Canyon Grail:ON

This is Canyon’s gravel bike with added power – and the result is one of the best ebikes you can buy From £4,699 canyon.com

great gravel bike – which the Canyon Grail:ON electric bike unquestionably is – is the perfect all-rounder. It features the best bits of a road bike and of a mountain bike, resulting in a bike that’s great on good road surfaces but also on poor surfaces, gravel tracks and dirt. Add a motor and a battery and you’ve got a great machine for all-day rides, even if you’re not at the peak of your fitness.

The new Canyon Grail:ON features Canyon’s Double Decker cockpit, flexible leaf-sprung VCLS 2.0 seatpost, a lightweight carbon frame and wide, high-volume tyres. Oh, and that speedy motor, which is the fourth-generation Bosch Performance Line CX Gen4 drive system.

Where the Grail:ON differs from its nonmotorised sibling is in its geometry and some of its components. First, it features a longer wheelbase – it’s about 28mm longer than the non-motorised Grail. The wider 50mm Schwalbe G-One Bite tyres provide additional comfort as well as extra stability when you’re powering over rough terrain.

AIn terms of the motor, the Bosch unit offers ample power and torque to get you up the steepest hills, on road or off. It offers four levels of assist: Eco, Tour, Sport and Turbo, and the system provides support of up to 340% of the rider’s own power. Starting our ride on a gentle but long hill, we found the lowest level of assist to be enough but as we progressed we switched up until we joined a main road and switched to Turbo. Once there, that’s where we stayed, unless we were trying to conserve battery.

Riding broken, pot-holed country lanes on a road bike can feel very jarring. But on the Canyon, it is way more comfortable. That comfort is provided by the leaf-sprung seatpost, the plush 50mm tyres – which do a good job of soaking up the bumps and cracks of rural roads – and the gel-cushioned Fizik saddle.

The Canyon Grail:ON is the perfect allrounder ebike. It would make an ideal commuting machine but if you spot an interesting-looking gravel path leading off your route you’re free to explore with the knowledge that it will take you wherever you want to go.

It’s not the cheapest option on the market but you’re getting a seriously well-specced bike for your money. If you opt for a cheaper model to save a couple of grand, you may be forever casting envious glances at the Grail:ON.