Normally WorldTour tier bike launches involve something of a fanfare. Perhaps we get invited out to a team camp, or a standalone launch where the associated bicycle press can test out the new machine, usually with a couple of indentured professional riders there to say how it’s significantly better than anything they have ever ridden and that they cannot wait to ride it for the upcoming season.
Van Rysel, famed for its high-value bikes like the RCR Pro, seems to have launched a new aero bike with no fanfare at all, hiding it within a sub-page of its website titled ‘ready for 2025’, along with other such trivialities as a new colour for the helmet – incidentally a more visible colour likely in line with the reasons for the more visible helmets on the new Ineos kit – and a slightly rehashed jersey design. In cycling media terms this is a little like in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, whereby the plans for a new hyperspace bypass were “on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard’.”
There is very little information on the new machine, but this isn’t the first time we’ve seen it. It was first spotted on the opening stages of the Tour de France earlier this year, complete with a disruptive paint scheme so as to confuse the eye. In all honesty, our own photographs of what was previously dubbed the ‘FCR’ are more detailed than the few photographs from this website, so I encourage you to pore over those photos for the frameset details.
F for Fast: 13 watts faster
Besides a YouTube video absolutely awash with dynamism, action, and cinematography but devoid of any detail whatsoever, all we have to go on is that the F in ‘RCR-F’ stands for ‘Fast’. I’m sure we could have probably figured that out, unless the bike is somehow more French than the standard Van Rysel RCR and F stands for France.
According to the Van Rysel website the RCR-F has been developed in collaboration with Swiss Side, in keeping with the development of the RCR, and neatly matching the team’s ongoing wheel sponsorship. Beyond that, and that the bike is “designed to slice through the air with precision”, and that it “sets a new standard for aero bikes”, we know no more.
On the last point, our own independent wind tunnel testing concluded that the absolute aero differences between bikes at the highest level of our sport are really rather small, so while the brand may claim to set a new standard, we do expect it will be an improvement on the standard RCR, but likely in the ballpark of other aero bikes.
Having searched the Van Rysel website it is evident that the bike isn’t currently for sale. The model doesn’t exist yet for consumers, but given the UCI rules and Van Rysel’s strong commercial interest in selling the bike, we expect to see it on the shelves relatively soon after it hits the first races of the season. Expect to see it rolled out across the Spring Classics with heavy coverage, as the brand does love to proclaim its Flandrian heritage.
The pendulum swings yet further
While this probably isn’t the full, all singing all dancing launch of the RCR-F, it is another model in a growing industry trend back towards proper aero bikes. The latest, wild-looking Colnago Y1Rs is another example too, and now that brands have made their lightweight bikes more aero while keeping them at or around the UCI weight limit, it seems there is now an appetite for full-bore aero machines again.
Often when teams have the option of an aero and a lightweight bike we see the aero machine used as the default. The Canyon Aeroad, the Cervélo S5. If this is the trend it does beg the question of what will become of the all-rounders of the current era. Specialized has room to manoeuvre, and could relaunch the Venge if it wanted to commit to aero. Pinarello has always been a one-bike company with the Dogma, so don’t expect anything here. Trek though seems to have backed itself into a corner by making the Madone more of a svelte all-rounder; it’s not like the dearly departed Emonda could return as an aero bike.
