The 2022 Canyon Roadlite finally makes its way across the Atlantic, giving US cyclist a quick new flat bar road option for a city runabout or fitness bike. With alloy or carbon frame options, a forgiving fork, room for 30mm road tires, and pricing from under a thousand bucks, the Roadlite aims to make hybrid bikes cool again…
2022 Canyon Roadlite flat bar road fitness bikes
The carbon Roadlite CF first rolled out all the way back in 2017 as a fast-rolling, lightweight fitness bike with much of the same VCLS bump-absorbing fork, seatstays, and seatpost in some complete specs, much like Canyon’s super-popular Endurace road bikes. With big modern 30mm road tire clearance on 700c wheels, 12mm thru-axles & flat mount disc brakes paired to a comfortable upright position with endurance road geometry tweak for flat bars, this was a great fast city commuter and weekender training road bike option for riders who didn’t want drop bars.
Then, the carbon bike was so popular, Canyon reshaped the alloy version to match with a lighter aluminum frame in the same style and carbon fork comfort. Both carbon & alloy bikes offer full-coverage fender compatibility, but the new aluminum bikes add rear rack mounts, as well.
Available in a wide six size range (XS-XXL) and several tiers on the European market for several years, now both the entry-level carbon & alloy bikes come stateside.
Options, spec, pricing & availability
The top carbon frameset comes built up as the $1999 / 1999€ Canyon Roadlite CF 8 with a road compact double Shimano complete groupset (US gets 105 / EU gets Ultegra), Canyon’s 60mm wide one-piece CP04 CF carbon bar+stem cockpit, and an alloy Alex thru-axle wheelset with 30mm Schwalbe G-One Speed fast gravel tires.
The middle of the range (not available in the US) features an aluminum frame with the same carbon fork as the CF bike, still with thru-axles. The 1499€ Roadlite 7 gets that middle-tier alloy frame, again with an Ultegra R8000 groupset, the same wheels, and a one-piece alloy bar+stem cockpit combo.
The entry-level alloy hybrid fitness bike still gets flat mount hydraulic disc brakes, but sticks with QR axle wheels. The $999 / 899€ Roadlite 5 & Roadlite WMN 5 with more sloping toptube, both come spec’d with a simple SRAM Apex 1×11 drivetrain with an 11-42T cassette, but still gets Shimano hydro brakes.
All models are in stock now direct from Canyon.
