Ribble Allroad Ti Rival AXS: this could be the best-value titanium endurance bike on sale today

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Ribble’s Allroad range has a somewhat misleading name – as I found with the carbon version, the Allroad is in fact a sporty endurance bike that’s at its best on the road. 

This titanium iteration of the design uses 3D-printed junctions to simulate the aerodynamic shapes of the carbon bike.  

The Allroad Ti is a great-looking bike that’s built to last. It's on-road manners are a superb combination of smoothness and confident handling. In this guise, however, better tyres and an eventual wheel upgrade would improve it beyond measure. 

Titanium road bikes at this price are more common than they used to be, but titanium with hydroformed aero tubes and 3D-printed titanium junctions is almost unheard of. Ribble has hit high marks for value on what is an impressive new endurance bike. 

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Ribble Allroad Ti Rival AXS performance 

The range starts at £2,749 for the 12-speed mechanical Shimano 105 bike, rising to £6,399 for a Dura-Ace Di2 equipped bike. 

I opted for the first of the electronic-drivetrain equipped models, the SRAM Rival AXS bike, priced at £3,499 / $4,915. Onto this I added a one-piece carbon bar upgrade and custom paint through Ribble’s online configurator.

The jade jewel metallic green paint on the fork, post, and cockpit added £250 / $275 to the total, with the bar upgrade priced at £350 / $435. The complete package came in at £4,099 / $5,350. 

You can, of course, choose differently. Ribble offers a myriad of colours and three cockpit packages, along with five wheelset options, six saddles and a whole host of accessories. 

The frameset is well appointed, with a threaded T47 bottom bracket shell, UDH dropout, 35mm tyre clearances and provision for mudguards. 

Titanium has reputed vibration-quelling qualities. The Allroad Ti, however, shares a lot of the firmness of its carbon stablemate, yet there is a noticeable lack of road buzz from chip stone tarmac, much more so than the Allroad carbon.  

It has the same feel of stiffness, and that translates to responsive handling, but it lacks a bit of ‘get-up-and-go'.

The alloy Mavic Allroad wheels have a reputation for toughness, but they weigh in at 1,890g a pair, and the Vittoria Rubino tubeless-ready tyres (run here with inner tubes) weigh a claimed 370g in the 32mm size here. The result is it all feels a bit pedestrian.  

Acceleration feels tempered, climbing is best done seated and the bike lacks a bit of zip on descents. I switched in a set of Zipp 303 SW wheels with 30mm Goodyear tyres – an upgrade option Ribble offers – and the bike came alive.  

It wasn’t solely the more than half a kilo of rotating weight shaved off, but the sparkle that comes from quality, supple tyres, too. If budget was tight, I could live with the alloy wheels, but a tyre upgrade is an essential to get the best from the titanium frame. 

The geometry is very much on the racier side of endurance layouts, with a short wheelbase thanks to 415mm chainstays, a long 405.3mm reach and low 606.7mm stack (in a size XL). It gives a nice ride position that’s low and long without being tough to hold for longer rides – exactly what you want from an endurance bike.  

Accordingly, even with the rather sluggish tyres, the Allroad Ti is a fun bike to ride fast and rewards your climbing efforts, with planted handling on descents.

The frameset’s rigidity counters the vagueness of the average tyres very well. I had plenty of confidence in corners and was happy to change course mid-corner to avoid potholes or lose surface detritus, albeit all the time knowing just how much better the bike felt with the wheel upgrade. 

The cockpit is well-shaped and size-appropriate. The 42cm-wide bar, with an equivalent 110mm stem, has a wide flattened top, mid-compact drop and a subtle amount of flare. The drop is compact enough to encourage you to stay in the drops for longer. 

 You can of course use Ribble’s configurator to choose your own bar, and even super-narrow fans are catered for with the narrow, shapely Ultra-derived UB-2 bar. 

SRAM’s Rival AXS is often overlooked in the SRAM range, and I think that’s a shame. Its shifting performance is on a par with Force and Red (it shares the same electronics).

I love the design of the angular cutout crankset, and I think compared to Shimano’s equivalent 105 Di2, Rival AXS looks the more contemporary design. 

Braking performance is good, and the gearing combination of 48/35-tooth chainrings and a 10-36 tooth cassette gives plenty of range for an endurance bike. It even includes a spindle-based power meter on this build. 

Value-wise, the Allroad Ti is a tough one to place – there aren’t very many 3D-printed titanium endurance bikes out there.  

J. Laverack has the J.Ack from £3,650 / $4,800 for the frameset, with the Rival AXS offering priced at around £5,785 / $7,900. 

Dolan’s ADX Titanium has a more traditional construction and can be had with a 105 Di2 groupset for £2,899 (US POA) with the same Mavic wheelset.  

Fellow British builder Lios offers an endurance titanium frameset for £2,295, with builds available to order, and Kinesis has the highly regarded GTD frameset at £2,400. For the record, the Ribble Allroad Ti frameset costs £2,099 / $3,010. 

Ribble Allroad Ti Rival AXS bottom line 

The Ribble Allroad Ti is a special bike; the frameset brings the aero shapes of the carbon version, but splices the toughness and polish of titanium into the mix.  

Even with the rather sluggish tyres, the Allroad Ti is a fun bike to ride fast. It rewards your climbing efforts with planted handling on descents. The frameset's rigidity counters the vagueness of the average tyres very well.  

I like that Ribble offers plenty of custom options on components and even custom paint details. However, I’d like to see a few tyre options thrown into the mix. You can upgrade the wheels and get a better tyre option with Vittoria Corsa N.Exts rather than Rubinos.
 
In hindsight, I might have changed my order on custom paint and gone for a wheel upgrade. That said, as a complete bike, this titanium machine has loads to offer.

If you’re looking for a year-round, do-it-all road bike, this is one of the best-value options around.  

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