Prototype Canyon gravel bike spotted at Unbound

A new, unidentified Canyon gravel bike appears to have surfaced at Unbound this year. Peter Stetina and Carolin Schiff competed in the men’s and women’s 200 races on what looked to be prototype bikes.

Canyon currently offers two gravel bikes, the Grizl, which it calls a ‘rough gravel’ bike and the Grail, which it puts into the ‘performance gravel’ category. It also has the all-road Endurance, which is technically a road bike, but can handle light grav. There is also the distinctly un-gravel new Ultimate, but that didn’t stop Mathieu van der Poel from riding it in the Gravel World Championships after days of speculations. So with three gravel options available to its athletes and consumers, where does this new bike fit in? 

After looking at the Canyon range it’s difficult to isolate standout differences on the bikes raced at Unbound. The new, as yet unknown bike seems to take different features from each of the established bikes. Its Seatpost is different to the Grizl and Grail, but the fork looks similar to the Grizl’s, yet it has no mounting points. With certain Gravel races becoming faster and more competitive has Canyon taken inspiration from Van der Poel’s choice to use the Ultimate last year and blended road bike features with some gravel capability for a faster all-round bike, or just improved its gravel platform generally?

The above shot is of Peter Stetina racing his bike. Stetina and Schiff rode the same frame, but used some different equipment choices. Stetina rode with Shimano GRX di2 groupset and wheel show with IRC Double Cross tyres. Like men’s race winner Keegan Swenson, he also used a top tube bar bag 

The bikes seat stays and the way they meet the seat tube look similar to other Canyon gravel models; if there is a difference here, it’s subtle. The paint job does do an effective job of hiding frame lines and features – well played, Canyon.