CANYON TORQUE 29 AL 6

Can the new aluminium Torque walk the walk when the trails get rowdy?

£3,299 • 29in • canyon.com

Just what is the Canyon Torque 29 for, exactly? Look at it one way and it’s clearly a park bike, with 170mm travel front and rear, Maxxgrip Maxxis tyres and big-hit DT Swiss FR2070 wheels. Take an alternative look though and you’ll see the super-steep and pedal-friendly seat tube angle, 29in wheels front and rear, and you might be tempted to use it as an enduro race bike. (You’d have to change those tyres for most UK trails, though.)

The fact is, Canyon has built the new aluminium version of the Torque to wear many hats, from shuttling in the Alps to heavy trail bike duty, and everything in between. It brand already has a dedicated enduro bike in the Strive, and a downhill bike called the Sender, and the Torque is really there to be every bike to every rider. That’s the marketing spiel anyway, but we’re here to get to the truth of it and figure out what task the Torque can best be turned to.

The new bike launched in carbon-only in 2022, and the recent addition of the alloy version here shares much of its geometry and features. The Torque 29 AL 6 is claimed to be stiffer than the old 27.5in bike it replaces, and also 200g lighter, with updated tubing profiles, although 200g more would have made zero difference to its overall weight. We’ll get to all that in a minute.

Canyon has made the geometry more aggressive, building in a slacker head angle, steeper seat tube, generous reach and longer wheelbase too. All standard upgrades for any bike in 2022. There’s no flip-chip to tune it all with though, standard on the carbon bike. Instead you potentially get the best of both worlds because Canyon has fixed the head angle at the low setting, and the seat tube angle in the steep orientation. I measured it up at 63.4° for the head angle, and 79.8° for the effective seat angle with the saddle at 750mm from the centre of the BB. Very slack and very steep then, in that order.

It’s a big bike too. In size XL, Canyon has been generous with the bike’s geometry and sizing and it stands up well compared with the competition. The reach on my size XL measured up north of 500mm, which is spot on for the size, and the wheelbase crept over 1,300mm, which puts it about on par with the biggest S5 Enduro from Specialized.

It’s a four-bar linkage bike, just like the carbon model, but the alloy frame

Canyon has built this new aluminium version to wear many hats