Riverside GRVL900 Review

Jan 19, 2024

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An Italian-made gravel bike with great components from an unlikely source.

Takeaway: With an Italian-made titanium frame, Shimano GRX components, and Fulcrum wheels, the GRVL900 by Decathlon's Riverside brand is a well-priced gravel bike for rides for adventures of all shapes and sizes.

The directions to me could not have been any clearer: If John Kerry's people called, I should transfer them directly to Steve. Steve managed the D.C.-area bike shop where I was a college-aged sales urchin. It was the early 2000s. Kerry, then a Senator from Massachusetts, was licking his wounds after his unsuccessful presidential bid in the most relatable way: buying a custom titanium Serotta. The knowledge that a celebrity purchased the bike, and its high price tag, helped forge my early internalized biases about titanium bikes. Simply put, they were nice, but not for me.

My next job was at a triathlon-specific store with a rack full of titanium-framed Litespeeds. And though none of them were as spendy as Kerry's Serotta, I wasn't allowed to ride them. I wouldn't throw a leg over a titanium bike until the store's owner called in sick one day. A colleague double-dog-dared me to secretly take one around the block. I was out the door seconds later.

Immediately, I loved the bike's lively and warm timbre as I furtively cruised the suburban Virginia streets around the store. Again, nice, but not for me, I thought as I wiped the bike of any clues it had been ridden and slid it back onto its rack.

It's been nearly two decades since these experiences. Despite owning a fleet of bikes worth well more than my 401k in those years, I had never considered a titanium rig. Titanium is for politicians. Titanium is for dentists. Titanium is for people who, you know, actually have a 401k.

Then, Bicycling asked me to review a titanium bike that (honestly) would fit into my woman-going-through-a-catastrophic-divorce budget. As I assembled the Riverside GRVL900, I wondered: What other things have I assumed were not for me—but maybe actually are?

In 2019, bike designers at Decathlon, the French-based sporting goods company with stores in 65 countries, set out to see if they could use the chain's massive scale and supplier relationships to craft a titanium bike for the rest of us. "I wanted to make the most sensible titanium bike in the world," says Eric Goussen, who served as the brand leader and product manager for the GRVL900 project. He says that Decathlon forayed into affordable titanium in 2003 with a road bike. But the early aughts was right when carbon became the industry's cool kid, and Decathlon caved to peer pressure. Now Goussen wanted to try again.

In December 2019, the bike's production was just ramping up. Decathlon's engineers nitpicked details with frame builders at Italian manufacturer Dedacciai to get the prototypes just right. And then, of course, COVID-19 walloped Italy—starting in the small manufacturing towns near Milan—exactly where Dedacciai is based. Like everything else in the world, Goussen's pet project would be put on hold.

Originally, Goussen dreamed of bringing a $2,000 titanium gravel bike to market. Of course, he missed that mark. The Riverside GRVL900 costs

$4,000—twice Goussen's goal. He jokes that even getting the bike to that price was the source of much of his new gray hair. But even $4,000 puts this bike's price closer to many of its carbon peers. And within reach of a wide audience of riders.

Titanium is always going to be an expensive material. "Sporting goods manufacturers are competing with the military and some other high-tech industries for it, and those industries are not short on cash," notes Keith Bontrager.

As a pioneering frame builder (responsible for making early mountain bikes so fun), Bontrager knows a thing or two about crafting bikes from the somewhat exotic material. He adds that titanium is tricky to weld, as it oxidizes at high temperatures. Oxidation can make titanium—otherwise known for its strength—brittle. Titanium welders must use argon gas and technical know-how to keep oxidation at bay. Both of which add cost to the manufacturing process.

To balance the GRVL900's pricey frame meant trimming costs in other areas. So, while your dentist may be impressed that you’re also cruising on titanium, she may not swoon for your components. Goussen says Decathlon was, at least in part, able to keep the bike's price down thanks to the brand's scale. But it also required making some concessions on components. Choices such as a cable-shifting Shimano GRX 11-speed groupset, house-brand cockpit parts, and an aluminum-rim Fulcrum wheelset are highly functional; they just don't carry the panache (or expense) of electronic shifting or carbon parts.

My test GRVL900 arrived the same day as a cold front that overstayed its welcome. I let a day or two go by, thinking that deep-freezing my fleshy bits could influence my feelings about the bike. But as my deadline loomed and the frost wouldn't lift, I realized I needed to rethink another not-for-me thing: frigid riding.

In every warm piece of cycling gear I own, I launched down Divide Road, a nearby gravel jaunt around the northwest perimeter of the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area. Almost immediately, I forgot I wasn't on my personal bike. I usually spend test rides nitpicking each bump and bend as if my butt is a finely tuned gauge specifically designed for measuring "vertical compliance." But on this initial ride, I nearly forgot to take a single mental note. The warm tones of titanium on packed stone lulled me into a dreamlike state.

Perhaps the problem was that, as the miles passed, I ended up in an internal dissection of what else in my life I had wrongly assumed wasn't for me. From there, I began thinking about an even worse thing. How often had I incorrectly told others something was or wasn't for them?

About an hour into the ride, I realized I had sins that required atonement. After working in bike shops, I moved to a major bicycle manufacturer's headquarters. In my role, I was responsible for training bike dealers all over the country. Because I was the only woman, I taught (mostly) men how to sell bikes to women. Armed with research—although who knows where it came from—showing that women wanted comfort and safety first, I preached a gospel of narrower handlebars, specially designed saddles, and brakes with outstanding stopping power.

I didn't question it. As if all women rode bikes the same way. As if salespeople were at all equipped to tell women what they wanted. When I was a shop employee, how often had I nonverbally implied this bike is not for you when someone's body didn't fit my preconceived ideas about how cyclists look? Or had I inadvertently shied them away from the high-end road bikes and toward the row of hybrids?

Something I love about direct-to-consumer bike brands like Riverside is the anonymity. When it's just you, your credit card, and the Internet, no one can sow doubt about what kind of bike you need. There are no judgments about the type of riding you do, your abilities, or any of the other details that make your riding experience unique to you.

Do you really need a bike with all that travel? Heck yes. Do you really need carbon wheels? Absolutely. Is a titanium bike for light-duty bikepacking and all-day adventures (even if you have no idea how to light a backcountry stove) right for you? It might be.

One thing I love about the GRVL900 is how many people fit in its "this might be for you" profile. It's not the burliest bikepacking rig, but that makes it perfect for someone like me, and I suspect many others. I’m many times more likely to take a weekend trip in the nearby national forest than a month traversing rural Alaska. Because it doesn't have the low-slung nature of a heavy-duty bikepacking ride, it doesn't ride like a school bus. Sure, while it's maybe not as light as your friend's carbon gravel race bike, you’ll find the GRVL900 up to the task of matching their attack on the local gravel climb or down for twisting around flowy singletrack. There's a whole lot of fun to be had on this bike by many different types of riders.

Deep in thought about all the cyclists I might have once steered away from this bike due to my "not-for-you" judgments, another thing happened: I lost track of time. Climbing up an 11 percent grade—which the bike's 40-by-42 gearing sufficiently handled—I looked at my phone and quickly realized (sorry, cliché coming) I was going to be late for a date.

Over the past two decades, one of the other things I’d pegged as "nice, but not for me" was a happy marriage. It wasn't that my marriage was terrible or dangerous. It was more a thousand small-sized pains—every conflict a tiny pinprick from my ex's annoyance when I inevitably did or said the wrong thing.

I spent my 20s and 30s building a career far beyond what I had ever hoped for—first in bikes, then in journalism. I had friends and a body that let me ride all day if I wanted to. I figured these were the joys of my life. I felt it would be greedy to desire a healthy, happy, supportive marriage, too. When other people proclaimed their spouses as their best friends, I always thought: How nice for them, but it's never going to be for me.

The Riverside arrived in my life the week I wrote my divorce lawyer's retainer check. On a day when I opted for singletrack over gravel, I acutely felt how, if I slipped on those wet leaves, that wayward stick, or those moss-covered rocks, I lacked a partner to come pick me up. I live in a rural part of Tennessee with few friends. I often feel alone.

Mile after mile, the GRVL900 held steady. I couldn't even rattle it when I stuffed the bags with a sleeping bag, extra clothes, and oh-so-many snacks. The bike's long-but-not-obscene wheelbase also helped with that stability. Plus, the 71.5-degree head tube kept me upright, but not at the expense of having get-up-and-go on gravel climbs.

Helping with grip are the stock Hutchinson tubeless-ready 700x40mm tires. If you wish to run a wider tire, the frame has clearance for up to 700x45mm rubber. Goussen admits if he could make one change to the bike, it would be adding tire clearance, though I found the 40s held fast in everything I put them through. Plus, if you want to use the Riverside for more pavement-oriented rides, the bike looks tidy with narrower slick tires.

The rapidly setting sun on my ride flooded me with anxiety: I was going to have to tell this guy—the first guy in a long time that I’d felt any kind of excitement about—that I was going to be at least an hour late. I preemptively imagined just how mad he was going to be.

If there is one thing I don't love about this bike, I realized it on my way home. I thought I could salvage the night if I mad-dashed all the way back, catching spare seconds on every downhill. But once I left the gravel and moved to asphalt, my pace became more low wail than full shriek. The 1x drivetrain offered sufficiently low gearing for climbs, but the downhills gobbled up every last gear inch.

To me, that's a shame. I love gravel—and that's this bike's intended use. But there's something magic about the hum titanium makes on the road. I want to ride this bike on the road a lot, too. Having two chainrings would give riders that option, though I understand the appeal of 1x's simplicity.

"Frames ring like bells," says Bontrager, explaining why I have always felt something almost musical in titanium's ride quality. Despite what some marketing materials may say, "Most vibration damping in a bike comes from the soft, fleshy rider," he adds. That's not a dig, it's just fact. My butt is no more a finely tuned machine than yours. The terms some bike reviewers prefer to describe ride quality are not words engineers use or find useful.

Bikes—from where the rubber of your tires connects with the road to where your backside, feet, and hands connect to the bike—are essentially giant springs (or, more accurately, a collection of springs stacked on each other). When we hit a bump, the force from it causes displacement—or the springs to move. But, these movements on rigid frames are minuscule, like a fraction of a millimeter, explains Bontrager. And they’re mostly happening in places like the tires, the saddle, the bar—and, our big fleshy bodies, which give quite a lot. All this is to say that my declaring this bike as having the best ride quality of any bike I rode this year would be bunk. Ride quality is a vague metric, and changing the saddle, wheels, seatpost, or even just the tire pressure might have changed my experience.

However unscientific, I love how titanium feels. It just vibrates at a frequency that seems to match my natural vibe—like meeting someone and instantly feeling like you are both on the same wavelength.

I like to think of Bontrager's framing of ride qualities this way: as never forgetting that humans are soft beings whose bodies get tasked with absorbing so much of the world's hardness. We must consider this softness first when telling others—and ourselves—what we do and do not deserve, in bikes or life. Driving decisions about how you ride—whether that's how you ride now or how you aspirationally may someday adventure—is your domain. You have the freedom of exploration and finding joy in the unexpected, like frosty winter jaunts.

You deserve to be late to a date because you lost yourself out riding a bike that you always felt was out of reach. And when you are, you deserve to have the other person say, "I am so glad you had a good time."

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