Decathlon (OK, Van Rysel) Gets Into the Tri Bike Market

Triathlon Forum
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Originally published at: Decathlon (OK, Van Rysel) Gets Into the Tri Bike Market - Slowtwitch News

Most North American triathletes aren’t familiar with Decathlon, but the French company is huge over in Europe. The stores offer Decathlon house branded sports equipment and cover pretty much any sport you can imagine. In 2019 Decathlon started their own brand of bikes – Van Rysel – and at the end of last year officially launched the company’s first triathlon bike – the XCR. It was a follow up to the XCR UCI-legal time trial bike launched earlier in the year.

That bike, along with the new XCR tri bike, was designed in collaboration with Swiss Side. I’ve spent some time in the wind tunnel with Swiss Side’s founder, Jean-Paul Ballard, and have seen his expertise (honed from his years with F1’s Sauber team) in action – the guy knows his stuff. So, it comes as no surprise that Van Rysel’s first foray into the tri bike world would be a success.

The Basics

There’s an interesting dynamic to be dealt with for a brand like Van Rysel when it comes to any high-end bike design. You don’t go to Decathlon for the most expensive sports equipment – customers are in the hunt for quality gear at a decent price. Then there are the demands of a World Tour team like Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale, which require performance in order to keep their riders competitive with the world’s best. I’ll get into pricing in a bit, but I will say that the XCR has managed to fit into that competitive pricing range that we’re seeing so many other brands gravitate towards (US$6,000 – $9,000) that offers excellent performance and comfort. Yes, that’s still a lot of money, but in a world where you can fork out two to three times that amount on a top-end bike, well, you get what I’m saying.

The XCR Tri frame features a high-modulus carbon fibre frame that weighs in at 1,490 g for the frame (medium) and 490 g for the fork. Yes, there are lighter frames you can find out there, but a built up bike will certainly come in at a competitive weight to others that will ding your wallet a lot more.

When it comes to tri bikes these days, we all know adjustability is key, and Van Rysel’s engineers have done a good job on that front. The proprietary Van Rysel cockpit offers lots of fitting options, with a “mast” that offers up to 95 mm of spacers to adjust the height, and 30 degrees worth of play for the extensions – up to 40 degrees in total. (The UCI version comes with Deda extensions.)

In terms of hydration and fuel storage, the XCR features integrated bottle cage mounts – one between the arms on the aero bars, the other behind the saddle. There’s a sizeable Bento Box on the top tube that’ll easily hold a bunch of bars and gels, along with a small “trash box” up at the front end of the Bento Box to make it easy to stash wrappers and not worry about littering.

There’s also an excellent internal toolbox that comes with a tube, CO2 inflator and cartridge, valve extender, tire irons and a 6 mm Allen key.

Models

The XCR will come in two versions:

XCR TRI ULTEGRA Di2

  • High-modulus carbon fibre frame
  • VAN RYSEL XCR base bar with VAN RYSEL Adjustable cockpit
  • SwissSide Hadron Ultimate 625/625 wheels
  • Michelin Power Cup tyres
  • Accessories: Bento box, trash box, Aeris bottle carrier, front bottle cage support BTA, toolbox equipped with repair kit (inner tube, CO2 inflator + cartridge, valve extender, tire lever)
  • Inpeak power metre (left side)
  • Weight size M: 8.9 kg (19.62 lbs) (without accessories)
  • Price: 7,700€

XCR TRI RIVAL AXS

  • High-modulus carbon fibre frame
  • VAN RYSEL XCR base bar with VAN RYSEL Adjustable cockpit
  • Fulcrum Wind 550/750 wheels
  • Michelin Power Cup tyres
  • Accessories: Bento box, trash box, Aeris bottle carrier, front bottle cage support BTA
  • SRAM Rival Powermeter (left side)
  • Weight size M: 9.65 kg (21.27 lbs) (without accessories)
  • Price: 6,200€ 

The Ride

Photo: Luke O’Shea / @theother12hours 

I got to put the XCR through its paces in Kona and was pleasantly surprised at how the bike performed. I would love to put the bike through a longer-term review at some point, but my initial thoughts were pretty simple – right out of the gate Van Rysel has come up with a more-than-competitive bike.

Photo: Luke O’Shea / @theother12hours 

The frame is stiff enough to ensure that all the energy you are putting into the pedals is going to drive you forward. I am still in the Neanderthal ages of bike fit, always trying to get as low as I can, so I was thrilled to be able to slam things fairly low at the front end. More sensible triathletes will use the available spacers to put themselves into a much more sane position.

The bike certainly felt very stable – even in the middle of the day, with some decent crosswinds, I never felt a need to get off the aero bars. I’ve long been a fan of the Swiss Side wheels, and the choice of the Hadron Ultimate 625 for this version of the bike is, in my mind, a good one. Sure, you could go deeper, but these are plenty fast and certainly make life easier on a windy day on the Queen K. Cornering and handling was surprisingly decent, too – no-doubt the geometry and stiffness had to meet the AG2R demands for a responsive ride.

I’d love to spend more time on the XCR to put it through its paces on some long climbs and descents, but from that initial ride I am pretty confident that Van Rysel has got that covered. It felt good to get out of the saddle and try to pound things for a few pedal strokes – the bottom bracket is more than stiff enough to ensure lots of lateral stiffness on that front.

Photo: Luke O’Shea / @theother12hours 

Like pretty much every other triathlon journalist who was in Kona, I rode the Van Rysel XCR and the Factor Slick within a few days, and was impressed with both offerings. You can read Dan Empfield’s excellent look at the Slick below:

Factor’s Updated Slick

The bottom line is that there are a lot of great bikes out there right now, which means triathletes have a lot of choice when it comes to finding the best ride to suit their needs and budget. Those over in Europe can already get their hands on one of the Van Rysel XCR bikes, the rest of the world should have access to the bike soon. For those in the hunt for a new ride in 2025, the XCR would be well worth a look.

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This was discussed in length on the Van Rysel XCR thread some months back. Decathlon is a discount chain with mostly white-label brands, which for the price is good quality (mostly) and accessible to that low-cost market.
A TT bike with its limitations for a triathlete (UCI geometry, no internal storage etc) at almost 8K is going to be a challenge for a new brand / bike. They are way past mid-market brands like Argon 18, QR, heck even a good/midrange Canyon Speedmax is cheaper than that.
I have been to several bigger Decathlons around Barcelona the last couple of months, and the bike-people there does not even know of its existence…

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Does this look like the new venture tempus? Or just me

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A fair comparison would be against the Canyon Speedmax CF SLX, that is more expensive than the Van Rysel XCR, with similar equipment

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I think what @Mulen is trying to say is that Decathlon is known for it’s lower end stuff (still reasonable quality but cheaper), so if you’re going to spend $8k on a new tri bike, your first choice option is probably not going to be to go shopping at decathlon.

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Correct - thanks for the clarification :slight_smile:

I would have expected a Decathlon Tri bike to be entry level and maybe 3000-4000 EUR tops.

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The van rysel brand is rapidly gaining prestige, with the sponsorship of the ag2r la mondiale team. Before entering the pro tour, canyon was also seen as the cheap German bicycle sold online

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Again, you’re missing the point. We’re not saying it’s a bad brand or that the bike is crap.

Decathlon markets themselves as an affordable sports brand. $8k is not affordable to most people, especially those that would chose to shop at a Decathlon as first preference.

The point we’re raising is why go in with an $8k bike when they could potentially undercut the market with a semi-decent tri bike for half (if not even less) the price.

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I have zero insight into this. But my opinion is that they are looking to gauge interest with their aspirational level bike before coming in with their potentially disruptive price point offering.

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If that’s the case it’s an interesting choice. It’s a big investment for a big unknown. Not sure I know many people in the triathlon scene who would choose to spend their $8k in that way.

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I mean, they already had thrown a bunch of dev money for the World Tour needs – this just feels like trying to recoup some of that cost while also seeing if there’s real retail interest.

And never underestimate a triathlete’s desire to be different…we tend to be the first to adopt something outside of the box.

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Either that or pull out of this market

On your point on recouping investment, it would be a better strategy to sell A LOT of these bikes (they have their own shops to create a lot of demand) at a lower price, than a few bikes with a high margin.

Again, in Spain, which is their 2nd biggest marked, nobody, not even in their own shops, has heard about this bike - and I don´t know anybody in the tri-world who would put down 8K for a Decathlon product.

For an American, try considering if Walmart put out a bike at 8K as an analog. Would that fly ?

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Couple notes:

1.) It looks like right now pre-sale is only open in 7 markets. FIND YOUR XCR TRI by VAN RYSEL - VAN RYSEL

Spain is one of them, but it also does not shock me that none of their retail stores have really heard of it (yet). This feels like it’s going to be more heavily D2C focused – whether that’s right or wrong.

2.) Would I buy a WalMart bike? No. But if this were put out by Costco? I mean…Kirkland Signature stuff almost always blows out. And it’s not always the sole price leader – it’s just the best perceived value for the dollar spent.

Although I, personally, agree that I would prefer them to offer a $4,000 USD option out of the gate…it’s also understandable for this to be the strategy (for now). I think we need to give this a little more time…and actually see what happens when product is actually available in people’s hands.

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You would @rrheisler and so would good old Michael Porter :slight_smile:

It´s just a bit off for a cost leader, putting out a product that is clearly (price-wise) trying to be differentiating (while, IMO, the bike looks on-par or worse than any other tri-bike out there currently)

Companies that has done such succesfully exists, one would be Tesla, but here you would see a product that is clearly out-competing (or at least was until many of the competitors are catching up) on product features, still at a lower price.

Will be interesting to follow for sure!