- There are bike companies that will invent a problem
so they can sell you a solution to it.
But it is different from inventing a solution
to a problem nobody was having, right?
It's the same thing, but it's done honestly.
Introducing Canyon K.I.S.
So check this out.
You turn your handlebars, right?
But why?
So what this is at the most basic level
is a set of springs, a band,
and a collar that goes around a steer tube
and it pulls it straight again, it's adjustable.
They're calling it K.I.S., which stands for Keep It Stable.
And I'd be lying if I said it wasn't the subject
of much controversy over the last few months.
Canyon released a YouTube video where they
were explaining this technology, demonstrating it,
and they had a bunch of athletes
on there sharing their experience with Canyon K.I.S.
You have comments like "Good old steering stabilizer,
"always love them on my dirt bike when riding
"off road, makes a huge difference."
"This is genius.
"It's giving me dropper post vibes.
"I think this is gonna stick."
"I'd like to try it,
"looks promising the way you can control the rear
"of the bike better."
but there's also a fair amount of skepticism here.
"Added resistance to make tired muscles work harder,
"more weight added, added maintenance
"and increased risk for mechanical breakdowns."
Then you have a lot of people
confusing this with a steering damper
or just straight up not understanding what it does.
There are some people that can't believe a bike
company would have the balls to try and sell you
something that makes your handlebar go straight again.
Sounds stupid if you don't look
into it and understand the details.
So first off, if any of you have ridden without hands,
you know that if you let go of your handlebars,
they kind of go straight anyway.
Your bars are always trying to go straight because
of the offset on your fork and your head tube angle.
And this system adds more of that effect,
without altering the geometry of the bike or the fork.
Lots of people are pointing out the similarities
between K.I.S and a steering damper,
but others have noticed that these are undamped springs.
This doesn't mute the high frequency vibrations.
It just makes the bars go straight again.
This right here is the adjuster.
You loosen this bolt,
and then the further you push this back,
the tighter the spring is
and the more return assist you are getting.
So if I were to push it all the way back
there's a pretty good amount of resistance here.
And so how does that feel when you're riding
down a mountain bike trail?
So we have here a Canyon Spectral equipped with K.I.S.
I'm gonna disable it.
We can ride the same section twice.
Compare and contrast.
(upbeat music)
Oh, this bike rips.
No surprise there.
Woo.
That section was chunky.
This bike handled it great.
Let's climb back up and then reengage the system.
Okay, the system is set somewhere in the middle.
No difference yet.
Oh, that's different.
Honestly.
I don't know, It might be too early to say.
Okay.
I kind of liked that.
Let's increase the tension.
High as it goes.
- Okay. Okay.
- I think I liked it better
when it was at the medium setting.
Oh, the bike's actually hard to manage
with the tension all the way up.
All right, I don't know if it's a matter of
getting used to it or what,
but I definitely don't like it turned all the way up.
It's probably 'cause I'm used to just leaning
and the bike kind of automatically going
into a turn and this just really stays straight.
So in doing some tests on this bike, what I found is
that I like the way it feels.
And so the best way I can articulate the feeling
is you feel more stable, especially when you're going
through chunky downhill sections.
In fact, if you're riding on just flat, even ground
the system can be kind of annoying,
especially if you have it turned way up.
But I can't see anybody choosing that setting,
unless they're racing in Duro or downhill.
For all around riding, you're probably gonna have it
somewhere in the middle.
I really liked it one line above the middle
I guess you could call it 60%.
At that level,
I don't really notice it when I'm pedaling around
but I do feel it when I'm going downhill.
And turning.
Of course you notice it when you're turning because
when you turn the bars you feel some resistance on them.
But it also affects the way the entire bike handles.
Think about it.
When you're steering a bike, you actually steering
the handlebar isn't doing much to the rear
of the bike, with K.I.S., because the front and rear
of the bike are literally attached together with a spring,
it wants to actually swing the rear of the bike around.
And so a lot of people who have tried the system claim
that it helps them move through a turn.
It helps them get the bike
into the position that they want it to be in.
And so the engineers claim that this is the main benefit.
This is a way bigger benefit
than the steering stabilization.
You had limited ways to control that before,
bikes have changed a lot.
They fly now, they go into loose turns at crazy speeds.
They felt it was time for an update.
The K.I.S. system had a very different genesis
than some people are claiming.
Syntace invented a system that does basically
the same thing.
It's actually one of Canyon's engineers who noticed
that Syntace did this
and then Canyon licensed the technology,
made their own version of it specifically for Canyon bikes.
And within a year,
anybody else is gonna be able to license it.
And you might find this in different brands of bikes
although it won't be called K.I.S,
it'll be whatever their version of it is.
So now that we've talked about the basics of the system,
let's talk details.
Let's say you get in a crash
and your handlebars get pushed way over
and start to try to spin around what's gonna happen?
Well, in that case
the system will usually knock itself out of alignment.
See, it's trying to hold the bars like this.
And so if you find yourself in that situation
you want to go back to the part
of the trail where it happens
and hit the obstacle in the exact opposite direction,
it'll put it perfectly back into alignment.
Or you can access the cam ring through this little port,
straighten your handle bars back out,
dead center, re-tighten the bolt,
and your handlebars will stay straight again.
There's an easier way to make it go straight
and it doesn't even involve any tools.
Just turn the bars the other way,
perfectly parallel with this line over here.
And the bars are perfectly straight again.
That's pretty cool.
So I've seen a few people in comment sections make jokes
about how this would make it easier to handle your bike,
load it into a vehicle, put it up on a rack.
That is 100% the case.
It's not even a joke.
If I want to get it up on this rack over here
which I'm not tall enough to reach
I can just hold it by the back of the bike.
And the front wheel is right in place to get on the hook.
And one of the criticisms we saw in the comments is
that this adds weight, complexity, maintenance, expense.
But the question is, do the benefits outweigh the downsides?
As it turns out,
the system doesn't actually weigh all that much.
I'm getting 98 grams, which is not the end of the world.
Canyon claims that this is maintenance free.
You never have to take it out
or put it back in or do anything with it.
Even if you take canyon's word at face value
we could expect that this adds at least a little bit
of maintenance and possibility of breaking something.
So limited weight added, definitely does something
beneficial.
It could eventually be a thing that we see
on all bike brands,
and it's an innovation that doesn't involve a battery.
And so whether you're praying for its downfall
or just waiting around to see what happens next,
it's gonna be real interesting.
But what do I think about 'em?
Am I ready to ditch one of my trail bikes
and get a canyon with K.I.S.?
Well, not quite.
I think this is cool.
I can't wait to see what happens with it.
And I liked the way it felt,
but I would also like to sit back
and watch this technology mature a little bit.
We have looked at quite a few things
on this YouTube channel that were really weird when
they came out and they either failed or succeeded.
With the clairvoyance of hindsight,
you can totally predict what's gonna happen.
Over the next couple of years
we're gonna find out if this technology quietly disappears
or becomes something that we see
on more and more normal trail bikes.
We don't know whether Canyons claims
of this being maintenance free are gonna end up being true.
And we certainly don't know what other bike manufacturers,
if any, decide to adopt similar technology on their lineups.
I hope you found this video interesting and informative.
I hope you learned something, and if not,
I hope you at least found it entertaining.
Thanks for riding with me today and I'll see you next time.
(soft music)
No, that didn't grab anything.