Recently we brought you the news that Alpecin-Premier Tech were racing aboard a new, unreleased, and far more racy Canyon Endurace. Until now though, their talismanic leader, Mathieu van der Poel, hasn’t had the chance to ride it in a race situation, but he has been spotted aboard it for today’s E3 Saxo Classic.
Given the proximity to both the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix, it seems extremely likely that the flying Dutchman is using E3 as a race-test of his cobbles setup ahead of Holy Week.
The new Endurace – if it is indeed going to replace the existing model rather than sit alongside it – is clearly much more race-oriented and aerodynamic.
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Van der Poel has won Roubaix in the last three consecutive years aboard his usual Aeroad, but in 2025 he was run very close by Tadej Pogačar until the Slovenian crashed out on a corner in the closing stages of the race. Pogačar, as we have reported on recently, looks to be totally changing up his cobble setup for a second charge at the Hell of the North, opting for his aero Y1Rs, as confirmed by his mechanic, with the widest possible tyres crammed into the frame and fork.
The new Endurace will have been in development for some time, and so isn’t a direct response to a change in Pogačar’s setup, but it certainly opens the door to a Roubaix arms race, and may herald a return to the Roubaix-specific bikes of old if he can hold off for a fourth consecutive victory.
A Roubaix arms race, or just a new bike?
In days gone by it was not uncommon to see Roubaix raced by many riders aboard cyclocross bikes. Mat Hayman’s famous victory aboard a standard Scott Foil aero bike ushered in a new era of aero bikes taking on the cobbles, a trend that has somewhat gone unchecked ever since, as the course is almost entirely pan-flat.
In recent years with tyre dynamics becoming the new frontier of performance, pro teams have looked to cram ever larger tyres into their frames, with 35mm being the general ceiling on many aero bikes, especially when running Shimano groupsets, as the front derailleur tends to be the width-limiting factor before the chainstays.
The problem now is that wider tyres are less aerodynamic, despite offering rolling resistance, comfort, and control advantages over the savage cobble sections. As such, the modern aero…
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