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EURO BIKE 2010: EUROBIKE REPORT PART 4
Zap
September 9, 2010
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Tour de France player and a leading brand in Europe, that's Canyon Bicycles...and that's not bad for a brand that is only available to consumers on the Internet. That's right, no middlemen, no chain of retail stores. Just cool bikes and an owner, Roman Arnold, who has been a part of the bike industry for over 25 years and simply seems to just look at life a bit differently than all the rest.
For the last few years Canyon bikes have stood out with future thinking designs and impressive ride performance. Roman is also lucky to have a crack staff of German bike geeks at his side; from product manager Michael Staab to former Pro racer and TdF green jersey stud, Erk Zabel who works on R&D and helps guide the Canyon Heroes (youth) team. For more info on the Koblenz based company, head to Canyon Bicycles.
Canyon used the EuroBike show as but one venue to showcase their new Aeroad bike. As the display bikes sat in the Canyon booth, Pharma-Lotto team versions were simultaneously being raced (and winning stages) in the Vuelta de Espana. To highlight their working relationship with Zabel, a special, limited edition Shimano Di2 equipped bike (with his signature on the seat tube) will be added to four other production versions.
Here's a clear example of one frame detail that distinguishes the new Aeroad (L) from last years top line Ultimate CF SLX - the contours of the head tube have been dramatically re-shaped due to the Aeroad's tapered headtube (with 20% less frontal area) which runs a 1 1/8 inch -1 1/2 inch combo versus the 1 1/2 - 1 3/4 inch combo.
Talk about a sultry back-end, seatstays on the Aeroad have been dropped down on the seat tube. Note the rear mount face plate which is used to tighten the seatpost. Canyon says that they are now adding basalt fibers into the frame to enhance the ride quality
A super nice, but hard to spot frame detail is the special BB86 bottom bracket shell that drops down to act as a fairing for the (internally routed) exiting cables.
Look closely and you can see the small adjustable spacer (or "chip") in the front dropout which allows you to alter the fork rake by 40mm.
Since Canyon owner Roman Arnold rode the track as a kid, the company rolled out a new model for that purpose. Two different models of the aluminum V-Drome will be sold in 2011.
Of course no bike brand is complete without a tri bike and Canyon offers three carbon fiber versions of their Speedmax CF series and two aluminum models.
The worst thing about Canyon bikes, at least as Americans are concerned is that they remain unavailable in the States. Marcus Graeser, Caynon's Director of International Sales explained "Canyon bicycles hopes to have our bicycles available in North America sometime in 2011. There has been a lot of interest from consumers in North America in Canyon but at this point, we cannot give more precise details other than to say Canyon is strongly considering entering the North American market next year. We hope to make an announcement in Spring 2011 about Canyon bicycles in North America."
To put it another way, Canyon needs to start selling their bikes in America.
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