This Bike Is Bonkers And I Love That It Exists

Canyon have just launched a new bike and it is bonkers. It is the Endurace CFR, a bike designed and built specifically for Mathieu van der Poel with one aim in mind, to conquer the nastiest road races on the planet. The reason why I love this bike though is not because I'm a Mathieu van der Poel fanboy, but for something else. In this video, I'm going to explain as well as tell you all about it. The Paris-Roubaix bike is a type of bike that we all thought had died out. Gone are the days when teams would rock out specific rigs with more clearance or attempts at suspension in order to try and tame the cobbles. No, Canyon have brought it back with their love of racing as the motive and their engineering expertise as the method. They have built a bike for van der God himself. Before we find out exactly what he has asked for, there is something that needs addressing. My first question and one I put to Canyon was why he needed a specific Paris-Roubaix bike anyway, when he's already won it three times in a row on his daily driver, the Canyon Aeroad. To be honest, I thought that was a pretty fair question, but essentially, even though van der Poel has won this race three times in a row, it doesn't mean that his bike can't be made even better. It seems like a pretty good answer. This then is like an extra weapon, perhaps for the days when the mud is thick and the cobbles at their most treacherous. My next question was, what's with the name? It looks like an Aeroad, it races like an Aeroad, yet it is very clearly an Endurace because it says so on the back. It's because even though it looks and feels like an Aeroad, it's more like a rally car or a monster bike. Canyon felt that it fitted perfectly into their Endurace family, just right at the top. This will be the first time that a Canyon Endurace has ever been raced at WorldTour level, let alone being victorious like this one already has been. Don't get me wrong, Enduraces have always been fast, they've always been light, it's just that the needs of regular cyclists for which they've been designed for are not the same as pros. We want more comfort, we want a different riding position, we might perhaps want luxuries like onboard storage. This has none of that. While the Endurace family has just got bigger, the newest relative is very, very different. My next question was, what have Canyon done and why? The first port of call for the engineers was to start with the Aeroad. Why not? It's already won four Tours of Flanders and three Paris-Roubaix. Because it's the bike of choice for the pros, this new bike had to feel the same as an Aeroad. Unlike the other Enduraces in the family, this has the same geometry as a race bike. It means it's on the more aggressive end of the spectrum with sharp handling and the ability to get well aero. It also means that the pros can swap from one bike to the other without any adjustment period. What of the changes though? Well, one of the main reasons why this bike exists is to increase the tire clearance. Not at the fork actually, there's enough clearance on an Aeroad for one of Canyon's pro cyclists to have actually already fitted gravel tires to it. Not that they would want me reminding you of that fact, but at the back, it is a different story. You can clearly see that the chain and seat stays are wider to allow for much bigger rubber to fit. This is a 35-mil tire and there is acres of space. Wider tires are a bit of a no-brainer for most cyclists. Interestingly, our intel ahead of Paris-Roubaix this year suggests that Vanderpool is likely to stick with the 32-mil wide tires that have served him so well previously. If that is the case, then the increased clearance on here should mean that were it to be a wet race, he's less likely to get clogged with mud, so the bike still should be super fast and more reliable. Canyon officially rate this bike to be able to take 35-millimeter wide tires, but as we've already seen, the clearance is massive, certainly enough to fit 40-mil tires. You might not want to go mud plugging with them on, but the ability to run them is really important as we'll see in a moment. Tire clearance, check. What else does Vanderpool want? Well, as if we needed any more evidence that he is vastly more powerful than the rest of us, he's asked for this new one to be even stiffer. 10% of the head tube, 15% at the bottom bracket. Now, what's interesting about this bike is that unlike the Aeroad, weight was not one of the main objectives. Paris-Roubaix is essentially flat and I think actually a slightly heavier bike tends to handle bumps a bit better as well. What that means is that Canyon engineers have had a little bit more headroom to add material to the bike to boost stiffness, but also to make it even more resilient in the unfortunate, but also quite likely event of a pileup. Being able to get back up and riding could potentially save your race, so this is bomb-proof. What did it add in terms of weight then? Well, actually not that much, although weight weenies probably won't get too excited. A raw medium frame, 940 grams apparently, so fully painted up like this, it's about 1,000 grams. Does Vanderpool care? No, Vanderpool doesn't care. Do I care? Actually, no, not even I care. So far then, we have a stiffer, more robust frame, increased tire clearance. Next, let's talk aerodynamics. Now, this bike frankly has a lot to live up to for Vanderpool because the aero is widely considered to be in the absolute top tier of aero bikes, but Canyon say this one is within one watt, so basically within the margin of error in a wind tunnel. Or to put it another way, as near as makes no difference, the same. From the side-on view, it looks almost identical apart from this more pronounced cutout behind the seat tube here, so it's easy to assume then that like the geometry, this is just a copy and paste job from the aero, but no, whilst the front end is very similar, the back end is not. Even the down tube is wider. What's also changed to increase aerodynamics are the cockpit options. This Enduro CFR model will be included in the My Canyon customization range, which means that you can tailor the fit or contact points of the bike like the handlebars. As well as the tried and tested cockpit, which has adjustable width bars and an adjustable height stem, there is also a new race bar. It's two watts faster in a wind tunnel at 45K an hour compared to this standard option, but it offers a more aggressive fit with a lower stem and also narrower bar options. Canyon say that in real-world track testing, riders saw not a two-watt improvement, but a 25-watt improvement owing to the positions they were able to adopt. It also, as we said, looks cool and is 120 grams lighter. Now, much as I want to ride the same bike as Mathieu van der Poel, it's got to be said when somebody says turn up the stiffness on an already stiff bike, I get a little bit nervous these days. I'm not getting any younger and I'm certainly not getting any more powerful, but happily though, there is a clever bit of tech here in the seat post, which helps to improve compliance. When I say here, it's actually not here, here is an option. You might be familiar with Canyon's split seat post called the VCLS, which acts as a leaf spring, super effective, and it crops up on loads of their bikes from endurance to in-flight to grizzle. While the shape looks like the aero post out of an aero, it actually has as much in common with the VCLS. In fact, this is called the VCLS aero, and it ramps up the compliance to give you more comfort. Does van der Poel care? No, van der Poel doesn't care. Do I care? Yes, yes, I actually care. I said at the start that this bike is bonkers, and I do mean that. I love that it is such a genre buster, both genuine aero bike and genuine all-road bike. I love that it's been designed for pro riders, but yet available to buy because whilst it might have been designed to win Paris-Roubaix, there is an awful lot here for the rest of us, those people that love to go fast and love to go hard. I do really appreciate lightweight road bikes, but having a bike that you can treat a little meaner is, I think, more rewarding. When I say meaner, I'm not talking about calling it names and leaving it to rust in your garden. I'm talking about a bike that's top-end that you can ride where you want, how you want, and not worry. To be fair, kind of like being a pro. You'll know that I love riding fast rolling 40-millimeter wide road tires because I have already told you in another video, but this, to my mind, is the first time it's ever been packaged up not just in a road racing bike, but in an aero road racing bike. Yes, you might have a slight aerodynamic penalty if you choose to run 40-millimeter wide road tires, but you won't have an aero penalty on the rest of the bike, which makes it flipping good fun. Canyon are calling this an all-road bike, which I think is a fair description, perhaps more than most all-road bikes, in fact, because this has the ability to race Paris-Roubaix, as well as poaching gravel tracks on your way to work when the puddles finally dry up, or long rides with your mates, or fast group rides, or poaching single track on the way home. To my mind, this has the spirit of a punk, even though it's designed for clean-living athletes. Now, does Mathieu van der Poel need to race this at Paris-Roubaix in order for it to be a success? I suspect Canyon's marketing team would like him to. That would be a fairytale launch, even more so than the Victory E3 that he's already scored on this bike. The fact is, this is much more than a bike for Paris-Roubaix. This bike is bonkers, and I am here for it. Are you, though? That's the question. Get involved in the comment section down below. Let me know your thoughts on this bike. If you've got any questions, stick them down there as well. We'll do our best to answer them. If you enjoyed this video, give it a big thumbs up, and make sure you subscribe to GCN for more videos like this.