- [Taren] Morning trainiacs
Oh my God!
(air whooshing)
It's new bike day,
but not the new bike day that I think you're expecting.
You might be saying,
"Hey Teren, what new Ventum did you get?"
Well, I did not camp.
(upbeat music)
so, I think I know what I've got in here,
but let's open it up and take a look.
Over the course of this year, 2020 there being no races,
I've talked about going on endurance adventures.
Things different than just swim, bike, run, triathlon
over and over and over,
getting into the time trial position.
I wanna go and explore.
And yup, this is exactly what I thought it was.
What has been taking the world by storm
over the last few years?
Well, something that is very exciting for me
and hopefully, gets you into it.
It's called the mountain tyres.
This is the Canyon grail gravel bike.
So gravel bike in the simplest terms is a road bike with
mountain bike tyres.
And the idea behind it is that instead of going only
on the same roads over and over and over,
I can go on gravel roads.
I can do a little bit of off road.
I can go from roads to off road to get to another road.
And essentially just opens up the world
to sort of really good road style training.
Where I can start putting out really good power,
but being able to explore at the same time.
It's not all one or the other.
Like when I go on a fat bike ride,
it's really hard to go and do high power
because the geometry is so different.
Whereas with this,
I can go and still do really good workouts.
Tyler Mislawchuk,
who is our local Olympic hopeful for triathlon.
I think he's ranked like fifth or seventh in the world
in Olympic distance, ITU racing.
When he goes and sets up shop in Phoenix area
for three months, every single winter,
he says that they bring gravel bikes.
Because they can do all their training,
but they can go and also explore
and have some fun during the off season.
So first things first,
let's put this baby together, we get the bike stand up.
It is currently 4:41 in the PM.
I know I said morning trainiacs,
but it's really just the thing I said at this point.
And we're gonna see what the over under is.
Do you think can put this together?
It's looking pretty good, in 20 minutes or less.
I will feel very handy if I can do it in less than that.
4:42, let's go.
(upbeat music)
It comes with tools, assembly paste,
an Allen key and the different hex heads that you need here.
(tools rattling)
A little pouch, pedals, let's get it together.
(upbeat music)
Okay, so said in 20 minutes.
I was overly optimistic.
I just say things.
We are at 5:36,
so 54 minutes,
but I'm also moving the camera around a lot.
And I was starting with not having anything prepared.
I had to go and find all of my lubes and things
for putting on the pedals.
I had to decide which pedals I wanted,
had to decide which bottle cage I wanted.
Everything is really smooth.
It all like essentially all you're putting on
is handlebars, wheel, taking off all of the warning things,
lubing, the chain pedals.
You're good to go, really really quick.
Biggest complaint that I've got
is that all of these warning stickers everywhere,
they are on there.
Holy smokes, Germany engineering.
I got some work to do.
So I'm gonna take this for a wrap around,
give you the lay down of how it rides.
Cause this is going to be my first ride on a gravel bike.
And I'll answer the question about why this isn't a Ventum.
For anyone that's been around for a long time,
you know that I've been a Ventum, fan boy?
Whatever you wanna call it.
And here I am, about to take Canyon for a ride.
(upbeat music)
Okay, first order of business.
This is fun, this is super fun.
Zeroed, you go down it.
All endurance rides that have no intervals,
just be on a bike for an extended period of time
in the non-winter months, are now gravel rides.
This is like, man!
Second point, the bike is phenomenal.
I am not a tremendously good bike mechanic.
But for basically just putting a bunch of bolts together,
that are all supplied to you
and all the tools are supplied to you, it's pretty easy
to put this thing together and have it running smooth.
Disc brakes historically are a little intimidating to me,
but it's rolling.
It's rolling really nice.
Holy smokes, is that fun?
Gravel, you had me at hello.
So this year is
the Canyon Grail CF SL.
I wanna say 8.0, it's like,
it's like they're top of the line, gravel bike.
It is double handlebars here so that when you're on
the gravel, it ends up taking up some of the chatter.
The seatpost here also takes up some of the chatter,
because it's split.
It is a one by at the front and like mountain bike gearing.
Well kind of in between road
and mountain bike gearing at the back.
I ended up getting this with SRAM Force eTap.
And the reason for that is what I've found is,
as I travel a lot now, getting a bike together
and apart and together and apart as you travel,
it ends up like with mechanical or with cables,
with say Shimano Di2.
It gets really cumbersome because all these little cables
and connections get loose, they get frayed,
they get bent, they get unclipped.
So I was really spending a lot of time
while I was traveling, going to a bike shop
while I was traveling to get that fixed.
SRAM eTap it's wireless and really good.
So I wanted to go with that.
And, frankly the whole thing about this is,
this 2020 has made me think about
how monotonous triathlon training can be.
And we end up going out on the same bike on the same roads,
often doing the same intervals.
And in a lot of cases, we are like,
we're in the prime of our lives.
We're healthy, we're fit.
Why not use that health and fitness
to go on some endurance adventures and go exploring?
And with a road bike, you're pretty limited
to which roads are safe,
which roads are suitable for road biking,
ones that have shoulders.
And here in Winnipeg, that's like three roads.
But with gravel, I didn't even plan a route out there.
I just went.
And if I saw a road, I went down it.
It's like so much like bike riding when you're a kid.
I always say there are very few things that are as fun
when you're 40, as when you were four,
and riding a bike is one of them.
And gravel riding is a lot more like that.
And that whole thing is a little bit part
of why I'm riding Canyon now, not Ventum.
Let me explain.
So over this past year, I've been doing all that,
thinking about endurance adventures,
and trying some new things.
Well, I'm young and I'm healthy and able
to go exploring and do things.
Like first, Canyon for the last two years,
has always liked what we do and kept in touch.
And for the last two years,
I've always said the same thing about Canyon.
Now the final two bikes, I think are tremendous values.
When I actually found these, I was like, wow,
this is really cornering the market
for entry level triathlon bikes.
And the first one is the Canyon Speedmax CF 7.0.
So I've never not liked their bikes.
This is not a new thing.
I've really liked them.
And the thing is that this year with thinking
about wanting to do more endurance adventures and Canyon,
having a full lineup of bikes.
Meanwhile, Ventum is still building that.
I still really like the Ventum road bike.
I love the Ventum tri bike,
but it's just time to broaden out
and be able to ride a whole bunch of different bikes.
So I am going to be swapping out all my bikes,
my tri bike for the Speedmax,
the road bike for the Canyon aero road.
And I've got a deal where any bike that I wanna try,
I can swap it in and out and like review it.
So I'll be able to try the mountain bike, the enduro bike.
I'll start to be able to try some cyclocross,
which I've always wanted to do.
This is exciting.
And for anyone who's up in Canada and wondering
how I got this.
Well, they shipped it up to me as part of the sponsorship.
But they've committed to having the logistics
and the infrastructure in place,
to service Canada by spring of 2021.
And they're actively saying, if you're in Canada right now,
like don't do that thing where you shipped something
to the border and then get it over,
because they just don't have parts.
They don't have stock.
They don't have the service ability up here in Canada.
And they wanna make sure that some of the things
that they found when they first came into North America,
before they were a hundred percent ready,
were people having trouble getting parts
that doesn't happen up in Canada.
So by spring, should happen.
And they've also told me that all of those kinda issues
that you heard about in North America right at the start
in the United States are solved.
And they learned from that before coming up to Canada.
So that's, what's up trainiacs,
go on some endurance adventures of your own.
And if you have to buy some new bikes to do that
and convince your spouse, that it's a good idea,
tell them that I said it was okay.
Blame it on me, that's cool.
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hit the subscribe button below.
Later trainiacs.