2000s Road Bikes Still Rip || Ridley Helium Restoration

[@robdogracing]

Awesome job bringing the bike some new life! I think these type of bikes are my fav for the everyday enthusiast. Rim brakes, threaded BBs, external cable routing, mechanical everything. So easy to service. Now I’m gonna keep an eye out for this frame as long as the seat post isn’t too short.

[@DoomOfConviction]

I came for the Ridley bike because I own a Ridley Kanzo myself and was intrigued by the 2000s road bikes because Ridley was quite young back then. And you surprised me much more than I could anticipate with a nostalgic flashback to my childhood. Thanks a lot for that, man!

[@logojones96]

wow beauty of a bike. Really keen to get a campy mechanical build going soon, that crankset is perfection!

[@lesliereissner4711]

I enjoyed this thoughtful video very much. Besides the attention to detail on the cleaning/restoration of the bike, the narrative of how early 2000s bikes represented something different struck a note with me. I own several bikes, ranging from 1975 to 2014, and while the early steel bikes are beautiful I sensed this change in technology 20 years ago, a push for innovation that is central here. Today I was riding a Colnago C40, which was in production from 1994 until 2004 (in itself pretty remarkable) and one had the sense that they wanted to go with that new wonder material carbon and went about it by essentially building a steel frame that was made of carbon--round tubes joined by lugs but just made from carbon rather than steel. It is a wonderful ride but I also have the first generation S-Works Tarmac from 2004, which is half carbon and half aluminum, as well as a Lemond from 2005 that is half carbon and half titanium. These experiments were not repeated although the bikes are great. People were trying everything. The Tour de France was being won on aluminum bikes, titanium was going to be the Next Big Thing, the Pinarello Dogma was made out of magnesium. It was all very exciting but still approachable. Now bikes are more complex, with electronic shifting, disc brakes, tubeless tires but are they more fun than that Ridley? And my newest bike is a custom steel Tommasini for which I was measured by the 80 year old whose name is on it. Campagnolo 11-speed and lightweight tubing but probably not much different from what people were racing in the 1970s. Maybe bikes are not always just bikes. Well done!

[@Jinedan]

Gorgeous ... right up until you put SRAM-branded tape on a Campy bike :)