Canyon Nerve XC Review

Over the royal wedding weekend I escaped to Scotland for a few days riding with friend and girl. To be honest I had very little involvement with the logistics so it was a bit like a package deal for me, with a bill at the end. We rode the Lake District on the way up - long techy climbs, loose rock descents some wind assisted single track. Then from our cabin near Dalbeattie we rode Kirroughtree, Innerleithen, Glentress and on the last day Dalbeattie - It was a bit of a trail centre bonanza. Unlike the centres in South Wales the trail centres in Scotland are far more varied and generally steeper and more technical than their southern cousins - some are very wild and natural others like Glentress are very engineered with high berms and rollers. In short (ish) a good mix and the new bike got a thorough hammering.

Four Day Weekend!

Its worth noting my previous bike was a Santa Cruz Heckler 150mm front and rear so this my frame of reference in terms of testing the Canyon - you would probably have a different perspective if your previous bike was a carbon hardtail or a Brompton commuter so its worth noting before I start.

So The Canyon - Day one was the Lakes - the day started with a rocky climb, the Canyon was really composed climbing in the saddle and the rear was plush and active when picking over the cobbled trail. At just under 26lb it is pretty light for a 120mm trail bike not mega light but not a fatty by any means.

After a long grind up the trail, we headed along some flat winding singletrack. Having ridden a slacker more sprung bike the taught Canyon was really fun, light stiff and just enough suspension the bike was engaging and efficient to hammer the flats.

The last descent was rocky and loose, I felt a bit more out of my depth as the Canyon is fairly low at the front. Having ridden trail centres for ages riding over loose cobbles was a bit of an experience, bike ok, disappointed with lack of confidence, partly bike position, partly me I think.

Next day we rode Kirroughtree, this trail has a bit of everything and would be a great litmus test for any trail bike its epic. If you haven't ridden Kirroughtree you should, every descent is followed by a sprint climb and it just encourages you to stay on the gas the whole way round. Bike held up great, the shifting is great and you really need it, constantly cranking up the hills whilst changing gears, the XO shifts held up really well and the 10 speed cassette is great, one more gear when you really need it.

While the low BB is great in the corners you just lock in, its awesome on the bends, props to the Nobby Nics they hold up really well, ace all round tyre. The downside is I clipped the pedals and cranks all the time, I got the hang of it after a while and got better at timing the pedalling. Its a trade off but worth it I think. The carbon cranks now look very secondhand now though.

I will try and stay on topic - Wheels: the wheels are Mavic Crossmax ST they are light and really stiff, paired with the low BB and the 15mm front axle they are somewhat of an equipment highlight stiff and light, they accelerate good and they corner good through the rough stuff - you can't really ask for much more from wheels, the freewheel is nice and quiet too.

The rear shock is really plush, I think the Fox F32 FIT needs more time, its stiff and light but I don't think I have had the best out of it yet.

Descending - Im a fan of wide bars, the Canyon has 685mm EA70 bars, they are ok but they are going, the narrow bars and the long stem might be changed for a shorter / wider setup then I think it will be all good. I wasn't missing it most of the time but on some of the faster stuff particularly at Glentress and Innerleithen I wanted a bit more high speed stability.

Ok to wrap up - For 99% of the riding we did - all good trail type riding the bike was superb, only on a few of the really fast downhills did I want a bit more stability - slacker head angle / wider bars / shorter stem - but there is always a compromise. I was surprised how little difference the travel made to the ride and I think with some wider bars it will be the perfect allround trail sled - the Canyon Nerve XC is as good as it looks on paper. If you think your currently riding too much bike and thinking of changing to a lighter shorter travel set up you probably should - I have no regrets and climbs don't suck as much anymore.

Sorry for the lack of photos - the weather was THIS good and no one wanted to stop riding - will do better next time.

Canyon Nerve XC - its arrived

My previous bike a Santa Cruz Heckler was nicked, rather than just replace it I thought I would use the opportunity to try something a little different. My 6" Heckler was around 30lb and probably a bit too much bike for most of my general trail riding duties so I thought I would go with something a little more svelte.

After weighing up the options I had pretty much settled on a Specialized Camber - good looking, reasonable weight and the price was in the ball park. Despite wrestling with some figures and finding some good deals on groupsets I couldn't make the numbers add up for a custom bike that was near the money wanted to spend. Then at the last minute I was referred by a friend to the Canyon Bikes website. Not the prettiest frames but not bad and the angles looked right and the spec was insane for the money. Canyon are a german brand who sell direct - hence no one can touch them on the spec. What MTB confirmed that the bike was indeed a steal and awarded it trail bike of the year. A few clicks later and a two week wait it arrived.

Cool box, very light, I opened it in front of the UPS man just to make sure they hadn't sent me a road bike.

The bike was very carefully packaged and very well protected. Traditionally the customer never sees the bike in its boxed state but as a direct seller the un-boxing and assembly is an integral part of the Canyon Bikes customer experience, and one they have considered carefully. Impressed so far.

Wheels - Mavic Crossmax ST's, very nice, complete with hideous black spoke protector behind the cassette. Despite the risk to the expensive and cool looking spokes I think this will have to go.

This is the biggest bag of manuals etc I have ever seen, the bag includes a cool plastic torque wrench for attaching the bars and a shock pump, one more for the shock pump collection then.

Just incase you forgot Canyon are a german brand. The label says 'Attention' then some other stuff I can't translate, looks important.

This is the bike fully assembled Achtung! labels removed.

Its very black. Welds look very neat and the anodised black looks stealthy and cool. The internal cabling gives the bike a clean look and a possible tricky maintenance issue later on but generally I think it looks pretty sweet, the tapered headtube is a nice future proof addition.

Given the spec for the money, the frame pretty much comes for free!

The highlight of the kit list that comes with the bike is probably the XO group. Im really stoked they put the black logo stuff on it. On the website it comes with blue logos.

I took a short lap of the local trails to check it out before it got dark. First impressions are good, the bike is really light - It weighs around 25 / 26lb so pretty good for a 120mm trail bike, staggering for a £2200 trail bike really. The bike feels eager up the hills, the XO shifting is great, the range on the 10 speed rear cassette is noticeably better than 9 more so than I expected, I hardly used the front mech, which is a bit of a waste as the front shifting is the best I have ever experienced, SRAM have done some great things with the front rings and shifting ramps, very impressive.

I can't really comment on the suspension yet, both are top end fox units but they need some bedding in, and I need to read the manuals. 

First big outing next weekend so Ill write a proper review then.. rather than just what it looks like.

Hut to Hut Backcountry Biking Days 2 & 3

Please check out Singletrack Issue 65 I sent in some stuff to them a while ago, it comes out on the 21st April in the UK. They are a independent so I don't want to put the story up until a while after that comes out. Maybe go and buy it on the way back from a bike ride?  Ill put some more pics up at some point but from now on ill try and write about current stuff -summer is coming and so is my new bike, woo!

Hut to Hut Backcountry Biking Day 1

From Fruita we headed out to what would either be the best part of the road trip or a 3 day nightmare death march. 3 days of self guided biking across the Colorado wilderness.

We booked the trip from Colorado Backcountry Biker a couple of weeks before we left. On booking we got sent a big document with a bunch of maps, directions, what to bring and what to expect. 

The format is really cool and ideal for what we wanted to do. You have what you need with you for a long day in the saddle - spare tubes, tools energy bars etc and when you arrive at the hut (assuming you can find it) is your bedding and a cool box full of fresh food and ice cold beer. 

It sounded great - ride backcountry singletrack all day long without carrying a ton of stuff and finish each day with food and beer.

Day 1 - Meet the Kevin aka 'The Hut Guy' at 7am with all our kit before setting off. He talked us through the route, the expected weather etc before slinging the bikes in the back of his truck and heading off into the hills. The first day was supposed to be pretty easy a 15 miler with some great singletrack to ease us into it gently. Kevin had other ideas and didn't want to "make it too easy" for us and dropped us at the bottom of a six mile climb to get us into the swing of things.

The first climb was pretty tough but the views were great, it was a strange feeling riding into the middle of nowhere with a list of directions and maps to get us safely to the hut, I hoped the directions were correct, failure was not an option!

The first taste of singletrack was not a disappointment about 4 miles of winding singletrack through a shady woodland area. The weather was sunny but not too hot and the trails were perfect.

 A few fire road climbs and some more tasty singletrack later we came to a beaver dam. I have never seen a beaver before let alone walked across a beaver dam. What if they are home?

As you can see from the angle of the photo I had to cross the dam first. Thankfully the dam was fairly solid and no beavers were home. Weather still looking good as well. 

After the beaver dam the trail cruises along in the open for a while before kicking uphill sharply. After a long and technical climb, the final climb of the day, the trail opens out. The last 2 miles is a long cruise out in the open on the top of the plateau. 

Assuming the directions are correct the hut should be around here somewhere. 1 complete, the singletrack was epic and the navigation went without a hitch. 

The hut was clean and fully stocked with everything you could want in the high calorie food department, perfect.

Beer and burgers x2 coming up!

The hut was carefully stocked with books and magazines containing articles about the local area, I went to sleep thinking about Anasazi indians hiding in cliff top fortresses. Big day tomorrow.

18 Road Trails Fruita CO.

There is a ton of good trails in and around the Fruita area. We wondered into a few bike shops before setting off (we had no clue where the trails were). Over The Edge is the famous Fruita bike shop and is responsible for much of the trail development in the area. Here the super friendly staff, all keen bikers were eager to help out. We brought a trail guide and headed out to 18 Road trails - home to Snakes and Ladders and Zippedy Do Dah and many other great singletack gems.

The whole trail area is on a slight incline with a lower car park and an upper car park. We parked at the lower one - up hill to start, downhill finish. Once you're at the car park the network of trails is clearly marked out. The direction you ride the trails in is up to you but as you can imagine most ride better in the downhill direction.

In comparison to typical UK trails they are less technical but much faster, the surface is smooth (and dry when we where there) and very fast rolling, when the trail does get tricky you are usually carrying a ton of speed. The trails are totally engaging and flow amazingly. There are loads of sections where you are neither braking or pedalling, just hammering turns for what seems like ages. Fast flowing singletrack is my favorite type of riding and Fruita is the best place I have ever been for it.

This is a section of Zippedy Do Dah - super fast super buff singletrack rollercoaster!

Most of the trails in the 18 Road area are in a similar vein and there is a lot to choose from. They take between half an hour to an hour and a half to complete. You can join a few up to mix it up a bit but your never far from the car park if anything goes wrong. The car park is about 8km up a dirt road though so it still feels like your right out in the sticks.

We went in September but it was still really hot in the midday sun and there isn't a lot of shade. Pretty exhausting for two jet lagged brits.

On day two we hit it up before breakfast and it was really cold and clear, lots of desert animals hide away in the heat of the day. In the morning before the sun was up there were lots of deer and rabbits running around and the light is amazing. So amazing I didn't take my camera. The trade off for getting up early is forgetting important stuff because your not fully awake when getting ready. ho-hum.

After a long day in the saddle we headed back to the motel, shower, change and into town looking for food. We ended up at the Hot Tomato for pizza and beer. Its a busy little place with lots of locals in, there were not that many other options for food or drink in Fruita, its not a big place and it ain't the UK but no bother because the pizza was good and the beer was cold.

Fruita CO.

Long drive from Denver to Fruita - great scenery, long but very straightforward drive. We stayed at Balanced Rock Motel - good value, friendly staff, bike wash outside and you can take your bikes into your room - as far as a place for bikers to stay, it ticked every box.

REI in Denver

REI in Denver is massive, America does outdoor stores well. The REI in Denver even by american standards is massive and full of really cool stuff and keen knowledgable staff. We brought over $500 of stuff, cliff bars, water bottles, socks, softshell jacket, shorts, t-shirts you name it. We held off getting a load of stuff before we left because outdoor kit is significantly cheaper than the UK.

We spent the whole morning in Denver (Almost entirely in REI) then headed out to our first mountain bike destination Fruita CO - oops wrong side of the road . . thats better, off we go!