CANYON ENDURACE CF SLX DISC 9.0 LTD
c£7500 › Editor Rob has grown rather attached to his L’Étape du Tour ride
My Canyon Endurace CF SLX Disc was delivered straight from Germany courtesy of Alpecin – I was the least important member of the reader team we’ve followed in the magazine – and I, like all other Canyon ‘customers’, had some simple spannering to do to get it ride-ready.
But me and simple spannering don’t go, and I forgot a shim between the stem and steerer and crushed some carbon. Luckily, Canyon was very understanding and replaced my fork without fuss. Since then we’ve got along swimmingly. My CF SLX LTD isn’t quite standard – the Zipp 303 wheels aren’t an option on the full bike available in the UK, and the SRAM Red eTap HRD groupset [1] is augmented by a Quark DZero power meter [2]. There’s so much to like about this bike, but for me the eTap has proven to be the cherry on a very tasty cake. I’d never run a long-termer with both electronic gears and disc brakes, but I’ve been hugely impressed. The eTap has been faultless - battery life is !ne and, once you get used to it, shifting is simple and fast. The mechanical numpty in me loves that you can micro-adjust indexing on the road. I’ll also struggle to go back to rim brakes. The con!dence the SRAM discs gave me on Alpine descents was priceless.
The Endurace’s chassis is excellent too. The 820g frame o"ers plenty of long ride comfort, but is a nifty climber and nimble handler. I wasn’t initially sold on the Zipp 303s after early crosswind catches, but shod with 28mm Continental Grand Prix tyres I’ve come around to their combination of speed and comfort. I don’t want to give it back!