Can the Van Rysel RCR Pro become one of the most successful bikes on cycling's WorldTour? The story behind 2024's most talked about road bike

The Van Rysel RCR Pro is what you get when the largest sporting goods retailer in the world says: “We want to go racing with the big boys!” So, who are Van Rysel? Where have they come from and is their new road race bike, the RCR Pro, the real deal? 

If you’re a Decathlon AG2R rider like Sam Bennett or Ben O’Connor, then this is the new race bike that you got for Christmas: a Van Rysel RCR Pro frameset with Shimano Dura-Ace groupset, integrated Deda cockpit and Swiss Side wheels.

Three years ago this bike was merely a concept in someone's head, so how the hell do you go from that to a WorldTour race-winning bike in such a short space of time?

Well, the story starts on the world's most famous cobbled roads, which I’m told is where the Van Rysel staff like to spend their lunch breaks. 

In fact, the RCR was developed just 13 kilometres away from the Roubaix velodrome; although, if you speak Flemish then that probably isn’t much of a surprise. Van Rysel = 'From Lille', if you didn't know!

Despite being made in what must be record-breaking time, this was no Friday afternoon rush job. The RCR Pro frame weighs just 790g, the complete bike weighs just 6.9kg, it’s been shown to be one of the most aero out there and it certainly feels ready to race. 

It also costs £9,000, so while far from cheap and cheerful, it's actually a fair bit less than just about anything else in the peloton. Today, though, we're not focusing on price, because I want to know if this truly is the most exciting performance road bike in the world right now.

To find out, we took a trip to the B’Twin village, home to not only Van Rysel but just about every piece of sports equipment you can possibly imagine! There are testing labs, there’s 3D prototyping, there’s CFD simulating... you name it, it’s probably happening here.

Heading up the Van Rysel toy chest is Yann, who we managed to pull from his latest projects to find out a bit more about the most talked about race bike of 2024.

How to develop a WorldTour race-winning bike from scratch

Yann Le Fraillec is the Chief Product Officer at Van Rysel, and among his colleagues is considered the father of the RCR project.

So, what is the purpose of the RCR, and what are its priorities?  

"The purpose of the RCR Pro is to win races", said Yann. 

"It's very simple. The RCR is the perfect balance between aero, stiffness and weight. This is why it can win races but also it can be very enjoyable for cyclists during weekend rides."

Why did Van Rysel decide to go down a 'one-bike-to-do-it-all' approach? 

Yann says: "For us, an aero light bike, which is what we call it, is the most efficient [approach] for most roads that the pro team rides. They are riding faster and faster even [on] climbing stages, so aero is more and more important."

On the fast turnaround time, Yann adds: "What is crazy with this bike is it's one of the fastest bikes we've developed with Van Rysel.

"Usually, we take between two and three years to develop a bike, and with the big pressure of being on time for the pro team, we developed this bike in less than two years. So, it was really fast."

Yann went on to explain that this was made possible by completing much of the work under one roof, and that by partnering with companies that are experts in their relative fields such as Onera and Swiss Side, the development time could be reduced.

"Everything is done in-house here", says Yann.

"We are doing everything from scratch. Engineering, design, lay-up. So just aerodynamics is outsourced because we don't have our own wind tunnel." 

Yann likened Onera to the "French NASA":

"I proposed to them a partnership to develop the RCR bike because they are really skilled in terms of aerodynamics, and they were very enthusiastic about this project so they helped us a lot.

"We are always looking for the best partners to develop the best bike possible."

So, are the pros using the same frame as the one we can buy? 

"It's exactly the same. 100% the same except the paint", says Yann. 

"The paint is very important when you buy your bike. Sometimes it's not understood by customers why we decide to have a raw frame on the RCR, because when you purchase the white one, you sometimes have almost a 100g gap. So, for the Pro, the design was to be the lightest possible. So, this is the main difference, just the paint, but the same fibre." 

Were there nerves when it came to handing over the bikes to AG2R riders for their first road test? 

"Of course", says Yann.  

"You are so nervous because you know it's a lot of pressure. You need to get the approval of the riders. But to be totally transparent, I ride many bikes and I rode the RCR so I was quite confident because I'm not a rookie, and was able to say, okay, we have something special. The reaction was the one expected but of course, until it's done, you are under pressure. 

"When the pros say it's a super good bike, you say ok, done." 

When we asked if there were particularly memorable moments when creating the bike, Yann adds: "Yes, of course. When you design a carbon bike you make the mould and after you are working on the layup. The carbon layup is the recipe of the bike. It will drive the feeling [and] the way you feel the bike. We received the first lay-up and we were not happy about it, to be honest. 

"The bike was good, you [could] feel the aerodynamics, but something was really not at the point we expected it to be. So, luckily, in-house we have someone very skilled in carbon fibre lay-up, so he went to Vietnam [where the frame is made].

He went to the factory, he worked for one full week in the factory and he shipped the frame back here."

Yann explained that it didn't take a long ride on the revised layup to realise that this was the one: "We've got it, we can smile."

Who are Van Rysel, the new kids on the block?

The following answers are from Maxime Delabre, Chief Marketing Officer at Van Rysel.

road.cc: Can you tell us some more about the brand?

MD: "We here in the Van Rysel HQ, located in Lille, the capital of the French Flanders. Flanders means a lot for us and for all cycling enthusiasts so we really wanted to be based here. 

"Doing our research and development here, our design here, our assembly here, our product testing here. It makes total sense for us to emphasise this very special flavour. 

"It's the reason why we decided to give a Flemish name to the brand. Van means 'who comes from" in Flemish and Rysel is Lille, where we are today.

"Since Van Rysel was created in 2019, we test our products on the cobblestones of the famous races [that] everyone knows in the region." 

road.cc: What is Van Rysel's aim?

MD: "We have been very good at addressing all cyclists, but we've been best known for the beginners. Then when [riders] really get into cycling, people tend to move to different brands, so we wanted to show that we are good as well for this level of cycling. 

"This is the reason we wanted to create a company within the company dedicated to high performance. What we are doing here is addressing those very demanding athletes with high-performance products, entirely dedicated to high performance."

road.cc: What makes the RCR good for the World Tour? What is it that sets it apart from the competition?

MD: "The reason we made this partnership is first to prove that our product is super performing. We developed it in the wind tunnel, we can compare it to what's happening on the market, we know that we have a super weapon here but yet, we need to prove it to the world. 

"The partnership is also the perfect tool that we want to use to develop the next stage [of bikes] as well, the next version of our products. As we speak, some of the riders are experiencing the next generation. It's just like Formula One, you need to be on top of the innovation if you want to keep on performing.

"We are entirely driven by data, this is what drives us on a day-to-day basis." 

Ride impressions

A tour of Van Rysel's facilities, including a 3D printer bigger than a hotel room, multiple materials labs where just about every piece of sports equipment is reverse-engineered and testing rigs that didn't stop running in the two-day visit make it clear that a huge amount of resources and brain power have gone into the development of the RCR. What's it like to ride though, I hear you ask?

As you've probably noticed, this is a sponsored article on behalf of Van Rysel and we wouldn't normally include things like ride impressions for fear of being biased. However, in this case we feel that you, the reader, will want to know... 

We had the chance to take the RCR Pro, an exact replica of the Decathlon AG2R team bike, out for a spin. There was no cherry-picking of perfectly smooth roads here, instead Van Rysel suggested a loop including cobbled sectors to show what the bike could really do.

Usually, when I go on press trips I'm enamoured by the views, the location and sometimes the bike. I do, however, usually always wish I was on my own. Very little can compete with a bike that I've spent years customising and selecting components for. That wasn't the case here though.

Riding the RCR does not make you feel at all like Van Rysel is the new kid on the block, or that there have been any compromises. It’s composed, it’s fast, and it’s right up there with the very best in the WorldTour peloton in my opinion. 

It kind of reminds you that Van Rysel isn’t really new. Yes, the name has only existed since 2019, but really, this bike is the product of decades of experience building carbon bikes. It’s been designed and crafted by literal geniuses who work on rockets day to day, and every single decision is backed up by a bucket load of data.

On the Van Rysel website, it says: “If you want a bike designed to win races, look no further than the RCR."

Well, the RCR has been winning races, and rather big ones at that! Speaking to the staff at Van Rysel though, this isn't surprising. They’ve known for a while now just how good this bike is, it’s just that the rest of us need to catch up. 

vanryselcycling.com