ROCKRIDER RACE 900 TEAM EDITION
£3,799.99 Super-light race-focused hardtail
Decathlon made their World Cup debut this year with an all-new Rockrider team riding this bike. They’ve kept both frame and component weight to a minimum, to make it a superlightweight XC race weapon.
THE FRAME
The full-carbon chassis is constructed from high-modulus fibres, for increased stiffness. A spare internal-routing port is provided for a dropper seatpost, in case you want to add one in future. The geometry is designed to stretch the rider into a low racing position, with our small frame sporting a fairly steep 68-degree head angle, a 74-degree seat tube angle and a reach of 412mm.
THE KIT
Standout components include SRAM’s XX1 Eagle AXS wireless electronic drivetrain, which provided faultless shifting throughout the test period, and Reynolds carbon wheels, along with a RockShox SID SL Ultimate fork with remote lockout.
THE RIDE
The Rockrider hurtles along smooth surfaces, its fast-rolling tyres helping to maintain speed and its frame stiffness and fork lockout enhancing acceleration. It also climbs well, the low riding position putting weight over the front wheel to stop it lifting in tight switchbacks. However, through a timed rough section, it wasn’t as fast as the Cannondale Scalpel we were testing it alongside. We put this down to the extra chassis stiffness reducing traction when pedalling hard. Also, the noise created by the rear brake hose rattling inside the down tube is overbearing; the lack of internal cable channels is a big oversight.
Heading downhill, on smooth, flowy singletrack this bike is quick and punchy. It puts you in an aggressive, get-low attack position that makes easy tracks amazing fun to ride at speed. Progress to steeper, more technical trails carpeted with big roots and rocks, or fast and rumbly descents, however, and the frame transmits a lot of jarring impacts, making it difficult to ride fast, even though the SID LS fork absorbs bumps well. We could also feel vibrations from the brake pads moving in the callipers when ‘trailing’ the anchors over stepped sections of trail.
While the Rockrider’s geometry is in-keeping with most XC hardtails and its stiffness makes it lightning-quick in certain scenarios, it lacks the smoothness and damped ride quality of more forgiving frames such as the Scalpel and Specialized Epic HT, so we had to back off the pace significantly when descending the same trails in the same conditions. SARAH
A lightweight speed demon, but noisy and harsh on techy terrain