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 shod 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.
The Seatpost also doesn't feature the cutout most others in the gravel ranges do, and bears the code SP0072 or 3 (it's hard to make out from the shots and mud), but it's possible this is a new component. It looks similar to the Canyon SP0064 found on the Ultimate road bike, again throwing another bike into the mix of models this bike seems to share similarities with. This matches the apparent convergence of models and componentry also seen on the new Inflite, spotted last year.
There also seems to be some sort of panel on the upper down tube, which could be a frame storage compartment; it looks a little big to be a blanking plate for electronic/mechanical compatibility.
We have no official statement on the new bike from Canyon but will add to the story if and when we learn more about the bike.
