GRAVEL
ROAD
Gravel racing is emerging from an old trade-off: choosing between a fast bike and a bike that can take big tyres. With the new Ridley Kanzo Fast 2.0, the Belgian brand takes that idea a long way: an aero frame, up to 58 mm of tyre clearance, a race geometry and internal storage to stay self-supported on race day.
This is not a cosmetic detail. The first Kanzo Fast had already made its mark with a decidedly road-biased take on gravel. This second generation raises the stakes: Ridley isn’t just trying to make an aero gravel bike, but a platform able to keep up with modern races – faster, more technical, and sometimes far less smooth than before.
🚀 In brief:
New Ridley gravel race bike with tyre clearance up to 58 mm
Mandatory 1x electronic drivetrain and chainrings up to 56 teeth
Three complete builds from 5 499 € to 11 699 €, frameset at 4 499 €
The Kanzo Fast 2.0 accepts tyres up to 58 mm, roughly the space needed for a 29 × 2.3 inch MTB tyre. For a gravel race bike, that’s huge. And above all, it’s telling of what the discipline is becoming.
For a long time, fast gravel bikes hovered around 45 to 50 mm, sometimes a bit more. Here, Ridley moves into another zone. The idea isn’t necessarily to ride all the time at maximum width, but to open up choice: a fast 38 or 40 mm tyre on rolling terrain, something wider when the course deteriorates, and extra mud clearance with narrower rubber.
This is probably the bike’s strongest point. A modern gravel race bike can no longer be designed around a single ideal setup. Courses change too much. Speeds are rising. Riders want efficiency, but also control and puncture resistance. The Kanzo Fast 2.0 answers that brief without tipping into adventure gravel.
Ridley also says the new frame drops 150 g versus the previous generation and goes from 42 mm to 58 mm of clearance. The jump is clear.
The catch with big tyres is they usually come with an aero penalty. Ridley doesn’t hide it: in its testing, a 38 mm tyre generated 6 watts less aero drag than a 55 mm tyre, on the same Skiron wheels and with Vittoria tyres.
But the thinking is subtler than that. On a real gravel course, the quickest setup isn’t always the one that wins in the wind tunnel. A wider tyre can lower rolling resistance, improve traction and let you carry more speed over rough ground. That’s where the Kanzo Fast 2.0 gets interesting: it doesn’t make that choice for you.
Ridley brings over some of its road know-how here, notably from the Noah Fast 3.0, with an oversized aero down tube, an extended head tube and profiles designed to better manage airflow around the frame and bottles.
The figures announced by the brand remain manufacturer data, so treat them as such. Ridley mentions an advantage of 2 watts with the bike alone and 13 watts with bike and rider versus the previous Kanzo Fast, on identical wheels and tyres with Vittoria Terreno Dry in 38 mm. Tests were carried out at 36 km/h, bottles in place, across a weighted range of yaw angles.
The message is clear: Ridley isn’t just selling a frame with big tyres. The brand wants to show that aero still matters, even as gravel gets wider, dirtier, less predictable.
The Kanzo Fast 2.0’s geometry draws from Ridley’s ASTR platform. The bottom bracket is lowered to offset the larger effective wheel diameter with big tyres, while the fork trail is tuned to keep steering precise.
The chainstays stay short, at 425 mm across all sizes, which helps retain a responsive feel despite the tyre volume on offer. The seat tube angle, between 74.5° and 75° depending on size, places the rider further forward. The goal is clear enough: hold an efficient position for long efforts without turning the bike into a pure, stable but slightly lifeless tractor.
There’s one important constraint though: the Kanzo Fast 2.0 is designed exclusively around 1x electronic drivetrains. This choice lets Ridley free up space for tyres, the chainring and the short stays. Technically, that makes sense. From the rider’s side, it shuts the door on mechanical builds and double chainring configurations.
Ridley claims compatibility with chainrings up to 56 teeth, which clearly targets fast races, rolling profiles and riders who want to keep high-speed gearing.
The Kanzo Fast 2.0 integrates storage in the down tube, with two padded pouches to organise tools, a CO2 cartridge or an inner tube. That’s increasingly logical on a gravel race bike: stay self-supported without multiplying bags, while keeping the bike aerodynamically clean.
Ridley also adds mounts on the top tube for a bolt-on bag. The in-house bag sits behind the stem. Again, the idea is to keep a neat profile, without bodges, for long races where nutrition and small accessories need to stay accessible.
The integrated Nimbus Pro cockpit measures 36 cm on the tops and 40 cm in the drops. That difference speaks for itself: a narrower, more aero position on fast sections, a wider grip when you need to control the bike on descents or in technical passages.
Another interesting point: compatibility with Curana mudguards custom-developed with Ridley.
The Kanzo Fast 2.0 will be offered in three complete builds, plus a frameset. The SRAM RED XPLR 1×13 version is listed at 11 699 €, with DT Swiss GRC1400 Dicut wheels and a 4ZA Nimbus Pro cockpit. No surprises, that’s the showcase build.
The two most interesting versions might be elsewhere. The SRAM Force XPLR 1×13 build is listed at 6 999 €, with Forza Skiron RS wheels and a 4ZA Nimbus Pro cockpit. The Skiron RS use a 50 mm deep hookless carbon rim, 27 mm internal width, VONOA carbon spokes and CeramicSpeed bearings, for a claimed weight of 1,350 g per pair.
The SRAM Rival XPLR 1×13 version drops to 5 499 €, with Forza Skiron CG40 wheels and a Forza Cirrus Pro cockpit. The frameset is listed at 4 499 € and includes the frame, the fork, a Deda aero seatpost, CeramicSpeed SLT headset bearings and the 4ZA Nimbus Pro cockpit.
Against bikes like the Giant Revolt Advanced SL, which already pushes tyre clearance to 53 mm on a very race-focused platform, Ridley arrives with an even more open proposal on the tyre side and relatively well positioned Force/Rival builds. The market is getting denser, but the Kanzo Fast 2.0 ticks a lot of boxes at once.
This Kanzo Fast 2.0 feels very current. It doesn’t try to reassure everyone with soft all-round capability. It targets racing, speed, wide tyres, minimal self-sufficiency and clean integration.
The real strength of the bike is its apparent balance. 58 mm of clearance, an aero frame, internal storage, useful mounts, modern electronic builds and Force/Rival price points that stay clear – on a spec sheet, few current gravel race bikes combine so many structural elements.
Ridley offers a very convincing reading of modern gravel racing. Not the simplest, not the most accessible, not the most versatile. Perhaps simply one of the most coherent for those who want to ride fast, for a long time, with the right tyre on the day.
| Riding style | Gravel race |
|---|---|
| Frame | Carbon |
| Electric assist | No |
| Gender | Unisex |
| Year | 2027 |
| Model | Ridley Kanzo Fast 2.0 Force, Ridley Kanzo Fast 2.0 Red, Ridley Kanzo Fast 2.0 Rival |
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