Riding a Canyon at Paris-Roubaix?

[William]

Anyone familiar with Canyon frames? I was trying to figure out what VanSummeren was riding when he was beating the crap out of the peloton but I couldn’t make the logo on the DT. I have not heard of them before this years Paris-Roubaix.

http://www.canyon.com/_en/

Interesting distribution set up, straight from the MFR to you.




William

[ThasFACE]

Guys over on the ww forum seem to like the bikes but hate the customer service. That's all I've got.

[William]

Interesting, they seem to be running 40% off sale on many frames...but if CS sucks, is it worth the hassle?

Just wonderin'




William

[ThasFACE]

Interesting, they seem to be running 40% off sale on many frames...but if CS sucks, is it worth the hassle?

There are ongoing threads over at ww posing that exact question. If the complaints there are to be believed, then canyon's cs is occassionally very responsive but mostly abysmal. It definitely makes you wonder how they manage to stay afloat.

[rnhood]

I know one person who owns a Canyon F10, as well as the RS Cervelo. He much prefers the Canyon as it has a stiffer front end and better power transmission drivetrain (so he says). I've only heard good things about these bikes. Typical German engineering, which means its well thought out and executed.

[bdavis999]

So, Canyon is a direct (i.e. web/mail-order) bike company based in Germany. They're the darling of the German bike magazin "Tour".

It's quite interesting situation...

Tour uses a very rigorous and methodical german-engineering-inspired approach to testing frames. They measure deflection at all sorts of places : head-tube, seat-top tube junction, BB, as wll as fork and seat stays. They have even gone to the trouble of fatigue testing carbon frames in a recent edition. (And do similar tests on cranks and wheels.)

Anyway, Canyon has effectivley designed their bikes to "master" the test -- and honestly they appear to have done a kickbutt job. Beating the pants off the likes of Scott Addicts/CR1s and Storcks, and similar juicy lighweight carbon machines. ( http://www.tour-magazin.de/?p=6512 you have to pay for the full article, in German of course) They've done the same with their aluminum bikes.

I haven't had a chance to ride one, but I'd really like to -unfiortunately, I don't many people wo actually have them.

You might remember that last year they were the bike sponsor for Unibet ProTour team that was almost never actually allowed to race because of EU laws restrcuting advertising on betting (or ASO getting political) - total shame/beureucratic mess.

As an aside, it is extrmely rare to see Pinarellos or Sevens or anything similar subjected to this "Tour" test -- I'm sure it would be a huge risk to come out with a poor score, and therefore they don't participate. Seven's Axiom was reviewed in the latest edition (http://www.tour-magazin.de/?p=6519), and the scrores/rating was quite poor.

I myself wouldn't subsribe solely to such mechanical measure of ride quality (I like all different types of ride quality and stiffness), but it does make an interesting basis for comparison and qualification of stiff/whippy, compliant, etc.

I wish the US magazines would step up and use something similar, but I think it's very good for high-end producers or advertising bucks. ATMO

[1centaur]

After reading a bunch of those Tour tests, I came to the conclusion that the CF bikes people really love to ride (Time, Look) are always in the middle of the pack and some German brands (Canyon, Storck, others) are at the top given a scoring methodology that favors stiffness-to-weight ratio. When you hear complaints about those German brands it is, guess what, they're too stiff/uncomfortable. When you hear complaints about Time and Look, it's that they are not stiff enough (with plenty of people thinking the German bikes are really comfortable and the non-German bikes plenty stiff). Thus I view Tour ratings as stiffness meters. Since I'm really happy on those mid-pack bikes, I'll probably never buy a top-of-the-list German bike.

Someone on weightweenies once suggested re-weighting the 7ish factors in the frame comparos if one does not like the ranking, but since about 5 of the factors have to do with stiffness and another seems to be a comfort test that the stiff German bikes do really well on, re-weighting does not change much.

[Charles M]

Not many get to this side of the ocean...

I had one. Really liked it. For the money it was great if you wanted stiff-light and inexpensive (frame and fork before "Pez-ing").

http://www.pezcyclingnews.com/photos/charles/canyonside.jpg




One thing Tour does well is toss up numbers. They really do a better job than anyone else at putting a figure to something.


As relates to bikes, companies that have no history and or cache for making great bikes need numbers to sell.

The big easy for bike marketing is net weight and stiffness-to-weight ratio and these figures are genuinely important to performance. How important is a matter of personal taste.

I love a great stiff bitch of a bike some times... But the best bikes I have ever been on would not win these ultimate scales because they also toss in ride quality and to get that the price goes up with a lot more fiber / tube set manipulation to get not only reasonable stiffness and weight but also do it in a package thats smooth down the road.



I like all kinds of bikes, but to say stiffer and lighter and cheaper is "better" is a point of arguement...

It's like saying "the larger the breasts the better" then seeing a freak show stripper with a 54DDDDDDDDDD cup. Some of these bikes are that stripper...

[William]

Seems that if you like a stiff ride it might be a nice option....and with them blowing some stock out at $1,307.13 USD ($999 Euros) right now...not a bad price.



William