LUKE’S CANYON STRIVE CFR UNDERDOG £4,949 (+ shipping)

Can this flat-out race bike bring the grins on slower, more moderate trails, too?

On paper, Canyon’s latest Strive CFR is my ideal bike, with its geometry, travel and intended use all being exactly what I’m looking for.

This race-specific enduro bike dishes out 160mm of rear-wheel travel. It’s got a slack 63-degree head angle, 435mm chainstays and a slammed bottom bracket, which sits 36mm below the wheel axles. I’ve gone for the small size and currently have the reach set to 460mm, which is the longest option. (By changing headset cups, you can drop this to 455mm or 450mm.) These numbers are close to what

I think is ideal for my 173cm height, and the low BB is something I’m really interested to get a feel for. What’s more, the bike has added versatility, courtesy of Canyon’s ‘Shapeshifter’ mechanism. This raises the BB by 15mm and steepens the head and seat tube angles by 1.5 degrees. It also firms up the leverage ratio and limits travel to 140mm, giving the bike better pedalling and mellow-trail performance.

Spec-wise the CFR Underdog isn’t coming up short. It features Shimano’s 12-speed Deore XT M8100 drivetrain and four-pot XT MT8120 brakes, plus a Fox Float X2 Performance shock and 170mm-travel 38 Performance Elite, Maxxis tyres and DT Swiss wheels. The only issue I’ve picked up on so far that I don’t like is the 20 degrees of freehub rotation from the DT Swiss 370 hubs.

On the trails, this bike thrives on speed. The slack, low frame hunkers down in corners and gives an incredibly stable platform to carve turns on. In its ‘descend’ mode, it can feel a little underwhelming in the current wet and slow conditions, where it’s hard to ride fast enough to take full advantage of the capability I can feel lurking underneath. I’m looking forward to drier weather and opening the taps.

In the meantime, though, the Shapeshifter is proving useful for more than just climbing. It turns the Strive into a slightly podgy but fun trail bike, with the same snappy chainstays and moderate reach, but a steeper 64.5-degree head angle and 20mm less travel, bringing another dimension to slower winter riding. Two bikes in one – what a bargain!