Canyon inflite- do it all

haydenm

Hi guys, still struggling with my new bike conundrum. I accept that there may be some fairly hefty compromises in this but here goes.

I've been looking for a new 'summer best' bike to replace my Supersix with Prime 38s (needs a groupset upgrade really, no other reason to replace it than I want to). The new bike will also need to be adapted to do an occasional long road based bikepacking races so I was looking for discs, tyre clearance and through axles. I'm happy to ride an aggressive position on long rides, maybe swapping some spacers about. Started looking at the Cervelo R3 disc which fits the bill.

Now, I'm also ideally located to ride big 'gravel' loops from the house here in the Borders, the roads are generally rubbish, and the odd CX race appeals. I've read a lot (and watched the GCN videos) that a CX bike with slick tyres wouldn't be a whole lot slower on the road (bearing in mind that I still have the supersix if I ever wanted to race crits or road properly). I'm now tempted to get hold of a Canyon inflite carbon and a spare set of Prime 38 discs with 28s on for road duties, keeping the stock heavier wheels with wide tyres. There are two options; a nice one with carbon reynolds, integrated bar/stem and Sram force:
https://www.canyon.com/en-gb/road/infli ... -race.html

Or

A cheaper one with Sram Rival, normal bar/stem and heavier wheels:
https://www.canyon.com/en-gb/road/infli ... -race.html

I'm tempted for the nice one and no spare set of Primes, but then I'd likely be swapping tyres rather than wheels which is a total pain. Plus the bar/stem integration might be a pain if I wanted flared bars or to experiment with cockpits.

So the question is, do I
1. Buy the Cervelo and stop being silly
2. Buy the cheap Canyon and some Primes for the ultimate winter/off road/summer do it all bike
3. Buy the expensive Canyon and swap tyres every ten minutes

All three are lighter than the supersix by a fair way (apart from the cheap canyon with stock wheels), being short and 60kg I like climbing more than anything else, I'd expect them to be faster up hills due to weight unless I'm mistaken?

I could get a canyon endurance and get a gravel wheelset for it but as soon as I put off road tyres on a bike it gets thoroughly abused, I'd rather stay the right side of the warranty but I don't know if that is a consideration or not. The inflite with 28s, a decent saddle and some spacers would be fine for long distance road races right...?

Any other suggestions for bikes which might fit the bill?

Cheers

bendertherobot

It's hard to know how road comfy it will be OR how much actual clearance it has. But if you're happy with 28c/35c then, providing it's comfy, it's a good choice.

In terms of weight, I'd be surprised if either were lighter than your 6 in a "fair way" perhaps a bit. My Ultegra 6 is sub 7kg.

On weight, I assume most of the "best" Canyon saving would be in the wheels. The two wheel option looks good.

Have you considered the gearing though?

haydenm

bendertherobot wrote:

It's hard to know how road comfy it will be OR how much actual clearance it has. But if you're happy with 28c/35c then, providing it's comfy, it's a good choice.

In terms of weight, I'd be surprised if either were lighter than your 6 in a "fair way" perhaps a bit. My Ultegra 6 is sub 7kg.

On weight, I assume most of the "best" Canyon saving would be in the wheels. The two wheel option looks good.

Have you considered the gearing though?

My supersix is the cheapy tiagra/fsa version so I’ve been quite tempted by the CRC ultegra deals at the moment.

I’ll double check tyre clearance too but I would expect 35 would be good enough for gravel epics, especially if I went tubeless but I don’t know for sure

bendertherobot

There's a thread on clearance on road.cc (well the news piece) where the clearance question is asked. 35c is ok but for proper gravel wider is better. If you're happy with up to 37c or so then a discounted SuperX would be the obvious competitor, but, arguably, that would need two sets of wheels bought.

haydenm

bendertherobot wrote:

There's a thread on clearance on road.cc (well the news piece) where the clearance question is asked. 35c is ok but for proper gravel wider is better. If you're happy with up to 37c or so then a discounted SuperX would be the obvious competitor, but, arguably, that would need two sets of wheels bought.

All the reviews I have seen say ‘plenty of space for wider tyres’, and I’ve says space for 40s so I should be fine. I could get some 40s then swap back to stock for deep muddy rides.

On the gearing front, are new chainrings for Quarq prime cranks easy to get hold of? Happy to swap out cassettes and find a combo that works. Being a very keen enduro/dh mtb rider disc brakes and 1x make me happy!