CANYON SPECTRAL:ON CFR
The sleekness of a half-fat e-bike with the juice of a 900Wh battery... is this Spectral for real?
£8,649 / Mx(29/27.5in) / canyon.com
Catch a glance of the new Spectral:on from the right angle, and you’d be hard pushed to tell it’s a fullpowered e-bike. Yes, the Shimano EP8 motor cradled under the smooth carbon frame is a tell-tale sign, but there’s no denying that the profile of Canyon’s latest creation has more in common with low-powered designs like the Orbea Rise and Specialized Turbo Kenevo SL.
Don’t be deceived by the Canyon’s sleek exterior though. With a massive 900Wh battery concealed inside the down tube, the Spectral:on really is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. And with all of that cellular energy packed into the frame, you could be forgiven for thinking it’s a heavyweight e-bike designed simply to ease range anxiety at the expense of handling. Well, that couldn’t be further from the truth. At 22.75kg the new Spectral:on CFR is only marginally heavier than the 630Wh model it replaces, while still delivering an additional 275Wh of juice. That’s equivalent to adding a range extender at very little extra cost, at least on the scales. Sling in the 720Wh battery option and the latest version is actually lighter than the old design. Impressive, given the increase in range.
So how did Canyon manage to leapfrog the limitations of current e-bike tech? It started with the battery. By taking a custom approach, albeit one that gets Shimano’s seal of approval, Canyon could start to think outside the box. Or, more to the point, change the shape of the box that contains the battery cells. By switching to a flatter/ wider battery design and arranging the cell horizontally, Canyon was able to achieve a more compact battery design and that streamlined frame profile which avoids a disproportionately deep down tube.
The second step was to change how the battery is removed. We already know that simply adding a small door to the down tube for internal storage typically adds about 250g to the weight of the front triangle. So think about how much extra material is needed if the cutaway has to be big enough to accommodate a battery? It’s why sliding the battery in through the end of the down tube is a much better idea as it minimises the size of the cutaway to better retain the overall integrity of the frame without increasing the weight. It’s what Specialized and Whyte have been doing for years, so it makes sense for Canyon to follow suit.
An additional advantage to this approach is that by rotating the motor up, you can place the battery in front of the motor, rather than on top of it. This is really important when trying to maximise battery capacity and keep weight lower in the frame. Space inside the down tube is limited after all, which is why the maximum battery size on the size Small Spectral:on is 720Wh, while you can choose to run either the 900Wh (4.75kg) or the 720Wh (3.84kg) on the three larger sizes. This also explains why the size Small bike is £250 cheaper.
Granted, removing the battery on the new Canyon is now more complicated than before, and isn’t quite as straightforward as Specialized’s system. First you unhook a strap that holds the protective frame/motor cover in place, which reveals the two hex bolts that secure the battery. Remove the bolts, disconnect the power cord from the Rosenberger self-locating magnetic charger port and the battery slides out. On Specialized’s e-bikes, you simply unscrew one hex bolt and the battery and protective cover slide out together. That said, with 300Wh of extra juice on the Canyon, you won’t need to remove the battery as often, if at all.
Similar designs tend to share similar problems though, so I wasn’t that surprised when I smacked the Canyon’s motor cover on a rock and the cable that connects the motor to the battery popped out and the lights went out. Specialized has since added an extra latch which also adds extra sealing, but the latch tends to break off easily, so that’s not a great fix either.