My first ‘proper’ performance road bike was a Canyon Ultimate, a third-generation model with rim brakes and a woefully unreliable Campagnolo Athena groupset. I graduated from a Specialized Allez to this fizzing carbon wasp of a bike that seemed dead set on going uphill, but it certainly wasn’t without its drawbacks. Roll on several years and I now find myself throwing my leg over the new, fifth-generation Ultimate at a press camp in Nice ahead of the launch, trying to pinpoint what has changed.
While some journalists were loaned the pro-spec CFR model with its UCI-illegal weight and eye-watering price tag, I spent a few days and many roasting kilometres atop the slightly more attainable SLX 8 Di2, built with 12sp Ultegra and 50mm deep wheels. While some pangs of jealousy did pierce my heart at not riding the top-of-the-line model, the SLX, with a more general-purpose build better represents what I think Canyon has been trying to create with this latest model; its most all-around race bike yet.
How does it ride then? How does it look, and how good is the build? Well, I did my best to find out so I could bring you this first ride review. Further testing will be undertaken on slightly less glamorous roads and I suspect in slightly less tropical climates, but for now, here’s how it fared.
Design and aesthetics
“Canyon is a design-led company”
I looked up at this point, wondering if I’d misunderstood or misheard the engineer as he presented the new bike to the small crowd of journalists on the balcony as the sun set over Nice. I hadn’t misheard, I was just surprised as so often when a new bike is released the talking points are exclusively engineering driven. It looks like X because it means Y metric is better, etc. etc. ad infinitum, but here we were being told that while the bike had to be lighter, more aero, more comfortable and more durable it also had to look good. It had to look like a Canyon.
The design language for the brand’s…
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