# Ridley Paris - Roubaix special



## toonraid (Sep 19, 2006)

Ridley have made a special bike for the Paris Roubaix called the X-Fire Roubaix which is a modified version of their X-Fire cross bike - sounds like an interesting concept, here is the details according to the lotto team site;

http://www.davitamon-lotto.com/


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## backinthesaddle (Nov 22, 2006)

toonraid said:


> Ridley have made a special bike for the Paris Roubaix called the X-Fire Roubaix which is a modified version of their X-Fire cross bike - sounds like an interesting concept, here is the details according to the lotto team site;
> 
> http://www.davitamon-lotto.com/


It's a cross frame mated to a road fork. Nothing really new, custom or special about it. Teams have ridden cross frames for years @ PR. 
They do it for mud clearance at the rear of the bike and the fact that cross geometries are more relaxed and have longer chainstays. I question the use of a cross frame because of the higher BB. It might be a bit worse for stability over the cobbles. The fork will help to quicken the heandling by effectively steepening a shallow HT angle. The ride may be a bit wonky.
CSC is using modified Cervelo frames with lowered rea dropouts to LOWER the BB for stability over the rough sections.


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## toonraid (Sep 19, 2006)

X-Fire has a lower BB than norm, besides the trend over here in europe has seem cross bikes moving closer to race due to faster cross courses - apparently the geometry is supposed to be different to the standard X-fire.


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