Whereas the e-bike polarises debate in mountain biking, a single go to to a UK path centre using one and also you’ll by no means return to the pedal and push life. Nonetheless, with highway bikes, there hasn’t actually been an e-bike system obtainable that doesn’t simply lead to a heavy bike when it’s not being helpful in e-bike mode, slowing the adoption by ‘actual highway riders’ consequently.
It is the {hardware} that is actually the issue right here, provided that while you hit the restrict, the motor stops helping, and when not working for you, it basically works towards you. You may really feel each the surplus weight within the system, and resistance from the system itself, defeating the thing considerably.
(Picture credit score: Future / Andy Carr)
Bizarrely, the decrease powered system from TQ featured right here in what in any other case, appears to be like like a fairly normal Canyon Endurace, guarantees to ship a push while you want it, however much less drag while you don’t. The advertising materials refers to it as a ‘tail wind’ system fairly than a driving motor that takes over, and that’s precisely what e-bikes promised roadies all these years in the past, however failed to really ship. If the Canyon Endurance with TQ system on board rights these wrongs, it may very well be that the highway e-bike has lastly come of age.
Design
Canyon’s Endurace is considerably of a folks’s champion on the earth of highway bikes. It’s fairly priced, handles effectively, is designed with a stack and attain that’s wise for many of us, and it’s really snug.
An e-bike model that takes these traits, and provides 200w of energy, however doesn’t appear to be an e-bike or hinder you in any approach, is fairly compelling then.
The model I examined is £6499 with the wonderful Shimano Ultegra Di2 groupset, is essentially as anticipated when it comes to spec, aside from a sprinkling of dietary supplements, the obvious being the Praxis chainset. For me, Praxis makes a really first rate chainset, so while that is probably an financial transfer on Canyon’s half, it appears to be like sensible and positively received’t detract from the graceful and dependable shifting you’d count on from Shimano at this lofty stage within the vary.
(Picture credit score: Future / Andy Carr)
Specification
Nonetheless, this isn’t low-cost for an Ultegra outfitted bike, however the motor and remaining specification begins to appear to be good worth while you begin totting it up. The complete spec is definitely fairly spectacular, in that you just get a correct deep part DT Swiss ERC 1400’s in 45m depth. Shod with Schwalbe’s wonderful Professional One TLE, in 32mm. There’s room for 35mm if you wish to go wider.
The wheels on my bike had been topic to the broadly revealed DT Swiss recall. I took my possibilities for the needs of the assessment, and skilled no issues. I’ve made no secret that I’m a giant fan of DTSwiss merchandise, and regardless of a niggling doubt that the entrance or rear may explode at any minute, I had completely no issues with them through the take a look at interval.
(Picture credit score: Future / Andy Carr)
The bike comes with Canyon’s personal built-in bar and stem and a Canyon S15 VCLS 2.0 CF seat pin in 27.2mm diameter, which flexes as much as 20mm, to present added vertical compliance and an built-in entrance and rear lighting system. The latter is neatly built-in into the seat stays, whereas the previous packs a good punch and may be very inconspicuous, slung below and simply forward of the elegant and sporty trying carbon bar arrange. So punchy in actual fact, it’s the smallest bike gentle in the marketplace to evolve with the German StVZO normal.
All of the cables are stowed away neatly, as is now the norm at this stage, regardless of protestations from each mechanic on god’s earth. All advised, you’d be laborious pressed to identify if this was an ebike in any respect.
(Picture credit score: Future / Andy Carr)
The battery offers 292wh and is expandable for longer excursions, however that ought to equate to 2000m of climbing, and round 60km. With some cautious planning, that’s an extended day trip, or a few legendary cols earlier than you’re out of juice and by yourself. The load of all that is maybe essentially the most spectacular stat on the sheet, at below 11kg for the bike I examined. The highest spec one is available in comfortably below 10kg.
The traditional Endurace is available in a great deal of sizes, together with a 2XS and 3XS with 650b wheels for smaller riders. I’m unsure Canyon will get sufficient credit score for that, because it’s a outstanding outlier available in the market. Additionally they historically cater for a much bigger rider additionally, and plenty of of their fashions are available in 62cm or equal, making the model the one boxed bike choice for a lot of earlier than going customized. Right here in powered type, it provides the Endurace On:fly in simply seven sizes from 2XS as much as 2XL which remains to be higher than many. And spectacular given the area of interest this bike sits in.
Efficiency
I labored with a gifted engineer referred to as David Barnes for years on numerous customized frames, and he all the time used to say ‘sluggish is quick’. What he meant by that was that for us regular folks who aren’t hitting podiums at native crit races, detuned highway bike geometry was all the time going to be quickest, and extra pleasurable for many of us.
The Endurace:ONfly CF 8 contains a comparatively brief, but not overly brief, wheelbase of 1016mm, with a head angle of 72 levels and a path worth of 67mm. That’s what David would name, sluggish however quick. Right here it delivers some very steady dealing with, and while there’s a little bit of wheelflop, a slight hesitation, then a way of some instability when the factor does flip, it’s not sluggish and after just some rides you quickly get used to its unflappable journey high quality. Certainly, it begins to really feel fairly easy when it comes to the thought required to handle the bike, and I believe David was proper all alongside, because the bike does really feel like a really nippy bike, helped in fact by the tail-wind offered by the TQ system.
(Picture credit score: Future / Andy Carr)
The seat put up cushions the worst of the bumps, however regardless of having a body filled with strengthening plys to make room for battery doorways, and numerous different e-clobber, the body can be very snug in use. The bolted-together BB, full with a motor that’s solely in regards to the dimension of your fist, by the way, feels very stable too. Regardless of the sluggish steering geometry, following a line is nice and flattering, fairly than bland or imprecise.
(Picture credit score: Future / Andy Carr)
So to the motor. And that is the actual story right here, in that it’s good. It doesn’t make e-bike sounds, someway, and it arms over to your pedalling so easily that you would be able to’t actually inform when the help is on or off. That is particularly necessary if you happen to’re racing your mates up a hill, killing them together with your ghostly professional bike energy, however then heading to the flat. On a heavier, or draggier system, you’d be getting slapped round on the flats as your mates cease preventing gravity, and begin pushing on, nullifying your star efficiency on the climbs and making you want you possibly can jettison the additional weight.
Right here is the place the place e-bikes actually wanted to reach, and within the Endurace:ONfly they definitely have. When you’ve tried e-road and hated it, I’d encourage you to go once more, and get one in all these to play with. As soon as you are taking the macho out of biking, the thought of an everlasting tail wind is great, and in apply that’s precisely what it’s. To those that say it’s dishonest, I’d argue they’re lacking the purpose considerably as that is an enabling know-how, not a rip-off.
(Picture credit score: Future / Andy Carr)
You may journey, because it says within the advertising, ‘Additional and Sooner’, and if you happen to’re not racing anybody, the place’s the hurt in that? In any case, folks spend 1000’s to avoid wasting a handful of watts, right here you purchase 200w, in a single hit. And also you don’t have to go close to a wind tunnel to show the advantages.
Using this bike has been an enormous quantity of enjoyable, flattering in all the great methods, fulfilling for the sheer lack of effort wanted to show over a superb few miles with relative ease, and for the chance to get out on one thing new in biking that truly strikes the dial.
Worth
And so to the fee. £6.5k is a giant chunk of change for a bicycle. We can’t get away from that. My Ducati price me a 3rd of that, albeit at almost 30 years previous and in a number of bits so it’s not fairly comparable, however bike pricing continues to make me blush, particularly when I’m requested to justify worth.
When you take that apparent rigidity out of it, this bike represents distinctive worth in a world the place you should buy a motorbike with largely related gear, however with no motor and battery for a similar form of cash from virtually all the large manufacturers. That’s insanity, when you may get one that provides you a push certainly?
But it surely’s that query, that rigidity in actual fact, that’s harming e-bike’s greater than even Chinese language imports that set your flat on hearth, or the confusion between equipment like this, and the Suron your take away supply man rides.
And if roadies may discover it in themselves to forgive the sacrilege of giving up a number of the struggling, for a barely simpler journey, this bike – with the unimaginable TQ system on board – would make a ton of sense, for actually a whole bunch of road-racing followers, who love a little bit of biking on the weekends. Much more so, I feel, than a equally priced typical highway bike and it’s most likely extra snug besides.
Specs
- RRP: £6499 (as examined)
- Body: Canyon Endurace:Onfly
- Measurement: M
- Weight: 10.97kg
- Groupset: Shimano Ultegra Di2
- Crankset: Praxis
- Wheels: DT Swiss ERC1400
- Tyres: Schwalbe Professional One TLE
- Brakes: Shimano Ultegra Hydraulic
- Bar/stem: Canyon
- Seatpost: Canyon with 20mm flex
- Saddle: Fizik Arione
Logbook
- Temperature: 10-36 levels C
- Climate: Truthful climate
- Street floor: UK A and B-roads
- Route: Tarmac, rolling hills, lengthy flat sections
- Rides: 8+
- Mileage: 350km