Bike review: Canyon Grail WMN AL 7.0

Following on from the Cube Nuroad gravel bike that I tested and reviewed for Cyclist, I have tested another gravel bike, the Canyon Grail women's bike. The Canyon Grail was first launched in 2018 as a carbon fibre version. Since then an aluminium version has become available, making it a more accessible price point, at £1,699, than the carbon fibre bike. The thought of a women-specific gravel bike was something to look forward to, particularly from a company that prides itself in researching women's geometry. 

However, I must say upfront that the geometry of this bike is no different from the men's bike, which is now referred to as a unisex bike.

The colours are different with his being silver, and hers being claret, and there is a women-specific saddle, the Sella Italia X3 Lady. A  comfortable saddle is useful, I guess.

Canyon marketing department have said that from their research, women riding a unisex gravel bike is less detrimental in its handling than when riding a road bike. When doing gravel riding the technical and changing nature of the terrain, as well as constantly changing speed means that the positioning and the handling on this bike varies, so a women-specific geometry becomes less important than on a road bike. 

As a company they have taken women's measurements across a wide range of women of varying shapes and sizes, and have found that the unisex measurements caters to this range. So the stem of the bike is shorter than would be expected and the reach for a man and a woman of the same height would be the same, where normally the women-specific bike would have had a shorter reach.

So, that's the explanation regarding the lack of women-specificity in the women's Grail. It's not so much a case of shrink it and pink it, but just be bold and burgundy.

That aside, the fit of the Grail was fine for me when I took it out on my local trails and I found that the reach and the width of the handlebars were perfectly fine. 

The bike came with 40mm tyres on 700c wheels, which is standard for gravel bikes. 

The frame does allow clearance for wider tyres though, if you prefer something fatter to allow for lower tyre pressures and a more comfortable ride. 

You can also put on smaller, 650b wheels and get even wider tyres on the smaller sized frames. This also avoids the possibility of your toe overlapping the wheels when negotiating twisty trails. 

It is recommended that to get the best fit with tubeless tyres it is good to have the same make of valves and rims - in this case DT Swiss. And the Schwalbe G-One tyres seem to be the most popular tyres used on these types of bikes and in the Canyon Grail this is no exception. 

Still on the subject of wheels, the rims come ready to fit tubeless tyres - recommended when doing gravel riding as punctures simply repair themselves and there are no annoying interruptions to deal with punctures during the bike ride.

When pedalling along I was struck at how smooth and reactive the bike felt. At 9.37Kg the bike is lighter than the Nuroad that I tried, but is not the lightest gravel bike. It is more mid-range in terms of weight. 

However, the groupset on the bike, a Shimano GRX810 helps in the pedalling and smoothness of the ride, as this new groupset is specially designed for gravel bikes. 

This gearing is an 11-speed 11x34 cassette with the double 30/46 chainring. That's a good range of gears to get up the short sharp ramps that I crested on local trails in Surrey and Kent.  

As mentioned earlier, the saddle is the cut-away Selle Italia X3 Lady. For me, this saddle was comfortable and did the job. I would recommend it, but I know that saddle comfort is a personal thing for each rider. 

There are mounts to put on mudguards if you don't want too much of a splattering off-road or on-road.

The one gripe that I do have is the lack of means to carry luggage. Bike packing is quite fashionable, and so with that there is space to put a rack - though it is limited space. One rack that is recommended is the Tailfin, though it would be a case of shopping around to see what other racks fit. 

As someone who is more used to old-school panniers there are no mounts for this type of carrier mechanism, which is a shame. And putting a seatpost rack on, is not ideal given that it is made of carbon fibre.

I would therefore be interested to know how others do bike packing with the Grail. 

Overall, the "women's" Canyon Grail was a comfortable, enjoyable ride. and felt like a bike I could depend on as I went around the Surrey bridleways and woodlands. The disc brakes and smooth changes across the wide range of gears meant that I had the tools needed to deal with varied, undulating trails.

 

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Bike Life with the Liv Thrive E+ E-bike

I have been testing out an E-bike, the Liv Thrive E+ Pro women's bike. It's a cute little runner which has served me well getting me from A to B, and C to D and beyond - basically as far as the battery life can go.

I used it during the Rapha Festive 500 on a ride around Central and East London, and it went very well. I have since used it on other routes and had just as much fun on it.

E-bikes are very much part of the range of bikes that people can have. At one point they were poo-pooed as being a cop-out, and not for real cyclists. I wasn't sure about E-bikes either.

But having spent time using this one, my opinion has changed. It is good to get out and about on a bicycle, especially in London where cycling is definitely the quickest way to get around in the city centre.

When just cycling in your local neighbourhood, cycling is also a convenient way to get around.

Having just a little bit of motor means not worrying about working up a sweat if you want to go somewhere looking neat. That's particularly useful where I live, in Crystal Palace, as any journey going towards Central London involves a significant hill.

The very first time I put the motor on it felt great. I was on a little slope - about 7% gradient, and it was like magic, the way the bike just revved on and pulled me along effortlessly. I almost wondered if I deserved this much assistance! I wondered if I should just go the whole hog and get a motorbike.

If you're not on form or tired and not in the mood to pedal it's great. Sometimes if I've had a hard training day and I didn't want to exert myself it is handy to have that assistance.

It was useful to ride the Thrive E+ Pro when travelling to a couple of local cross country running races I was competing in. I wanted to cycle to the venues without arriving at the start-line tired.

What's worth remembering too, is that E-bikes have various settings in terms of motor assistance. The Thrive E+ Pro has six settings, and a mid-setting that allows the bike to go to the optimum motor assistance depending on the terrain.

I tend to ride the Thrive E+ Pro on the lowest setting and move it to the next setting up if I reach a medium slope. If I am on a proper hill, like Anerley Hill, or Gipsy Hill near my home, I crank it up to the third or fourth power level. I have not yet used the top setting.

Having said all that, despite the bit of motor assistance when riding an E-bike, you still do get a work-out. After doing a 40-mile loop on the Thrive E+ Pro on Christmas Day I must say that I felt slightly tired, and ready for my Christmas dinner!

It's partly because I didn't use the motor constantly during my ride. On many of the flat sections I rode the Thrive E+ Pro like any non-assisted bicycle. Given that it weighs more than 18kg you work significantly harder than other bikes when the motor is off!

With a battery that weighs around 4kg and the internal motor, plus disc brakes, the Thrive E+ Pro is more than double the weight of my Boardman road bike!

Also, even when you apply a bit of motor you have to pedal to match the revs generated, which can mean that when I crank up the motor I can easily get drawn into pedalling fast to match the power. 

So for example, going up one of the steep hills up to Crystal Palace I cranked up the power to the third setting and ended up out of breath - not because of the steepness of the hill, but the fact that as the bike winched me up the 10% ramps of Gipsy Hill at more than 20km/hour I felt quite out of breath after having spun the pedals at 90 rpm. 

So, you can get a good work-out if you wish. Of course you can just leave the motor on the whole time and it can become a more sedentary ride. Having said that, it is not a completely passive ride.

The battery on the Thrive E+ Pro lasts for roughly 120km if ridden constantly on low power. I am not sure that I would do a ride with the motor constantly on, as I guess in my nature I always like to do a bit of work on a ride! But it's good to know that if I wanted to ride all the way to Brighton with motor assistance it would be be possible.

I am due to do more rides and will chart a few of my routes. Here are a few Strava routes I have done so far.

Central and East London loop

Ride to Denbies Vineyard near Dorking, Surrey

Ride to Alexandra Palace, North London


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2020 Liv Avail Advanced Pro 1

Today I was putting together a bicycle review that I will be sending in for publishing. I've been testing out the 2020 Liv Avail Advanced Pro 1. It's a women-specific endurance bike that can be used for long rides like cyclosportives, and because it has thicker tyres on it you can use it in rides that go on rough terrain such as the White Roads Classic or the Cheshire Cobbled Classic, as well as cyclosportives abroad like Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix.

The outstanding feature of the bike is also the SRAM electronic gears it has. I have ridden a bike with electronic gears in the past, though at the time they were rare among amateur bike riders. Now it seems that people have caught on to them, so it is great to see it on a women-specific bike.

Riding the bike has been pretty positive, and having something lightweight and with low gears was pretty useful for me when I used it at the Ride London 100 cyclosportive earlier this year. I am not the young whippet that I used to be, so it's great to have such equipment to help you along the way!

I look forward to seeing the full review live somewhere on the web.


11/09/2019 UPDATE: The review is now live on Cyclist website.


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Bike Review: Canyon Roadlite WMN CF 8.0

For those of you who are after a bike for keeping fit and doing longer endurance rides, but without necessarily using a road racing bike, this could be an option to consider.

Canyon Roadlite WMN CF 8.0

The Canyon Roadlite women-specific bike is designed with that in mind. It has the same geometry and specifications as other women's road racing bikes in the Canyon range, except that the bike has straight handlebars.

Canyon lent me this bike to try out earlier this year, so I had the chance to ride it in different situations and different places. I wrote a review of it for the now closed Total Women's Cycling website, which you may also wish to read.

I did a ride up north in the Yorkshire Wolds, and took it around country lanes just outside Beverley and a few of the hills in that area. The hills weren't quite Nunburnolme Hill proportions but in the areas of Millington Dale, then later, South Cave and Elloughton, where I went, the hills were still steep enough. My other rides were more leisurely rides in Surrey - namely Box Hill and the areas around Epsom. Since the frame is carbon fibre, it was very light and so it was very responsive when pedalling, and really took me up the hills with relative ease.

Women's geometry and cut-away saddle for comfort

The main thing for me, was the lack of dropped handlebars. I wouldn't normally ride a bike like that when doing a serious training ride, and it felt a little bit weird just having straight bars to hold, particularly on the descents. But really, it was something that I got used to quite quickly - especially given that it's no different a sensation from doing a descent with a mountain bike.

Like a lot of road bikes now, the Roadlite has disc brakes, so you have good control when doing a steep descent.
As with other bikes from Canyon, you have a choice of spec depending on your preference and your budget. The bike is available with an aluminium frame and Shimano 105 components, rather than Ultegra or Durace.

Overall, I would recommend this bike for those who want to take the next step up from leisure bike riding, but without necessarily getting into the sharp end of cycle racing. The women-specific geometry and the saddle make it a comfortable ride over long distances, of around 50 miles - which is the longest ride I did. If joining one of the beginner groups on the local club run or a British Cycling Breeze Ride, you wouldn't look out of place on this. Also, those who are big on mountain biking and want to ride on the road without using fat tyres may also find this bike a good option.

My review of the Canyon Roadlite WMN CF 8.0 on Total Women's Cycling webiste.


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Canyon's grand ideas for women-specific bikes

Canyon recently hosted an experience weekend at Mercedes Benz World, in which they showcased their 2018 range of bikes.

Experience day at Mercedes-Benz World

I wasn't able to make it to the event, but I hear it was well attended, and it was great to know that they had a good selection of women-specific WMN bikes as well as women racers from their professional teams.

On the mountain bike side was the 2016 European marathon mountain bike champion, Sally Bigham, whom I recently interviewed for Total Women's Cycling about keeping fit while pregnant, while Tiffany Cromwell was there representing the road riding side of things.

The bikes the women ride were on show, and Tiffany took us through the Canyon Ultimate WMN CF SLX bike that she races with in her Canyon Sram racing team  - which leads me on to the women-specific road bikes that they produce.

Sally Bigham and Tiffany Cromwell

People still ask the question - is a women-specific bike necessary? Steven Shand, who I spoke to from Shand bikes, an independent manufacturer based in Scotland, said that it's not so much women-specific bikes that are needed but more person specific bikes. After all, everyone comes in all shapes and sizes! And Canyon have recognised that too.

Unfortunately, mass producers of bikes can't individualise bike geometry to each and every customer. Shand, and other independent manufacturers can, if you are able to pay through the nose for it. So Canyon have done what seems to be the next best thing - by producing a wide range of sizes for women-specific bikes.

In designing geometry they took into account measurements obtained from 60,000 data entries from women's bike fittings when understanding women's body shapes, and therefore the best estimate of the average woman's body geometry. From that they have designed bikes that hopefully can fit comfortably for women of different sizes.

Many people will already know some of this, but the studies by Canyon confirmed what has been talked about already regarding women's geometry compared with men's:

Women are typically shorter and lighter than men. Women have shorter arms in relation to their torso than men do (on average 2cm shorter); we have narrower shoulders in relation to our torso, and there is more flexibility in the pelvis. Interestingly Canyon found from their studies that that women's leg length compared with the the rest of the body is not much longer than men's legs in relation to their bodies. It had generally been said that women had longer legs and shorter bodies compared with men.

In any case, for the same level of comfort between the genders, this is achieved by the same angle between the arm and the torso. Women therefore need a frame geometry that includes a  a shorter reach than the equivalent men's bike to achieve this same level of comfort, because of our shorter arms.

Women's (L) reach is shorter to get the same level as comfort as men's (R)

Bikes tend to me built using the average size as the reference and then working up the other sizes from there. However, a size M unisex would be too big for a woman, and in fact the average sized bike for a woman is XS. So that is the reference size and then other sizes are built from there. For shorter women there are also the 2XS and 3XS sizes, as well as S and M for taller women.

So the good news for women choosing a Canyon bike though, is that there is a wide range to choose from, depending on your size, the type of bike riding you're doing, your level, and your budget.

The Ultimate is for top end road racing. The likes of Tiffany Cromwell and Hannah Barnes will have bikes in this range. With a lower stack on the headset you get a Sport Pro geometry to put you in an optimum road racing position.

Ultimate WMN range

For those into cyclosportives and long rides there is the Endurace selection which has a Sport Geometry. The stack is slightly higher than in the Ultimate range to allow you to be slightly more upright, and give comfort for long distance rides.

Endurace WMN range

For off-road rides there is an adventure bike which also has a Sport Geometry, the Grail. Don't ask me if it's holy, I haven't tried it yet!

If you get the 2XS and 3XS sizes they can be fitted with smaller sized wheels - 650 wheels, instead of the standard 700 - to give the bike better bike handling, and to avoid that awkward overlap of your foot onto the front wheel when turning.

With smaller wheels also comes the need for bigger gears than what you get with a compact, to avoid you need to spinning so much more than with bigger wheels.


So the bikes with 650 wheels will have a semi-compact rather than compact chain set.

So in fact, there's quite a range to choose from among the Canyon range. Gone are the days when there'd be just one women-specific bike. We actually have a few to choose from within a range, which can only be a good thing at a time when more women are getting into cycling.

I haven't ridden a Canyon bike yet. Hopefully I will get to try one in due course. The people I know who have ridden them have been happy with their ride - whether it was on the road or in cyclo cross, so I guess that's a good sign already.

Full details of the women-specific bikes in the range are on the Canyon website.







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