Canyon’s new carbon Strive CFR looks remarkably similar to the enduro bike of the same name that Jack Moir rode to an EWS World Champ title, but hidden inside are all of the custom tweaks that made Moir’s bike faster than stock. Now that Canyon has dedicated long-travel 29er trail & park bikes, their Strive was finally given the free rein to be a full-fledged enduro race bike.
2022 Canyon Strive CFR enduro race bike
No all-mountain or freeride compromises, the new Strive CFR is simply built for speed between the tape.
The new carbon Strive CFR is an all-around faster race bike. Now bigger, more aggressive, more progressive & more stable at speed than the big trail Spectral, it doesn’t have to settle as an all-day all-mountain bike. And now longer & slacker than the freeride Torque, it doesn’t have to be playful over tabletops or so heavy-duty to survive repeated bikepark crashes.
The new Strive CFR is still a 29er, but now pairs longer 160mm rear wheel travel to 170mm from beefy 38mm stanchion forks. After years as being Canyon’s only real long-travel 29er and being tasked with being a Jack-of-all-trades, now the bike returns to its roots as a dedicated race bike, designed solely to bomb down natural descents, pedal fast over rolling trails, and climb steadily back up for the next timed segment. Whether you need a bike to race the EWS, your nearby enduro series, or just to crush your friends on local trail segments, this new bike cares only about setting new personal best times.
More aggressive geometry
Some of what helped carry the old Strive to the top of EWS races were pro race CLLCTV Enduro team-only customizations to the bike’s travel, ride height & head angle. Now, the new Strive CFR gets all of Jack Moir’s & Fabien Barel’s tweaks right out of Canyon’s signature direct-to-consumer bike box.
Much of what has changed in the bike is new, more progressive geometry focused solely on speed. The new bike is slacker up front at the 63° headtube, it gets up to 40mm longer reach & longer wheelbase, and maintains the same low stack heights even with more travel. Out back, the new Strive CFR gets a super steep 76.5/78° seattube for getting back uphill, and the same short 435mm chainstays for maneuverability, balanced with the longer front center for high-speed stability.
And lest you feel like you miss out on pro-level adjustability, Canyon gives the new bike 10mm of reach adjust at the headset with 3-position (+/-5mm) inserts. Use it to tweak the geometry to your liking, or to dial in the ideal fit as Canyon says there is now more size overlap allowing many riders to size up or down, thanks to lower standover and long travel dropper posts.
Updated Shapeshifter 2.0
The heart of the Strive is still an updated Shapeshifter 2.0 that switches from Pedal mode to Shred mode at the touch of a button next to your dropper.
While the little Shapeshifter adds a bit of complexity & weight, it adds huge versatility giving the bike two different ride characters – with 1.5° steeper angles and 15mm of bottom bracket height shift.
But now thanks to revised suspension kinematics, a slacker head angle & steeper seat angle, Canyon says the Shapeshifter is even more effective. They’ve even shifted away from just calling it XC for up & DH for down. Now, Shred mode is for flying down the roughest trails. Yet the new Pedal mode benefits more from modern geometry shifts, making it an efficient climber, but also a responsive and playful mode for rolling trails & less technical descents.
Suspension kinematics
Suspension leverage ratios in Canyon’s signature Triple Phase suspension look mostly unchanged, simply stretched out to benefit from the longer travel of the new Strive – up 10mm to 160mm in the new Shred mode & up 13mm to 140mm in the new Pedal mode. But Canyon does emphasize that much of that new travel comes right at the beginning of the shock stroke for more small bump sensitivity to help find grip, especially as the bike is hooking back up with the ground.
There’s significantly more anti-squat for increased pedaling efficiency in Pedal mode through the first half of travel, before opening up more late in its travel.
On the other hand, at sag the new Shred mode has even less anti-squat support than ever, dropping to almost half of what the old bike saw through full travel for less pedal kickback as you burn through the suspension on the roughest trails.
Tech Details
The new, bigger Strive CFR frame weighs a claimed 2700g with the Shapeshifter (without a rear shock). Interestingly, that makes the new CFR frame 300g heavier than the old CFR or the same weight as the old CF frame (which has not been updated), or just 100g heavier than a 10mm shorter travel Spectral 29 trail bike.
But with that extra weight comes a big 25% stiffness boost in the front triangle, through generally wider & boxier tubing shapes, an asymmetric lower shock mount, and improved carbon layup inside. But the rear end still builds in a little give to help maintain traction, something the CLLCTV Enduro team really liked. There is also a bit of rear end stiffness improvement, thanks to moving the horst link pivot below the rear axle with straighter chainstays for extra lateral stiffness.
Even though it is super slack & fast, and meant to be raced hard, it is rated for Canyon’s enduro Category 4, not the gravity Category 5 of park bikes and DH bikes. Canyon says that was a concern to keep the bike light, and means it is meant to “handle nearly any natural feature out on the hill” which seems to distinctly NOT include man-made features.
The new enduro race bike features a 73mm BSA threaded bottom bracket, removable ISCG tabs, max 34T chainring, Boost thru-axle spacing & 30.9mm seatpost.
The new Strive CFR has molded downtube & chainstay protectors, open foam-lined internal cable routing with removable cable ports, a universal derailleur hanger, 2-bolt storage mount under the toptube, and room for a 750ml bottle on M/L/XL frames. Tire clearance is a real 66mm – effectively, 2.5″ on most modern wheels.
2022 Canyon Strive CFR – Pricing, options & availability
Just two complete bike builds of the new Strive CFR are available now globally (everywhere except the US) in Carbon/Silver or Grey/Orange, each with Shapeshifters and Canyon G5 alloy cockpits with G5 droppers.
The 5000€ Strive CFR Underdog is the workhorse of the two with a 170mm Fox 38 Performance Elite Grip2 fork, X2 Performance shock, Shimano XT group with 4-piston brakes, and DT Swiss EX511 rims on 370 LN hubs for a total weight of 16.04kg
The simply named Strive CFR is the top-tier $7300 / 6300€ race build with Fox 38 & X2 Factory suspension, XTR group with 4-piston brakes & RaceFace Next R carbon cranks, and DT EX511 rims laced to 350 Ratchet EXP hubs at a claimed 15.84kg complete. US enduro racers will have to wait until fall when this one Strive CFR complete makes it across the Atlantic.
A special edition bike – likely a CLLCTV team build – is already in the works. But as it is a race-only bike, Canyon doesn’t seem to have a more affordable CF carbon or even alloy iteration in the pipeline at the moment.
