VAN RYSEL Roubaix: a Continental team close to home, with an eye on the future

VAN RYSEL is increasingly visible at the very top of the sport, as a performance cycling brand that supplies Decathlon’s WorldTour project with bikes, apparel and helmets. That connection is logical, almost inevitable. Less obvious, and arguably more revealing, is what VAN RYSEL is trying to build closer to home with the VAN RYSEL Roubaix team.

After three wins and fifteen podiums in 2025 on the UCI Continental circuit, following a 2024 campaign that delivered fourteen victories and seventeen podiums, the team and its title partner are not rebooting so much as doubling down on a shared idea: to develop a demanding sporting project focused on performance, identity, and the future.

Nicolas Pierron, VAN RYSEL’s leader, described it as “a shared story rooted in territory and DNA”, something that has gone “far beyond sponsorship” over the past three years. For him, the refresh is less about a new look than about sharpening what the project is trying to become.

All of it begins in Roubaix, one of the places that seems to breathe cycling. From here, the road leads outward. Cobbles and technical racing across Northern Europe are the team’s reference points, and the environment they are built around.

From that foundation, the priorities for 2026 are straightforward. Keep developing young talent. Make collective progress in the races that matter most on their calendar. And build a squad with enough depth to show itself on the committed, identity driven days that suit this project best.

Part of that identity work is now made literal. For 2026, VAN RYSEL has introduced a new team logo that takes its cues directly from Roubaix itself, and from the energy the city has always carried.

The outline is inspired by the Vélodrome, an enduring symbol of local cycling history. The cobblestone motif nods to the terrain that defines the region and its Classics, a simple reminder that culture and performance are not separate ideas here.

It is a clear statement of intent. Heritage and the future are meant to sit side by side, with the message simple enough: this is a team looking forward, without pretending it comes from anywhere else.

As a performance brand, VAN RYSEL sits at the centre of this project in the most practical way possible. It supplies the team with a complete race set up built for the demands of elite competition, and it treats that equipment as more than a collection of products.

Pierron called the 2026 look “a raw aesthetic inspired by the motto ‘The Hell of the North leads to paradise’”, adding that the ambition “comes to life on the road with the arrival of the RCR -F PRO”.

For 2026, the team will race exclusively on the RCR-F, a bike positioned as a pure speed platform. The look is hard to miss, with Pantone 213C pink dominating the front of the frame before fading back into raw carbon at the rear, a design that aims to balance visual punch with lightness.

The jersey follows the same logic. Produced with partner Diffusport and developed with northern French designer Brian Marie Claire from the Machine Infernale collective, it is built from high performance technical fabrics shaped around the requirements of professional racing.

The finishing touches are equally considered. The riders will have three helmet options across the RCR range, adapted to different terrain, and three new eyewear models, VERTAIN, TAAIEN and KWARE, each named after storied sectors in Flanders, another small way of tying the equipment back to the roads that matter most to this team.

For Cyril Saugrain, the manager of the Vélo Club de Roubaix, the refresh is part of a wider moment. The club will mark its 60th anniversary this year, and he called 2026 “a pivotal year, opening a new chapter” for the team and the wider club.

The dream, he insisted, is simple enough to state and hard enough to chase: “to line up at Paris Roubaix in the coming years and to win it.”