Leading up to next months attempt at the Tour de France, 2014 Giro winner Nairo Quintana and his Movistar teammates introduced a new grand tour road machine from consumer-direct Canyon this week at their Service Course in Pamplona, Spain. The new 4th generation Canyon Ultimate builds on the tech of the previous bike and 10 years of Canyon’s Ultimate moniker.
As market demands (hype?) require, the bike gets lighter (a tiny bit), more comfortable, and more aero. But Canyon has actually done a few interesting things to hit those last two upgrades. Roll on past the break for more details, pics, starting price, and availability…
While Canyon calls the bike an entirely new design, it bears many similarities to the last iteration. Their engineering team achieved what were pretty standard industry goals with the new bike: more-compliance and more-aero. But keeping the stiffness:weight that the Ultimate was known for, the R&D team ended up with a bike they claim has 15% more vertical deflection and an 8% boost in aerodynamics for the frameset (up to 14% with the newly designed Aerocockpit) versus the last model.
The new design comes keeps thin flattened seatstays for comfort, but updates them with a D-shape for aero benefit. The biggest boost in comfort comes from a new trimmed down seat cluster and clamp that lets the seatpost flex more to isolate deflection at the saddle, by moving the clamping point below the seatstay juncture, extending the effective bending length of the post by up to 110mm.
The frame gets more aero with the tidy hidden seatpost clamp, a completely new narrower D-shaped downtube, an updated integrated Acros headset/spacer combo, a new integrated bar/stem combo, a slightly more hour-glassed headtube (with a straight 1.25″ steerer), and an updated fork design that flows more smoothly into the frame.
The new bike will come in 7 sizes, with seattubes from 43-61cm and toptubes ranging form 51-61cm. Canyon has also reworked the M and L sizes to sit a bit closer to each other to offer better fit where most of their customers fall. The new Ultimate CF SLX will be available to order direct from Canyon’s website as of the end of August (at the end of Eurobike.) 11 models will be offered starting at €3200 (most likely with a Ultegra level build) and will climb from there.
Canyon also teased us with the idea that 3 models of an ultra light Ultimate CF EVO are also in the works. The 3rd gen Ultimate CF SLX frame weighed less than 800g, and every build they offered last year came in under the UCI’s 6.8kg threshold, so while the new frame is reported to be a few grams lighter, a new EVO version will probably put it up there with the lightest production bikes on the market. No word yet on the extra light one’s pricing or availability, but it will surely come at a premium from the looks of the Lightweight and THM clad EVO 10.0 SL we’ve seen.
