This new mountain bike from Decathlon is aimed squarely at the sub £1,000 hardtail market, taking on the big boys in the ‘who’s spec is the best’ game. The new Rockrider AM100 gets all branded kit, a Rockshox fork and pulls a trump card by speccing a dropper post too.
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We are one of the first publications to get hold of the new Rockrider AM100 and we were pretty excited to get it out of the box and see exactly what was going on with this newcomer to the sub 1k hardtail market. Before we start though, if you think we are missing a vital part of this bikes name, you’d be wrong. With the introduction of these new pricier bikes from Decathlon, they are dropping the B’Twin name and using the name Rockrider instead. The model will be denoted by a mix of numbers and letters, this one being the AM100, other models begin with ‘ST’ for shorter travel bikes and ‘XC’ for, well the cross country bikes. The B’Twin name will still be in play for some of the more budget bikes, as well as the kid’s ones, like this B’Twin Rockrider 700 24″.
Our test bike is, as we said, the Rockrider AM100HT, it’s a 130mm trail hardtail with 27.5″ wheels and costs £949.99. Starting with the frame, the bike is modern looking, there’s nothing to dislike here, the rear chainstay is rather oddly dropped though on the drive side to make room for the fat tyres but once you are used to looking at it, it’s not that unsightly. Elsewhere there is partially internal cable routing for a stealth dropper post and neat cable mounts for the rest of the cables under the downtube, helping give the bike its clean lines.
Specwise the AM100 gets a Rockshox Sector fork (130mm), a 1 x 11 SRAM NX drivetrain with a 30t chainring and B’Twin branded Tektro 2 piston brakes.
The wheels are Sunringle Duroc 40’s with a large 36mm inner width, meaning the 2.6″ Michelin Wild AM tyres make a nice profile, it’ll be interesting to see just what other tyre combinations fit into the frame and onto these rims, that are verging on plus sized. The wheels will come fitted with tubes but they are tubeless ready for your own conversion later down the line. Decathlon says you can swap out these wheels for 29er ones too.
Lastly, there is an unbranded 120mm, cable actuated dropper post with a lever that sits on top of the bars. Completing the cockpit is a nice short 35mm stem, 760mm wide bars and lock on grips.
All bikes in the range, (Small to XL) get a 66 degree headangle, our test bike is a size large, giving it a reach of 448mm and 430mm chainstays, for all the other geometry stats, we will have to wait for our Jon to measure them whilst he is reviewing it.
If you are wondering how this bike compares to others price and spec wise, it’s looking good but it’s also a bit of swings and roundabouts. We’ve got a Nukeproof Scout on test, that’s also under a grand, it gets a better fork but no dropper post. We also recently tested a Vitus Sentier VR29, that’s also £999 and has no dropper post but it gets a better fork and Shimano brakes. If you want a good rundown of all the sub 1k bikes we’ve tested this year then click this link.
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