First Ride Review: The Ridley Grifn RS can do road and gravel well with seemingly few drawbacks

The Grifn RS is a new, lighter, faster version of the Grifn all-road bike which has been around for a few years now. We tested a Grifn back in 2022 and were immediately impressed, so now it's time to see what the latest iteration can do.

I attended the Grifn and E-Grifn launch event in Tarragona, Spain to ride the new Grifn RS which uses lighter, stiffer carbon fibre, lowering the frame weight and aiming to providing a faster ride. 

The Grifn RS is available in both road and gravel versions, but being able to ride both builds back to back really helped me understand what the bike brings to the table and the kind of ride performance it provides. 

Ridley says the carbon gravel bike market segment is exploding for them right now, with customers looking at these kinds of bikes as an upgrade or to fill the role of an all-rounder offering road, gravel, and anything-else-you-can-think-of capability. 

The Grifn RS will be available in six different builds, three road and three gravel, with prices starting from €4,999 through to €7,999. You could of course buy a build and then equip it for road and gravel use yourself with your preferred wheels, tyres and components.  

Head to our Grifn RS news piece to ride all about the new models. 

Design and Aesthetics 

Aesthetics-wise, the Grifn RS looks good when set up for either gravel or road for me. The Ridley logo tends to fill a downtube well and and there is a whole range of custom colours to choose from should customers wish. My black and gold Grifn RS test bike looked great with the tan wall Corsa Pro tyres. 

The frame design doesn't feature anything especially 'out there'; there are semi-angular tube profiles, dropped seat stays and an integrated Forza cockpit that keeps things pretty much bang on trend for road and gravel bikes right now. Importantly I think, the frame looks good with road or gravel rubber fitted which is nice. It doesn't look like a gravel frame with skinny road tyres fitted when in road mode. Wider internal wheel widths probably help here, but it all helps visually.

I was lucky enough to get assigned a Sram Force equipped Grifn RS gravel bike to ride, a 1X setup, finished off with DT Swiss ERC1400 wheels with Vittoria Terreno Dry Endurance tyres.

In the road spec the Forza handlebar and stem remained in place but my bike had a Shimano Ultegra Di2 groupset fitted which provided predictably solid performance. The same DT Swiss ERC1400 wheels were present fitted with Vittoria Corsa Pro tyres. 

I've had the chance to test the bike with two different equipment configurations for both gravel and road, but I think it would be pretty easy to choose the correct drivetrain and equipment configuration to cater to your terrain and the type of riding you want to do.

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Performance 

I had the opportunity during the Grifn launch event to ride a Grifn RS in both road and gravel setups back to back. This provided a great comparison and insight into what the bike can offer. I was impressed, within a short space of time at how capable the bike feels on both types of terrain. 

The first ride I did on the Grifn RS was on the gravel version of the bike so it makes sense to start there. I installed the pedals on my Grifn RS gravel, and set my seatpost height and saddle angle and luckily things felt pretty much spot on. The first thing that jumped out rolling down the street was the very comfortable reach and front-end position of my size small bike. It doesn't happen all that often on test bikes but when it does it's very nice and I was at home from the off.

The test loop and terrain were largely off-road and featured a lot of dusty, quite rocky trails and tracks. There were also some deeper sandy sections along with regular tarmac roads. There wasn't a massive amount of elevation gain and loss so the descents tended to be shallower and carrying speed and momentum was important and a good test for the bike.

I was pretty much able to jump onto the Grifn RS gravel after only a few hours of sleep after a very delayed flight and just get stuck into the ride. I felt comfortable on the bike immediately and the handling felt snappy and confidence-inspiring.

It isn't a huge surprise given its dual use or all-road credentials that the Grifn RS sits in the more nimble, racier end of the gravel spectrum. It felt very capable climbing and when riding on the road, but riding off-road, threading it through rough rocky descents or braking hard into deep sandy corners on the loop it felt capable and planted. The Terreno Dry Endurance tyres helped too, gripping well without adding much drag thanks to a very low profile centre.

It's certainly a fast bike, I could see myself racing on it very easily, and as I'll go on to discuss, you could install some road wheels and fast tyres and race on the road with this bike. The 46T front chainring will provide speed but may make gearing a touch large for some riders who are doing a lot more climbing, but that's an easy enough swap if desired. 

It also ticks most of the boxes in terms of desirable gravel features right now for this type of gravel bike. There's a UDH rear hanger to get you out of trouble, plus there are various frame mounts for extra cages and frame bags. Ridley also let on that they have some aero-enhancing frame bags from Apidura on the way which are wind tunnel tested and first saw action at Unbound a couple of years ago. 

Tyre clearance does max out at 42mm but this isn't really a bike designed with beefy 50mm gravel tyres in mind. I also appreciated the 5mm hex bolt used on the seatpost clamp, the larger size is just a bit easier to work with and makes the job less faffy.

My last ride of the trip was on the Grifn RS road setup, with Ultegra di2 equipped. The road test loop covered around 30 miles with about 2,500ft of elevation with a longer climb of around 20 minutes as well as a few other slightly shorter climbs. This climbing provided some fast-flowing descents to test the bike and a few miles of flat, fast run in back to town. It pretty much had it all as far as test loops go. 

I worked the hardest on this ride following Erica from Ridley who rode the E-Grifn and it was an excellent test. I like to get cracking on when riding any test bike to really see what it's about and did so here. 

This final ride on the Grifn RS platform all but confirmed its versatility for me. Again, I felt comfortable from the off on my size small bike and as someone who doesn't require a massive reach on most bikes, I felt at home pretty much straight away with the cockpit setup, though I would have preferred a narrower bar, particularly when in the drops. 

In a roadgoing setup, the Grifn RS delivers solid handling and I could push it into sweeping corners with confidence. The bike responded well when sprinting hard uphill or on the flat but won't provide the stiffness and outright aggressiveness a more thoroughbred race bike will. This stands to reason as this is an all-road bike, not a race bike. It's perhaps a testament to the on-road performance that I mention this point as with a fast set of wheels and tyres the Grifn RS really does seem to offer excellent road bike performance too.

Early Verdict

I feel I have been able to get a pretty clear idea about what the Grifn RS platform is about after a few short hours of riding it, and being able to ride it on both types of terrain has been valuable. 

I was impressed after my test rides with how well the Grifn RS performed on both gravel and road. Ridley seems to have an excellent geometry platform for the Grifn and what it is designed for. The RS takes that and adds extra speed and excitement. I'm interested in seeing just how much the Grifn RS can take both on and off-road and exactly where its limitations lie. 

If you want something that could provide strong performance on road and gravel and maybe even deal with winter training duties I feel the Grifn RS will not disappoint. It's a fun, capable bike that can do a lot and do it well.