Van Reasonable; Has Decathlon pulled off a coup d'etat with their budget TDF bike?

The Van Rysel RCR Pro sells for £8500, and will race in the Pro-Tour next year with AG2R Citroen.

Unless you’ve been under a rock, you can’t help but notice that Decathlon have recently launched a pretty serious attack on the Pro-Tour peloton and the bike they're doing it with is nearly half the price of some of the bikes it's lining up against.  The Van Rysel RCR Pro — the same as the bike that AG2R will race this coming season — is available at Decathlon for £8500.

But what's that got to do with Spoon Customs, and what's a Decathlon bike doing on our website? Well, I’m genuinely impressed by their latest efforts. 

It’s a top-spec off-the-peg bike to lust after that’s priced sensibly for what it is.

Ribble have been at it for years and you could argue Canyon started it before their prices crept up, but the difference here is that it’s unashamedly going in hard, head-to-head with all the mainstream stuff, on the world’s biggest cycling stage. It’s reminiscent of those campaigns where Aldi fizzy wine comes out ahead of Champagne in the taste tests. They know it’s going to test well, they know they’re on safe ground. It’s the confidence with Decathlon is doing it here that’s brilliant.

We sell Enve’s Melee out of a box (Bike Radar’s Performance bike of the Year for 2023) and that can hardly be considered a cheap bike, but it’s low-volume production in a joint venture with one of the very best vendors in South East Asia and as a result that product is marked with extremely high levels of finish, consistent standards we can rely on and a multitude of options on stem length, bar width, and seat post set back for near perfect custom fit. For me, it’s a higher quality product. Behind the reviews and hyperbole, it’s Enve’s take on what can be done with an out of the box bike and it’s genuinely a high water mark for fit and customisation in mass production of performance bikes. They’re delivering something that works better for more customers, and there’s added value in that.

Our Spoon custom made bikes aren’t cheap either. They’re some of the most expensive available but, in comparison to big brand mass produced stuff, a lot more work goes in, and inspite of the difficult economics of delivering bikes one at a time they are just a cassette or two more expensive than the big brand gear so I’m genuinely really excited to see Decathlon bringing a proper high-performance road bike to challenge the big brand price point and perhaps fill the largely unnecessary void for consumers in the mid-market.

But where does that leave the big brand mass produced stuff if Decathlon can knock this out, and compete?

Price inflation for the truly mass produced gear has been continuing at pace for years, ramping up significantly recently despite advances in process and efficiencies in the manufacturing technology. Carbon frames are simply put easier to make than they once were and there’s plenty of vendors to choose from so intuitively, mass-produced frames should be cheaper.

Of course, we hear about labour rates and employment reforms driving up costs in China and Taiwan all the time, but those vendors have shipped-out to Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam and there’s still pliable enough employment practices there to keep the cut-cost carbon stuff coming.

The overall technology offered in components (and the bike as a system) has got more complicated of course, and that’s undoubtedly having an effect on price inflation. But in that sense, there’s a level playing field there as everyone uses the same third-party supplied drivetrain components. Whether we need it or not is a different argument, for another day.

Then there’s the actual tech in the frame itself. We’ve been using this material for more than twenty years. There’s significant work still to be done to make it better for the planet, but in terms of how fast it makes our bikes go much of the pioneering work is done, and most of the skills are now outsourced to Asia. Bike companies aren’t supporting huge in-house engineering teams (perhaps never were) and they’re certainly not getting bigger these days. The expertise and innovation is Asian led, off-shored, delivered, then wrapped and packaged by western marketing teams.

At the same time in the same period we’ve made some big steps forward in understanding what fast, comfortable, stiff, slippery shapes look like too, but despite a near consensus on both aero characteristics and the ride quality required (and the materials and layups needed to deliver it) top end bikes haven’t got cheaper.

In fact – as we all know – the opposite is true, so it stands to reason that it’s actually our tolerance for increased cost which is driving up the ticket price for branded gear.

Some are cynical that cheaper than can’t be as good. Fair enough, that’s often true. But to write off Decathlon’s effort here and assume it must be doomed to failure is to ignore some fundamental truths about how mass produced bikes are designed and made these days. 

Will a supermarket own-brand bike cut it in the Tour De France? I’d be more surprised if it won’t.

Here at Spoon Customs we make bikes the hard way, one at a time, custom made to your exact specifications, designed around a position and use case that works best for your unique body and the riding you want to do.

Our custom frames start at £3150 + delivery & local taxes, up to £5200 for our top-spec carbon frames. They’re made to measure, with custom handling geometry, the clearance you need and the parts specification that works for you, delivered with a unique, award-winning-quality finish.

For the latest review of our Spoon Customs Izoard RR visit Cyclist Mag and read why James Spender describes our bikes as ‘Brilliant’.

Get in touch now if you’d like a custom bike in time for the new riding season at info@spooncustoms.com