With the cycle industry still not fully back on its wheels, it's good to be reminded that the most expensive isn’t always the best. In 2024, Van Rysel with the new RCR Pro and Campagnolo with its more affordable Super Record Wireless S are cases in point.
It was also great to discover, thanks to the PFAS-free Santini Magic Jacket, that clothing can perform exceptionally well without needing chemicals that poison rivers and hang around in landfill for a thousand years. And literally on a brighter note, feeling like a cycling Fred Astaire in Fizik’s hot pink Vento Proxy shoes led to some moments with their own kind of magic. One more thing that got my heart racing – or at least registering – was Wahoo's new rechargeable Trackr Heart Rate strap. So, here are some of the things in the product class of '24 that, for me at least, graduate with first-class honours.
Van Rysel RCR Pro
I can honestly say that in all my years of reviewing bikes, I never got as much attention from fellow cyclists as I did when I was riding the Van Rysel RCR Pro. This is of course the race bike from French sports megastore Decathlon developed for the AG2R La Mondiale team. When it launched it was heralded as ‘the WorldTour’s most affordable bike’ and with a price of £9,000 in the Shimano Dura-Ace pro team spec, it sold out instantly.
The compelling backstory helped: how Decathlon worked with Onera, the French aerospace lab, whose wind tunnel is just across the street from its Lille HQ. How as soon as AG2R started competing on it they were winning again. And how it was a full £5,500 cheaper than the Specialized Tarmac SL8 that Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe were riding.
But is it actually any good? That’s what everyone wanted to know. And the answer was a massive, resounding ‘oui!’ The RCR Pro immediately felt like ‘my’ bike. Not only did it fit me perfectly, but it immediately felt smooth, lightweight, stiff, responsive and damped all at the same time, and it hummed over the tarmac with that special frequency that emanates from high-quality carbon. In my final ride on the RCR Pro around what has always been my test loop, I did an all-time course PR almost accidentally – I was only planning a block of 20 minutes but was already averaging over 22mph by the time I started it. The hype was well deserved.
Price £9,000
Buy through Decathlon's website
Kask Protone Icon
In July I went to Italy with helmet brand Kask to ride the Maratona dles Dolomites. This is arguably the most epic gran fondo on the calendar and the scenery has to be the most spectacular. Cycling filmmaker and Kask ambassador Safa Brian was there with us – after the Maratona he was shooting a movie – and when I interviewed him at Rouleur Live later in the year, this is how he described arriving in Corvara: “It’s a pretty long trip from LA – it’s a few flights, you’re in a van, then a car, it’s like a long tunnel of travel then suddenly you pop up in Corvara and it’s like you woke up in a fairytale.”
And indeed everything has a magical quality about it. It’s hard to stop craning your neck to stare up at the towering pinnacles of rock all around. Colours sparkle, the ambient light seems cleaner and even the air feels purer. It’s like a Clarendon filter for all the senses.
By chance I chose the Kask Protone Icon in the Matt Forest Green colour and it was exactly right. The theme of the 2024 Maratona was ‘Mutatio’ – change. “We are living through some major transitions in the world around us, the main of which is connected to climate change,” wrote the governor of South Tyrol as he asked participating athletes to adapt to the challenges of the future as well as the more immediate cycling one.
The Matt Forest Green Protone Icon reminds me of that magic of the Dolomites and those challenges on and off the bike and I’ve been wearing it ever since.
Price £245
Buy through Kask's website
Wahoo Trackr Heart Rate
The launch of a new heart rate monitor chest strap might not normally be considered huge news, but when Wahoo launched this one in June it was different – for me, at least. Why? Because the new Wahoo Trackr Heart Rate has a rechargeable battery in a completely sealed pod. After years of heartbreak – flatlining, dropouts, battery drains, no signal at all etc – was it finally time to say good riddance to all the “pain points” associated with the coin cell type? I’ve bought two Wahoo Tickr chest straps and more from other brands before that and eventually binned every single one of them. Some have lasted longer than others – a Garmin strap gave long and reliable service until the battery died, I fiddled with microscopic screws to change it and it was never the same again after that.
But Wahoo has solved it. And it’s not just the battery that’s been swapped – the internals of the Trackr Heart Rate are all different with the aim of increasing accuracy. The chest strap is also softer, lighter and more flexible than before and now doesn’t snap together at the front – a new side closure helps maximise electrode-to-skin surface area and ensures a connection without the user needing to crank up the tightness, as I used to do when Zwift couldn’t detect any sign of life.
Battery life is a claimed 100 hours and I have to admit I lost track of how many hours it had done before I plugged it in, but suffice to say you don’t have to charge it often.
It’s priced at £79.99, which is twice the price of the old Tickr (£39.99) but it’s much more than twice as good.
Price £79.99
Buy through Wahoo's website
Velocio Concept jersey and shorts
Summer feels like a very long time ago now, but the Velocio Concept Radiator by the SRAM-owned brand has been my go-to jersey for the last two of them. It uses a very lightweight, 3D Polartec Delta mesh on the front of the torso and sleeves which is intended to wick moisture more effectively since the texture increases surface area (like a radiator’s fins).
It’s soft, very stretchy and has an almost cotton-like feel against the skin, which means it doesn’t get clammy – and the air rushes straight through in any case. The rear pockets (which include one zipped compartment) are lined and are quite heavily reinforced to avoid the dreaded sag – Velocio calls them ‘stability pockets’. They’re perfectly placed and sized – nice and high but not so high that your phone can’t be easily accessed for an on-the-fly snap. And the sleeve length is well judged - long but not too long – and they stay in place via their stretch with no need for sticky silicone grippers.
The Concept shorts are just as innovative and are, according to Velocio, “aimed at the highest levels of performance and reimagining the current standard for bib shorts.” What’s conceptual about them is mostly the way the chamois is integrated. Whereas most bib shorts have the pad simply sewn in with flatlock stitching, Velocio’s chamois is invisible, sandwiched between two layers of fabric so that there are no seams around it. Velocio says it also allows a more fluid pedalling motion.
Not only is the chamois visually invisible, but when riding, you simply didn’t notice it, which is probably the highest praise for it. That includes doing sessions on the Wattbike, which is unforgivingly rigid.
Jersey £152
Shorts £235
Buy through Velocio's website
Fizik Vento Proxy
Remember when everybody said gravel bikes were just fully rigid mountain bikes from the 1990s? The Fizik Vento Proxy shoes in this unashamedly retro colour scheme could well be Fizik’s acknowledgement of that – a little joke at the expense of those early denouncers. Gravel has never needed pro-racing validation but if it did, Fizik could point to the fact that Lachlan Morton won this year’s Unbound wearing a pair of these shoes, and at the moment there’s no bigger endorsement than that.
I liked these shoes so much that I swapped to SPD pedals for my pub/hack steel fixed-wheel Mercian just so that I could wear them more often (I admit I ride to the pub more often than I ride gravel). Everywhere I’ve gone people have loved them. I was delighted to discover that my old friend Stu Bowers, formerly of Cyclist, now with SRAM, has a pair too. On our ride, for the launch of the excellent Red AXS groupset, his Vento Proxys touched the ground a lot less than mine did, needless to say. But best of all, standing at the bar at the Surrey Oaks in front of two builders wearing cement-spattered steel-toecap boots, one said to the other: “Mate, you need a pair of them.” Of course they were taking the piss, but I’ll admit that when I first saw them at the Core Bike Show when they launched earlier this year, that was exactly what I said to myself too.
£229.99
Buy through Fizik's website
Campagnolo Super Record Wireless S
Usually home to MotoGP racing, for one weekend each year Misano, on the Adriatic coast, hosts the Italian Bike Festival. Campagnolo’s stand naturally takes pride of place, a mini Vicenza erected at the rear of the central grandstand. This year Campagnolo mechanics set up a mouthwatering assortment of Italian superbikes equipped with the new Super Record Wireless S groupset for showgoers to test on the Misano track.
Super Record Wireless S is priced lower than Super Record Wireless. Although it uses the same wireless shifting technology and the same braking system as the flagship groupset, some of its more ‘extreme’ materials have been swapped in exchange for a minimal weight penalty but a big cost saving to the customer. This amounts to an extra 150 grammes, but the new groupset is priced at €3,990 compared to €5,200 for the original Super Record Wireless.
I picked out a red and black Colnago C68 with gloss black lettering on a matte black background that almost exactly matched the new Campagnolo groupset. And then I decided to respect the Misano track, the Colnago and the Campagnolo groupset by doing my own 10-mile time trial, ridden as hard as possible with a target of sub-24 minutes or 25 miles per hour.
I just missed it, stopping the watch in 24 minutes and 30 seconds. I could have made excuses about the wind direction, the fact that I used a vented rather than aero helmet and had a regular jersey and shorts rather than a skinsuit... but I didn't care because I absolutely loved riding that bike with that groupset on that track – what an experience.
Price €3,990
Find a retailer through Campagnolo's website
Santini Magic jacket
In a post-PFAS world, without so-called forever chemicals in our cycling kit, it has been widely warned that rain jackets won’t perform as well. What made the Gore-Tex Shakedry so light yet waterproof and breathable was that it was able to eliminate the outer layer of a traditional three-layer waterproof jacket since its PFAS-containing ePTFE membrane actually was the outer layer with no DWR coating necessary. The challenge was to recreate this level of performance without using PFAS chemicals.
Santini claims it has done this with its new Magic Rain Jacket made from Polartec® Power Shield™ RPM. This is a “game-changer in weather protection and sustainability… a highly breathable and high stretch two-layer recycled fabric membrane featuring a non-PFAS DWR treatment and 100% recycled polyester.” The Italian brand says it’s “designed to deliver best-in-class performance while prioritising the planet.”
The Santini is unlike any rain jacket I’ve ever worn – the Polartec fabric is not only lightweight at 100g/m2 (the jacket weighs 155g) but very stretchy, fitting like a long-sleeved jersey. It packs down into a pocket and it does everything the jacket made with chemical nasties used to do. It only launched in October but after the first few wears I’m so optimistic that I’m including in this list. Full review to follow.
Price £200
Buy through Santini's website
