canyon Hoverbars - yikes

[AngryScientist]

seems manufacturers are going further and further away from the core concept of drop bar road bikes. i get the gravel thing, and i get wanting to achieve different positions, but at what cost?

the bike itself looks pretty good though!

[Cicli]

That is ridiculous looking.

[roguedog]

Huh..

At first my reaction was. Whoa.. WTH . And then I stared at it some more and thought.. huh.. so my stuff (handlebar bag, garmin, light, etc) can hang on one bar and then my hands can actually sit on the HANDlebar. Huh...interesting.. hmm.. I can see that use case. Hell I experience it every day in winter.

[AngryScientist]

the other thing is that - have these guys ever ridden sloppy gravel roads? grit and grime get everywhere! it would be a nightmare to clean and service this front end if it regularly sees sloppy wet or very dusty rides, it looks like.

[ptourkin]

Can't wait for the takes here.
Hover bars aside, there are a lot of thoughtful features.
Certain folk will be happy they are selling it as 2x (1X is a niche of a niche, remember.) It is disc though...

http://road.cc/content/tech-news/238...il-gravel-bike

Ride review: http://road.cc/content/tech-news/237...e-canyon-grail

[jruhlen1980]

What is this "cleaning" you speak of?

[Clean39T]

Originally Posted by AngryScientist

the other thing is that - have these guys ever ridden sloppy gravel roads? grit and grime get everywhere! it would be a nightmare to clean and service this front end if it regularly sees sloppy wet or very dusty rides, it looks like.

Very good point. Have similar qualms about the Trek Domane SLR with the split seat-tube.

I just don't get the dual handlebar though. It seems like it would make the drops ridiculously rigid. And unless they put a second set of brake levers up on the top handlebars, what's the point?

Seems there is already a solution to all this.



And dare I say it looks a he11 of a lot better than the Canyon setup.

[v531xc]

stem size: M I'm curious how many different sizes they'll offer.

I do get the use case of adding bikepacking gear, lights, and other mounts to the lower potion so one can actually use the bar. I also get the engineering behind it to keep the frame stack low for stiffness but allow for overall rider stack to be within comfort. It just doesn't seem to allow for much adjustability without Canyon proprietary spacers. Kinda like an ISP for your hands instead of your butt.

To me, it seems like a small front rack could've solved a majority of this, would be able to be sold aftermarket to fit more use cases, and would probably be lighter if not at least the same exact weight.

[benb]

I think experimentation with bars is pretty interesting an maybe we still need more of it but these are certainly weird. I wonder if they're race legal for one thing. I can't really see why they'd be any more dangerous than normal road bars.

I'd be interested to see "swept back" tops on a bar to put your wrists in a more neutral position when on the tops and/or provide a more upright position. Just extend the reach out to the hoods more than normal to keep the hoods in the normal position.

I also wonder with these bars if they stuck the extra crossbar in a different place if it could facilitate the pseudo aero position that you see a lot of pro roadies using. If this thing turns out to be declared illegal in racing I guess you could stick clip on bars on it too.

It doesn't look like they're doing anything but this bar could also be used in some way so that the top of the bar provided isolation like the Trek SLR front end. But putting it in the bar might be a lot easier/cheaper/simpler than Trek's or Specialized's crazy front end designs.

I have a 2016 model Domane with the previous design... the pivot on that one doesn't attract grime at all. Maybe the new one is worse though, hard to say. Back in 2016 when I did B2VT we got 3 hours of hard rain in the middle of the ride + dirt roads that turned seriously muddy. No problems at all with the seat tube... the front derailleur picked up enough mud to jam, but I was able to clean it out at a rest stop pretty easily and it worked perfectly the rest of the ride after that.

[texbike]

This just seems like a bit of a band-aid to address the lack of flexibility in raising the bar higher with a one piece bar/stem combo.

Texbike

[chiasticon]

you guys gotta read the BikeRadar ride review. the dual bars act as suspension, over using the types that Trek and Specialized have done, or a suspension fork. apparently the top bar has a lot of give, the middle of which is not for resting your hands on (in fact, you're not supposed to) and it allows the top and hoods to visibly flex a lot. the bottom part is for stabilizing your hands for descents.

not sure how I feel but it's certainly interesting. Canyon's Inflite kinked top tube was pretty polarizing as well. their argument is that most of their users are young and less taken by tradition, so they're free to try new things with less fear of turning potential users off. I get it. interested to see how it does at least (likewise with Inflite).

[dieonthishill]

I look forward to the re-release of the bike when they haven't sold any in 6 months.

[AngryScientist]

The other thing: how many times do you set up a new bike and have guessed wrong on the stem length/height or bar shape. It's a real commitment to buy into this system.

[chiasticon]

also worth noting that a lot of gravel/all-road riders these days use a handlebar bag of some variety. this thing looks super weird with a stripped down bike but with all your crap on it, and a handlebar bag, you'll barely notice it. if it does improve the ride as they claim, and you can barely even see the weirdness, no worries.

[jtbadge]

Saw 'em on BP this morning. I thought for sure he made it up... but you can't make this **** up.