Ridley’s new gravel bike, the Ignite GTX, is claimed to bridge the gap between mountain bikes and gravel. It's a bike designed for the toughest races, even able to make the leap into ultra-distance mountain bike events according to Ridley.
The Ignite GTX has the biggest tyre clearance we've seen on a gravel bike to date – 2.3in, or 58mm.
Ridley’s designers say they’d noticed a shift towards some privateer riders using home-built drop-bar equipped mountain bikes for more technical gravel races, and some even adopting them for marathon mountain bike events.
Meanwhile, professional athletes were sticking to either gravel bikes or mountain bikes because that’s all that was available to them.
Extreme geometry
Ridley’s answer to that conundrum is the Ignite GTX. The new bike is based on Ridley’s high-performance Ignite SLX hardtail mountain bike. It has what Ridley describes as ‘pure mountain bike geometry’.
The Ignite GTX gets a slacker 70-degree head angle than even Ridley's rough-stuff-ready Kanzo Adventure. The wheelbase measures 1,100mm, with a long reach of 418mm and a 614mm stack (size large).
The front end is suspension-corrected, but not as with a standard gravel bike. Ridley offers and recommends a 100mm-travel mountain bike suspension fork as opposed to the shorter travel of gravel suspension forks.
At the rear, the Ignite GTX uses Ridley’s flex-stays, employing a carbon construction that enables the flex to smooth out vibrations from rougher surfaces.
The Ignite GTX is intended for extreme terrain, according to Ridley. The wheel choice is a mountain bike 29-inch, with a huge maximum tyre clearance of 2.3in (58mm). This makes it the gravel bike with the largest tyre clearances we’ve seen to date, on trend for the recent shift to larger tyres in gravel racing.
Ridley says we can expect to see the Ignite GTX soon at ultra-adventure races such as the Atlas Mountain Race, the Tour Divide and the Transcordilleras.
How many gravel bikes does Ridley have now?
Is Ridley becoming the European gravel specialist? It has the ASTR, Invenio, Kanzo Fast, Kanzo Adventure, Kanzo A, Grifn RS, Kalazy and Grifn Gravel. Adding the Ignite GTX makes for an eight-model line-up, not counting electric gravel bikes.
Ridley Ignite GTX spec and price details
The Ignite GTX has four options: SRAM Rival 1, SRAM Apex 1, SRAM Rival-GX AXS mullet setup and Shimano GRX800 1x12 in a mullet setup.
The Ignite GTX is available with either a suspension fork with 100mm of travel or a rigid carbon fork.
All models come with Ritchey’s VentureMax bar, with a very wide 24-degree flare and super-shallow drop.
Prices range from £2,599 / €2,799 with SRAM Apex 1x11 and a rigid fork up to £3,199 / €3,499 for the range-topping bike with SRAM Rival/GX AXS and a RockShox Recon Gold fork.
- Ignite GTX, SRAM Apex 1, Rigid fork: £2,599 / €2,799
- Ignite GTX, SRAM Apex 1, RockShox Judy Silver: £2,699 / €2,999
- Ignite GTX, SRAM Rival 1, RockShox Recon Gold: £3,199 / €3,499
