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TECH NEWS

Video Just In: Ritchey Break-Away Carbon frameset

A lightweight carbon road bike that you can split in two for easy travelling

The Ritchey Break-Away has arrived for review here at road.cc, a carbon-fibre road frameset that you can split in two for travelling. The frameset is priced at £2,699.90.

The frame splits at the top of the seat tube (the clamp doubles as the seatpost clamp) and at the bottom of the down tube, just in front of the bottom bracket, doing a similar job to S&S couplings but at a lighter weight.

Ritchey Breakaway Carbon - seat tube junction.jpg

The idea is that you can separate the frame in two and pack it into its own case (you use splittable connectors for the external cables). That case is small enough to carry as standard (as opposed to oversized) luggage when you fly.

Ritchey Breakaway Carbon - cable detail.jpg

Ritchey reckons that an experienced user can pack the bike down or reassemble it in about 20 minutes.

The frameset has a claimed weight of 1,810g. Our review Break-Away, built up with high-end kit including a Shimano Dura-Ace groupset and Ritchey’s own WCS Apex Carbon 38mm wheels, weighs just 7.15kg (15.8lb).

Ritchey Breakaway Carbon - rear.jpg

The Break-Away comes in quite an aggressive road bike geometry. We have the large sized model here with a 566mm effective top tube, a 170mm head tube and 73.5° frame angles. The stack (the vertical distance from the centre of the bottom bracket to the top of the head tube) is 580mm and the reach (the horizontal distance between those two points) is 394mm. 

Ritchey Breakaway Carbon - fork detail.jpg

As well as riding it, we’ll be taking the Break-Away apart and putting it back together to check out the packing process. We’ll let you know how we get on in our review.

https://ritcheylogic.com

Mat has been in cycling media since 1996, on titles including BikeRadar, Total Bike, Total Mountain Bike, What Mountain Bike and Mountain Biking UK, and he has been editor of 220 Triathlon and Cycling Plus. Mat has been road.cc technical editor for over a decade, testing bikes, fettling the latest kit, and trying out the most up-to-the-minute clothing. He has won his category in Ironman UK 70.3 and finished on the podium in both marathons he has run. Mat is a Cambridge graduate who did a post-grad in magazine journalism, and he is a winner of the Cycling Media Award for Specialist Online Writer. Now over 50, he's riding road and gravel bikes most days for fun and fitness rather than training for competitions.

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6 comments

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surly_by_name | 7 years ago
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Mat - what case are you using with this? I could do with a new case for my S&S equipped bike and there's not much choice so interested to know whether there are alternatives I am not aware of.

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Mat Brett replied to surly_by_name | 7 years ago
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surly_by_name wrote:

Mat - what case are you using with this? I could do with a new case for my S&S equipped bike and there's not much choice so interested to know whether there are alternatives I am not aware of.

 

It's this one, I think: https://ritcheylogic.com/break-away-travel-bag

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Nick T | 7 years ago
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How often do you have to fly before the cost of paying excess baggage becomes more than the cost of buying a specific travel bike like this

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pwake replied to Nick T | 7 years ago
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Nick T wrote:

How often do you have to fly before the cost of paying excess baggage becomes more than the cost of buying a specific travel bike like this

Quite often but not very often, is the answer to that. United Airlines now charge $400 round trip on international flights and $200 round trip on domestic.  A couple of domestic flights and one international a year and it would be 3-4 years payback for the frame. Having said that, If I bought one of these it wouldn't be travel-specific, I'd use it as a regular bike too.

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700c | 7 years ago
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Quite innovative - packing into standard luggage is a big selling point and a USP at this end of the market. Not exactly a Brompton is it?!

I like the brand, not quite sure why, but always quite fancied one of their Road Logic frames

 

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Christopher TR1 | 7 years ago
1 like

Want.

You still have to hand it over to the mercy of baggage handlers though. RO-RO aircraft is what we really need.

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