Nice one! Ritchey make absolutely fantastic bikes. No BS. Worth mentioning the Outback which is Ritchey's more conventional, carbon forked, lightweight gravel bike (the Ascent leaning more toward expedition/adventure). Easily fast/light enough to race or go bikepacking on. My Outback is so comfortable and stable at speed, runs 45mm in 700c and weighs 9.5kg in XL running Ekar. Easy to work on, easy to clean, never dings or scratches. Such a pleasure after carbon hassle. I also own an older Logic Road (rim) from 2013 running Ultega: runs 28mm tyres easily and weighs 8.3kg in XL. Ritchey bikes are just made to ride - lightweight for steel but with perfected geometry - so smooth, a joy to ride. Bikes for life, but can be hard to get hold of (in UK at least). And for people who don't know Tom - Google him, the man's a flipping legend! And his philosophy for frames and components is spot-on. Some of the highest quality kit on the market, without the BS hype train.

I find it interesting that weight keeps getting mentioned. I built one up last spring expressly to use for bikepacking, and come from road touring and commuting. To me, it feels relatively light for steel! Even with fenders, racks, and 2.25 tires (mezcals). Anyway, it's a joy to ride in the woods, and stayed planted and composed even as my ineperience was convinced i was going to break some bones or loose my teeth during some particularly gnarly downhills.

Great review of a super cool bike. Would love to see you do a review of a Poseidon Redwood, a bike that’s maybe similar to the Ascent, but at the lower end of the spectrum. I bought one last Christmas as a cheap bike to put on the smart trainer. But I only kept it on the trainer for a month. Instead, it’s turned out to be the bike I ride most. I put pannier racks on it for a week-long bike tour. It’s turned out to be awesome for commuting, running errands around town (I live in Washington, DC, so it’s faster to bike than drive), It’s kinda heavy, but following advice from “The Bike Sauce” KZfaq channel, I swapped in a pair of HuntxMason 650b gravel wheels with Victoria Terrence Dry tires set up tubeless, and that made the bike 3-1/2lbs lighter. Also swapped in compression less brake housing, which made the mechanical disc brakes much more responsive.

Weight counts in a sanctioned event if you are racing for the win. Otherwise, it is totally overrated and every cyclist who competes should have at least three gears anyway. One was racing and one for serious training and one for everything else. And that orange bike by Tom looks perfect for the later category, such a nice bike. And I am sort of building up a bootleg version as I recently bought a '90s Specialized Rockhopper Ultra with 3x and a compact frame and because I paid little for it, actually doubling the price voluntarily for the benefit of the charity thrift shop, I look forward to modernizing it with Ritchey components and the like. And if gravel bikes are actually, indeed, '90s mountain bikes, well, I'll be having a blast in a gravel event somewhere back there in the field, recalling my Sting-Ray days in the '70s on dirt roads in California. And a good day and a good result is the result of a good performance and for me at age 64, a good performance is where it's at, no need to fight for victories anymore, tho' they were fun back in the day, my handful of road victories, good memories not unlike those of jumping down the stairs in front of Fairmont Elementary in Pacifica and all those crazy duels and dares with friends..

looks interesting

Shoddy 👋

What happened to cycling tips

Hey Dave would love to know what the fit is like. What size are you on and how it feels. Many thanks

Love this bike , it’s fun and lively, built mine with 27.5 and it’s really responsive I’m 5’10” and a large feels a little to large but a medium might be to small, does anyone have any thoughts on sizes???

Cool, they kinda build the Kona Sutra LTD from 2018!🤠😉

It's not heavy, not a good start to the video.