Canyon Ultimate WMN CF SLX

Canyon has finally decided that, yes, women do need their own race bike

- Susannah Osborne

In the four years since British Cycling launched its women’s initiative, there has been a 72% increase in the number of women holding a race licence. This is good news for bike manufacturers, especially those serving the performance end of the market.

Canyon has been a committed sponsor of professional women’s cycling since 2016, yet until now its women’s bikes were simply ‘unisex frames’ offered with gender specific touches such as saddle and bar choice. In May this year, however, the German brand launched its first women-specific frames engineered ‘100% around women who ride’.

The Ultimate WMN bikes feature what the company calls its women-specific Sport Pro geometry, and at the top of the new four-bike range is this Ultimate WMN CF SLX Disc 9.0 Team CSR, resplendent in the team colours of the Canyon/Sram professional women’s racing team. And compared to many women’s bikes, this one features an impressively high spec, headlined by a Sram Red eTap HRD wireless groupset and Reynolds Assault LE Carbon wheels.

All change

These are interesting times in the women’s cycling market. In June this year, after nearly two decades spent flying the flag for women-specific geometry, Specialized ditched its women-specific Amira and launched a new, non-gender-specific Tarmac SL6 featuring ‘new performance geometry for people [not genders]’.

Canyon has taken the opposite approach and decided that women do need specific geometry, pointing to the differences between male and female riders. Women tend to have shorter arms, shorter stature, lighter weight and greater pelvic flexibility, all of which necessitate a gender-specific platform, the company says.