Ribble R872 Disc Tiagra

The Ribble R872 Disc Tiagra is a carbon fibre road bike that's built to a sportive-friendly geometry and it offers a much higher performance than you've a right to expect at this price. Plus, there's the bonus that you can tweak the spec to suit your taste and budget.

• Pros: Great value, excellent frame, ability to tweak the spec
• Cons: Geometry will be too aggressive for some

The feature that surprised me most about the Ribble R872 Disc's ride is the front end stiffness. In this respect it feels like a bike costing way more than this. Haul on the alloy handlebar and everything is absolutely rock solid. You might not pull out your best Mark Cavendish sprint all that often but you'll appreciate the rigidity when climbing out of the saddle and also when cornering hard – you can really chuck this bike through the bends.

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The frame is almost as stiff elsewhere, giving the feeling that none of your energy is going to waste. It really is hugely impressive for the money, made with T700 carbon fibre and boasting a tapered head tube, neat internal cable routing and compatibility with Di2 electronic shifting – indeed, Ribble will supply the bike built up with Shimano Ultegra Di2 if you like. The fork is full carbon too.

The R872 Disc is part of Ribble's Endurance range but 'endurance' means different things to different people, so let's deal with that a sec. By the standards of most endurance bikes, this frame is built to quite an aggressive geometry. It's suitable for sportives, for example, and other long, pacy rides, but the setup isn't as relaxed as you'll often find elsewhere.

I've been riding the large sized version with a stack height of 577mm and a reach of 394mm. For comparison, the 58cm version of Trek's endurance road bike, the Domane, has a 611mm stack and a 380mm reach, so the R872 Disc offers a riding position that's considerably longer and a lot lower – although, as ever, there's scope to adjust things via jiggery-pokery with headset spacers and different stem options. The R872 Disc's geometry is actually closer to that of Trek's Madone race bike, where the 58cm model has a 581mm stack height and a 396mm reach.

Anyway, that's enough talk of Trek and numbers. The bottom line is that the R872 Disc sits towards the racier end of the endurance bike spectrum. That's not to say that you're going to spend the whole time gnawing your handlebar but Ribble hasn't slung a super-long head tube on here. Make sense? Efficient but not extreme. Let's move on...

> Buyer's Guide: 22 of the best sportive and endurance bikes

Coming in at 9.69kg (21lb 6oz), the Ribble R872 Disc isn't mega-light, but this is a £1,100 disc brake bike we're talking about so the UCI's 6.8kg minimum weight limit is always going to be a distant horizon. If you're bothered you could always go through Ribble's web-based Bike Builder system (see below) and select lighter components. You could save about 250g by switching the Mavic Aksium Disc wheels for Ksyrium Elites, for example, and drop over 100g by swapping to a carbon fibre handlebar, and so on. That's all going to cost you more money, of course...

Personally, I wouldn't be motivated to save a few hundred grams. It's not that important. You could end up spending a lot more money for little benefit. In this build, the Ribble R872 Disc might not be the fastest accelerating bike I've ever ridden around these parts but it's far from being a layabout. In fact, I didn't give the weight a second thought – good or bad – out on the road.

The sloping top tube means you'll almost certainly have a lot of slim (27.2mm diameter) seatpost extending out of the frame and able to flex a little.

You can also choose your saddle from a wide range on offer. I got on fine with the Prologo Kappa RS default option – the semi-round shape suited me well, as did the medium depth of padding – but if you can find a few quid down the back of the sofa you can have Ribble put on something from Fizik.

Wheels and tyres

The tyres will also influence comfort. You have the choice of three models from Continental in either 25mm or 28mm width, or Challenge's Paris-Roubaix in 27mm. Our review bike came fitted with 25mm Conti Ultra Sports and, despite that stiffness I mentioned up top, I didn't feel it was crying out for 28s. They're an option if you'd like to put a larger cushion of air between you and the road, though, and there will still be enough room to fit SKS mudguards via the frame/fork eyelets.

Speaking of the tyres, I was unlucky with punctures here. Ultra Sports aren't the most high-end tyres in Conti's range but they're a decent, workmanlike choice and I've got on well with them a million times in the past.

This time... not so much. Heaven knows what was going on but I had about a fortnight when I spent a lot of time on grass verges swapping inner tubes and cursing (no, before you ask, nothing was stuck in the tread). I'll put that down to bad fortune, though, because those dark days seem to be behind me.

If you're feeling flush you could upgrade to Gatorskins (an extra £50) which come with Conti's PolyX Breaker for extra puncture protection, and what's called a DuraSkin external mesh that's designed to help prevent cuts, punctures and abrasions. I'd certainly consider it, especially for winter riding, although stumping up an extra £85 for the excellent GP5000s might be a step too far on a bike of this kind.

As mentioned previously, the wheels are Mavic Aksiums. They might be the entry-level option from the French brand but we've learnt over the years that they're a strong proposition for the money, combining a solid build with a decent weight, and they provided their usual hassle-free performance throughout testing.

You could go for Mavic's Ksyrium Elite Disc WTS wheels instead. In our experience these are bombproof but they'll add a whopping £450 to the price, which is a helluva lot on a £1,100 bike.

Groupset

The 10-speed Shimano Tiagra groupset performed superbly throughout testing. I won't go into much detail here but it's great stuff and excellent value.

We didn't get Tiagra brakes, though. Instead, this build comes with Tektro MD510 cable-operated disc brakes operating on 160mm rotors.

After the initial bedding in, these performed well. You'll sometimes hear people say that cable-operated disc brakes aren't much cop, and you'll certainly get a better performance if you're able to stump up the extra cash for the Shimano 105 groupset, complete with hydraulic disc brakes; that's to be expected. On the other hand, these pack a decent bite and the fact that they're disc brakes, with the braking surface positioned away from the road, means they're less affected by wet conditions than rim brakes.

Altering the cable tension via inline adjusters is simple too and, of course, you'll never have to bleed them, whereas hydraulic disc brakes might require the learning of some new maintenance skills. Don't get me wrong, if money isn't a consideration you'll almost certainly plump for hydraulic disc brakes, but these won't let you down. They didn't squeal during testing either, which is a bonus.

Build a bike

I mentioned Ribble's Bike Builder earlier, and it's a lovely thing (you'll have seen similar elsewhere). Rather than offering a single bike build, take it or leave it, Ribble allows you to tweak the spec from a range of options.

You toddle along to Ribble's website and click on a bike that interests you. Then you have the choice of accepting a suggested version or going with a custom spec. Ribble gives you default options but you can go in and change the frame colour, the groupset, the wheels, and everything else. You select what you want and move on to the next step, Bike Builder totting up the price as you go.

As well as selecting the model of component, you can choose the size where relevant: crank length, stem length, handlebar width, and so on. You can also add extras like mudguards (£45) and even a custom headset cap from Kapz (£25).

Value

The £1,000 Boardman SLR 8.9 Carbon that we reviewed last year is a rim brake bike that's a fairly similar proposition to the R872 Disc. This bike has an excellent carbon frame, a Shimano Tiagra groupset and Boardman's own wheels, and it comes at a very good price.

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> Buyer's Guide: 12 of the best Tiagra-equipped road bikes

The Forme Monyash that we reviewed is more expensive than the Ribble at £1,325 but it also comes with a Shimano Tiagra groupset. It's quite a different bike, though, in that it has hydraulic (rather than cable-operated) disc brakes and 32mm tyres, and it's built around an aluminium frame. The R872 Disc is more than 700g lighter and represents better value for money. In fact, taking the market as a whole, the Ribble is hard to beat for the money.

Conclusion

Overall, the Ribble R872 Disc offers an exceptional carbon fibre frame that's suited to tackling long rides at pace, and a strong components package that you can adjust to your requirements. It has to be a contender if you're after a sportive-style road bike that offers high value for money, especially if you want something that's upgradable over time.

Verdict

Highly impressive carbon road bike that offers exceptional value, and you can tweak the spec to your own taste and budget