Canyon has released its new Ultimate CFR, its lightest ever ‘UCI-legal’ disc brake bike.
The Canyon Ultimate CF SLX bike has already been one of the most successful lightweight race bikes in the professional peloton. It has taken some of the biggest victories in world cycling including overall wins at the Giro d’Italia, Vuelta a Espana and a World Championships.
The new Ultimate CFR will now be the go-to climbing race bike for the Movistar teams and Canyon-Sram women’s team. Canyon has dropped further weight from its Ultimate CF SLX platform, shaving around 300g off the bike’s total weight. Canyon is calling it a ‘genre-defying collaboration between engineers and athletes’.
The new CFR range has made these gains by using ground broken by Canyon’s ‘benchmark-setting’ Ultimate CF Evo Disc. At 6.16kg for a medium it is still the lightest production disc brake bike you can buy, albeit one that is too light to be raced upon in the pro ranks.
The new CFR, like the CF Evo Disc before it, has been developed with ‘ultra-high modulus pitch-based carbon fibre’ material initially developed by the Japanese Ministry of Defence.
Mixed in with more traditional carbon fibre moduli, Canyon has achieved a featherweight frame weight of 675g and fork weight of 285g – that while light, also passes durability and brake stress testing.
Interestingly, the standard, complete Ultimate CFR build that can be bought by the punter from Canyon still comes in at under the UCI weight limit of 6.8kg, topping the scales at a claimed weight of 6.5kg.
Skimming in under the legal weight means that once the likes Alejandro Valverde and Kasia Niewiadoma add on power metres, bottles and some ballast to the bottom bracket, they should have a bike that is dead on the 6.8kg target.
It also means that us consumers can buy an off-the-peg bike from Canyon that dips below the weight of what the pros will be using without having to rely on any elaborate components.
That’s because the new Canyon Ultimate CFR Disc, despite a weight of 6.5kg, comes with a fairly conventional build comprised of a Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 groupset, 50mm deep-section DT Swiss ARC 1100 DICUT wheels, Canyon’s own integrated cockpit and seatpost and Fizik’s 3D-printed Antares Versus Evo R1 adaptive saddle.
Being Canyon, it also comes with a fairly palatable price tag (when meaured against similar competitors) of £7,149 and looks to be available in a silver colourway.
There will also be a full build option that uses a Campagnolo Super Record EPS groupset and shallower DT Swiss PRC 1100 25Y anniversary wheels that weighs a claimed 6.2kg. It costs slightly more at £8,499 and will be available in black.
Further, for the real ‘weight-weenies’, Canyon has released a frameset option built with Canyon’s own 270g CP0020 cockpit and Schmolke 1K carbon seatpost that weighs in at 1.5kg and will cost £3,299.
All three options are available to order from Canyon already and can be found here.
