a brilliantly balanced ride.

It’s formidable on fast, loose gravel descents, through tight turns and over rooty, rocky surfaces. It relishes the challenges the trail offers and never feels anything less than planted underneath you.

Even when faced with slippery, muddy terrain, the Kanzo handles superbly (despite tyres that might be better suited to less inclement conditions).

I’d certainly have preferred a bigger tread, like that found on Vittoria’s Terreno Wet tyre, but the huge 47c dimensions still enabled me to experiment with tyre pressures to get traction where needed.

The Rival XPLR drivetrain as specced is perfect for more extreme, technical gravel riding.

The smallest gear delivers less than a 1:1 ratio, keeping me pedalling when many might resort to hiking.

A 42/10t combination at the other end results in fast-as-you-dare speeds on fire roads and wide-open gravel descents. Theoretically, on tarmac it should enable you to get up to speeds commonly reserved for road bikes.

However, that’s where the big tyres show the Adventure's smooth-road limits – powering the Kanzo Adventure up to around 30kph on tarmac takes a lot of effort, and more besides to keep it there.

The upright ride position is also a hindrance to making fast progress on tarmac. You can minimise your shape by using the long reach and getting down in the compact gravel-suited drops, but it never feels as rapid as Basso’s Palta or Specialized’s CruX.

However, that’s a sacrifice the Kanzo Adventure encourages you to make – prioritising riding fast on technical gravel routes, rather than trying to get between them a little quicker.

In the event, the ride-smoothing characteristics of the bike all but eliminate vibrations and chatter.

The long, slender fork absorbs hits well, to the point where I never thought about switching up the nicely shaped alloy Ritchey Venture Max II gravel bar for something carbon.

The same applies to the alloy seatpost, where carbon is a commonly seen upgrade for its ride-smoothing properties.

Overall, the back end of the Kanzo is remarkably plush, getting close to the super-smoothness of bikes such as Pivot’s Vault and Cannondale’s Topstone, both of which feature suspension.

The Selle Italia X-LR saddle, while sleek in looks and suitably shaped, felt somewhat firm in its midsection.

This was fine when perched on the back on descents, but not quite so nice with your weight shifted forward on climbs. Of course, choosing a saddle is a very subjective decision.

The Forza carbon wheels feel lively, while the freehub pick-up is quick enough to respond satisfyingly when navigating slow-speed singletrack up through the woods.

Unlike some carbon gravel wheels, they don’t feel overly stiff, which benefits overall compliance.

Plus, while 1,640g isn’t light when compared to the flighty wheels specified on some race-orientated gravel bikes, it is light for a wheelset intended to take in much more rugged terrain.

Ridley Kanzo Adventure bottom line

The Kanzo Adventure is as focused on technical off-road as bikes such as BMC’s Kauis and Factor’s Ostro Gravel are on hard-packed, fast gravel racing terrain.

So, like those two aero-speedsters, you need to be just as sure that a singletrack-slaying gravel bike is what you want with the Kanzo Adventure.

It has more fixtures and fittings than many will ever need, so it’s certainly versatile in that regard. Plus, versus some competitors, it seems reasonable value to boot.

The Kanzo Adventure isn’t sprightly on tarmac, so if you’re looking for more of an all-road bike then look elsewhere.

But if pure gravel exploration and enjoyment on technical terrain is your preference, this is a good place to start.