Paul Seixas has been spotted riding a new Van Rysel road bike. Posted on Instagram, the short clip shows Seixas riding in the Sierra Nevada in southern Spain, where he looks to be at an altitude training camp ahead of his debut appearance at the Tour de France.
According to the clip’s caption, Seixas has ridden around 1,500 kilometres over 12 days and gained 37,000 metres of elevation over that time.
The new bike looks to be more aero than the current RCR Pro, but less aggressively so than the RCR-F aero bike. Both those bikes have been ridden by the team since Decathlon took over as its lead sponsor in 2024.
Initially, the team only had the RCR Pro as its road race bike. The RCR-F made an appearance as early as the 2024 Tour de France, though, and has become the team’s main bike in subsequent races, although it was not launched officially until March 2025.
Decathlon has both the current bikes discounted on its site, with a ‘last chance’ banner, which suggests something new is in the air. So maybe it’s looking to replace both with a single lightweight/aero road bike that's more aero than the RCR Pro, taking learnings from the development of the RCR-F.
It’s unclear otherwise where the new Van Rysel bike would fit into the brand’s line-up, because there’s not that much room for a third bike model between the RCR Pro and RCR-R.
Seixas has been in prime form this year, winning the Tour of the Basque Country as well as La Flèche Wallonne and setting himself up for a Tour de France start, where he might even give the Pogačar and Vingegaard duopoly a run for its money.
At only 19 years of age, Seixas will be the youngest Tour starter in almost 90 years.
Ahead of the Tour, he’s slated to take to the start line on 7 June for the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes – the new name for the Critérium du Dauphiné – a classic warm-up for the Tour itself and where we should get a better look at the new bike.
