Lille, France

Augustin: On two wheels, 
great pleasure 
when people see you! 

Offering optimum visibility to cyclists, day and night? This fall 2020, Triban will launch a new jacket for men at a reasonable price. Augustin, the products engineer, tells us the story of this item.. created with customers’ ideas.

Augustin Vian confesses: “Everything happened by surprise”. The story starts in 2013 when Triban created yellow neon jackets. A New step in 2015: the brand adds reflective elements. Very much visible but not conform to compulsory standards: “We are very respectful with the market security standards… but no more than this”. In 2018, surprise: the yellow neon jackets sales became more numerous than the other colors ( black, blue, red). “ Very much surprised by this unexpected success of the unusual and not very popular color ( yellow neon), we quickly asked our cyclists customers”. The result: yellow neon was a great color to be visible by cars, they felt more secure cycling with this jacket. Security suddenly was higher than the style! “We challenged ourselves: it was easy to create visible clothes but we had to optimize their efficiency.”

Then the brand followed… the European norm EN 1150: ”Concerning visibility, the norm has a high level of requirement.” To reach it, we had to re-design the jacket respecting a restrictive bill of specifications: 4 000 cm2 of fluorescent surface and 1 000 cm2 of the reflective surface. We could then guarantee 360-degree visibility for cyclists, day or night. Engineers, creators, designers: The Triban teams put all its energy to win the norm challenge. Concerning the reflective part, the brand decided to exceed 10 % of the norm recommendations. “With Wim Van Hoecke and Ronan Bernard, our products managers, we have doubled the required yellow neon surface and even tripled the reflective zones!” said Augustin with enthusiasm.

The winter jacket Triban RC 100 is finally approved by a finish independent lab. It was a success. In 2019, demand was very high and pushes Augustin to go further: “ Then, we normed all the yellow clothes! “ Security and quality. “ We had to offer and guarantee the same level of visibility as the normed yellow jacket, and keep the initial comfort, cut, components, waterproofness for rain jackets, and thermal isolation for winter jackets.

Visible Jackets

Once again, customers are in the center of the game. Normed products were more expensive. “Customers were complaining a lot: why should we pay more, for security that is essential ?” laughs Augustin. The result: Triban lowers its margins and work with the absolute logic of “smart cost”, the Decathlon way. Extra asset and not the least: ecologically created, the jacket is made of recycled polyester from crushed melted plastic bottles. This technical product, normed, ecological, offering full safety will be available this fall at… 35€.

July 2020

DECATHLON FRANCE

TRIBAN

Triban is a road bike without any notion of time, guided by comfort: enjoy the pleasure of speed, sharing moments between friends while discovering new places and beautiful landscapes.

Because you will meet liberty and adventure at the next curve.