One of the hottest bikes of 2024 looks to have a sibling joining its ranks after Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale riders were spotted on a new aero bike from French brand Van Rysel.
In November last year, AG2R La Mondiale announced that French sporting retailer Decathlon would be joining as a co-title sponsor. With this announcement came the news that Decathlon’s premium cycling brand Van Rysel would be providing the team with its RCR Pro road bike.
When it was debuted the RCR Pro was presented as an all-round, do-it-all race bike, blending aerodynamic optimisation with low weight. Upon its release, the bike gained a mass of attention with the publicly available replica initially selling out in the first few hours.
On top of the stunning marble effect paint is the FCR branding that Van Rysel already use for its premium aero road helmet (Image credit: Josh Croxton)
With this new aero bike, Van Rysel look to be bucking the trend of other manufacturers and instead of streamlining its product range it looks to be diversifying it instead.
It was only last week that Trek announced a new Gen 8 Madone that combined elements of both the Madone and Emonda, ultimately killing off the latter.
Although we can only speculate at this time, the new bike that looks set to be called the FCR - alluded to by a top tube decal. It is clearly set to be a fully aero-optimised machine. A quick look over the bike's silhouette reveals all the hallmarks of a dedicated aero bike. The deep junction between the headtube, top tube, and down tube looks to make the most of the UCI’s relaxation on aero profiles.
The junction between the head tube, top tube and down tube is considerably deeper in profile than that found on the RCR Pro (Image credit: Josh Croxton)
At the start of 2023, the UCI revised the regulations governing the permissible aero profiles for bike design. As a result, we have seen bikes becoming more aero, in particular behind the head tube where the top tube and down tube intersect. Van Rysel is not the first brand to steer into this design rationale, with the new Pinarello Dogma F and the unreleased Canyon Aeroad also making use of this design.
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Lower down at the front of the bike the fork is considerably deeper than the fork found on the RCR. The move to aerodynamically optimise the front of the bike is wise, given these are the leading edges, and it's where we see most manufacturers focus their efforts nowadays.
The fork of the FCR is deeper than that found on the RCR Pro and integrates in to the down tube to aid aerodynamic efficiency (Image credit: Josh Croxton)
Much like with the RCR Pro, Deda looks to have been called upon for the integrated cockpit with the one-piece unit seamlessly integrating with the frameset with the use of aero headset spacers.
Deda look to have been called upon to create a new integrated cockpit for the new FCR that also features new aero stem spacers (Image credit: Josh Croxton)
The one piece bar and stem has a very deep profile extending further back behind the compression bolt than normal. Sitting underneath the stem are some equally aero spacers to allow the riders to dial in their perfect position. (Image credit: Josh Croxton)
The FCR name is not new for Van Rysel with the brand already using the name for its premium aero road helmet, making it logical for the brand to carry it over to an all-out aero bike.
Sitting inside the wide stance fork that looks capable of housing some very wide rubber is the latest tyre from DT Swiss, Continental and Swiss Side the Aero 111 aero tyre. This front-only tyre has a specially developed vortex-generating tread pattern that is said to increase the sailing effect across the rim of the wheel.
The new tyre has 48 vortex-generating cutouts on the surface of the tyre aiming to optimise airflow over the tyre and rim (Image credit: Josh Croxton)
The rear of the bike also highlights the bike's aero intentions with the seat stays sporting a deep section aero profile. Much like on the RCR Pro, the seat stays have a wide stance with a short horizontal section joining them to the seat tube.
This allows the bladed stays to be orientated closer to being parallel with the direction of airflow which will once again increase the bike's efficiency through the air.
The bladed seat stays have a wide stance both to help with aerodynamics around the rear wheel (Image credit: Josh Croxton)
We have seen designs like this used on track bikes in recent years to give better total system aerodynamics when the rotating rear wheel and the rider are factored into the equation.
Beyond what can be made out from the photos we will have to wait for Van Rysel to release details on the new bike for any specific data around the benefits of the new bike over the RCR Pro.
