Canyon Endurace CF 8 £2,199 | 8.5kg

Simon Smythe hails a mile-muncher that makes few sacrifices to speed

- Simon Smythe

CANYON ALUMINIUM BAR AND STEM

The swap ability of the cockpit elements and the external cable routing will please a lot of people - but watch out for the non-standard 1 %A in steerer and corresponding stem

ENDURACE CF DISC FRAME

This frame is made from a more basic grade of carbon than that of the Endurance CF SL and SLX. However, this bike's all-up weight of 8.5kg is not bad for a disc-brake bike at this price

FULCRUM RACING 900 DB WHEELS

These are listed on Fulcrum's website as suitable for road and gravel, have 28 spokes per wheel and weigh just under 2kg. With an internal rim width of 19mm, they're not up with the modern wide wheels. An upgrade would save weight and add responsiveness

The Canyon Endurace has always been half endurance bike and half race bike. The clue is in the name. This model, from the newly updated affordable end of the range, still manages to splice the two categories together very impressively, but now there’s more of an emphasis on all-road capability, with bigger tyre clearance and more robust wheels that are suitable for gravel. So although the Endurace CF 8 is a thoroughly modern bike with a killer spec for the money, it has swapped a little bit of nimbleness for toughness.

Canyon relaunched the Endurace CF – its entry-level carbon endurance bike range – at the beginning of this year. It was out with what was left of rim-brake and women-specific bikes and in with a redesigned and simplified disc-only lineup with a broader unisex size range.