Ridley launches Kanzo Adventure bikepacking gravel bike

Ridley’s new gravel bike aimed at bikepacking, dusk-til-dawn adventuring and ultra-endurance gravel racing, it’s called the Kanzo Adventure. 

Replacing the existing Kanzo Adventure, it will sit alongside three other carbon-fibre gravel bikes in the Ridley range, the Kanzo Fast, Kanzo All-Road and Kanzo Electric, and will represent the brand's most off-road-capable drop-bar bike to date. 

It is the brand's answer to the diverging ways in which gravel riding is becoming defined. Gravel means different things to different people. To some, it means going fast and racing, to others it represents a mixture of road and light off-road use, while for a lot of people, it means packing the kitchen sink and riding for days on end on all terrains. To cater to the latter, the Kanzo Adventure frame has been given clearance for 2.1in mountain bike tyres and is compatible with suspension forks such as the RockShox Rudy XPLR. 

To the same end, Ridley has given the bike an enormous number of mounting points across the frame. There are four on the upper face of the down tube, a further three on the underside, three more adorn the seat tube, while another two can be found beneath a cover on the top tube. That's 12 on the frame alone and a further three on each fork leg allow for low-rider racks or cargo cages to bring the total to 18. Each fork leg is capable of carrying 3kg with cargo cages, and with a lowrider rack, this can be increased to carry up to 9kg in total.

A further six mounts allow the bike to accept mudguards, and a hidden mount on the crown of the fork for a front light equals a total of no fewer than 25 mounts in total. 

That final mount on the front fork crown is perhaps the most notable, as next to it exists a small hole through which you can feed a cable. Another hole on the fork leg, and then a third on the underside of the top tube allows internal cable routing for a dynamo-powered lightset, making the Kanzo Adventure an appealing choice for ultra-endurance gravel riders and commuters alike. 

At the cockpit, the internal cable routing continues. Cables are fed inside the handlebar, through the stem and then past the D-shaped steerer tube into the frame. The result is the clean cockpit aesthetic that countless bikes have strived for in recent years. However, knowing that aftermarket suspension forks use round steerer tubes, Ridley has also drilled a cable entry port into the left-hand side of the down tube to allow for external routing. This will no doubt have a secondary benefit of appealing to those who prefer the easy access and simplified maintenance of external routing.

Perhaps, unsurprisingly, the Adventure has been given a geometry that's more geared to off-road capability when compared to the other gravel bikes in the Ridley Kanzo range. In short, it gets the slackest head tube angle, the lowest bottom bracket, the longest wheelbase and the steepest seat tube angle of all the Kanzo models. The result, Ridley says, is a bike that gives more stability and confidence, and shorter stems are specced across the size range to retain sharp handling. 

There is no provision for a front derailleur so the frame is only compatible with 1x groupsets from Shimano, SRAM and Campagnolo. However, like the Kanzo Fast, the Adventure is compatible with the Classified two-speed rear hub, which can be paired with existing electronic Shimano or SRAM shifters. 

At launch, the bike is available in three guises. The starting price is £3,159 / $4,589 / €3,475, complete with SRAM Rival eTap and alloy wheels. A Shimano GRX800-equipped model is available at £3,639 / $5,279 / €3,999, which also comes with the same aluminium Forza Norte wheels. Topping the range is another SRAM Rival eTap groupset, but with an upgrade to carbon wheels, which is available at  £4,459 / $6,469 / €4,899. Alternatively, the Kanzo Adventure can be specced to taste using Ridley's online bike configurator.