We’ve seen a lot of road bikes with disc brakes from Canyon over the past year or two. Their Ultimate CF SLX Disc all purpose racer and slippery Aeroad CF SLX Disc race bike both got official at Eurobike. And the disc brake-only all road Endurace CF SLX debuted back in summer. But Canyon had been teasing production disc brake road bikes as far back as Eurobike 2012, and with prototypes another six years before that.
Now the industry has caught up and Canyon is all in with road discs for 2017, offering each of their top road bikes with disc brakes. It’s not only their top CF SLX (the lightest carbon frames they offer) that come packing discs, but also the more affordable carbon CF SLs that start around 2000€. Oh, and they’re headed to the USA…
Each bike got a full design overhaul as they moved away from rim brakes, with new frame and fork designs that in almost all cases allowed for more comfort in the rear with thinned down seatstays, and the added benefits of lower rolling resistance and more comfort with larger tires.
The new disc Ultimate & Endurace bikes can fit up to a real 33mm width tire at both ends. The Aeroad is a bit tighter at about a 28mm tire, but all of the disc brake complete bikes come built with at minimum 17mm internal width rims where even 25mm tires end up wide and plush.
Canyon says the move to discs across the board has improved control through better braking paired with wider tire contact patches. But the extra room around the stays also gave them more options for improving aerodynamics at all levels and for all types of riding. With more space, Canyon had more freedom to look at alternative rim shapes and tire combos to lower drag on all of their bikes.
The top 5800€ Endurace CF SLX 9.0 Disc is a good example, as the new Dura-Ace R9100 hydraulic equipped bike (R9120 for those keeping count, and the mechanical + hydraulic combo I am personally most looking forward to try out at the start of 2017) is one of the first to include DT Swiss’ latest Aero+ ERC 1100 wheels that we previewed just a couple of weeks ago. Aero gains on an all-road endurance bike were a bit unheard of year or two ago, but now seem to be all the rage for the broad type or riding that the average road cyclists actually does.
Canyon tested their new disc brake bikes in the wind tunnel back-to-back with their rim brake counterparts. They saw ~1.5% increase in drag, which they say is mostly accounted for by wheels with more crossed spokes & larger hubs. Canyon says that is a relatively minor impact over the entire rider+bike, and feels the performance & control gains clearly balance out such minor drag differences for the average cyclist.
All of Canyon’s new road disc bikes share some tech, like 12mm thru-axles front & rear, low-profile flat mount disc calipers, and for the most part 160mm discs. (XXS frames apparently got to 140mm rotors to fit their tiny rear triangles.) But with flat mounts all of their frames & forks are compatible with 140mm rotors for those riders who feel the need.
The 2017 bikes are all updated in Canyon’s webshop, with availability of many of the Ultimates & Enduraces now. These same bikes’ framesets wait until the end of January or even March depending on sizing, with some of the mid-spec bikes getting similar delivery dates. The Aeroad looks like earliest delivery for the end of January 2017, with frames or the top-end spec even a bit later.
The top builds with new Dura-Ace R9100 also look like they won’t be ready to ship until at least June, which means you’ll still have to wait to get ahold of those new DT wheels as well. And as for exact dates of landing in the USA, which spec will make it stateside & $USD pricing, we’ve been told that we’ll learn more in January. But clearly everything is in motion, and the US website should be up soon after the new year.
