(upbeat music)
- Canyon is the title sponsor for one of the most
distinctive pro cycling teams around
with some of the most talented and successful female riders.
They've been riding, racing and winning on Canyon
bikes for the past two years.
But bikes technically unisex that are made for the
taller and heavier riders than the average female cyclist.
Behind the scenes though, Canyon have been working hard
to create these, a dedicated range of truly
women specific bikes so before we dive in and actually
find out what this is all about, we need to address
one important question which is what do women want?
From a bike, of course, otherwise we'd be here all day.
(upbeat music)
So I'm here with Daniel, the product developer at Canyon.
You've been heavily involved in the project
to develop these women's bikes and throughout my career,
I raced often on male specific bikes so I'm actually
really interested to see your reasoning
for producing these frames.
- Yeah, that's a good question so first of all
we started to ask the question what are the
difference between men and women so we get a
bunch of data so overall there was around 60,000 data sets.
We get it and we actually analyse them.
In the 50's percentile of women compared to men,
they are 15cm smaller so they are lighter as well.
So seven to eight kilogrammes in the same body
height, they are lighter than men.
Another difference was the arm length.
So arms of women are usually like three,
up to three centimetres shorter and that was one
main reason why we changed the geometry of women's bikes.
So all those points we found out during post processing
the data led to the new geometry of women's bikes.
We try to fit each specific body reference.
We've got one specific body reference height for each size.
So we try to ensure that the torso angle
and the arm angle remains the same during
the whole range of frame sizes.
(funky music)
- I'm currently riding the Ultimate Carbon Fibre size XS.
As you'll notice, these wheels are actually standard
700c wheels however the two smaller sizes,
the 3XS and the 2XS have the 650B size wheels.
Canyon are the first to admit that this isn't the first
time a bike manufacturer has actually made smaller wheels.
It's often seen a lot in mountain biking.
However, this is the first real time
it's been used for road cycling.
They've also not only developed the top of the range
Ultimate frame but they have two more
called the Endurance, one carbon fibre and aluminium.
So one of the main differences of the smaller bikes
that you've made, you can really see the smaller wheel size.
And what was the reason for Canyon actually doing that?
- One of the biggest issues we were facing is that we
couldn't create bike as small as we like to.
So now we are creating a 3XS that is even
one frame size smaller than we had before.
The reason is that women are actually smaller than men
and we wanted to fit actually as many women as we could
on a bike so we started with the body height from one metre
and 52 centimetres so each woman that is bigger than
that can ride a bike right now and is getting
the best performance out of the bike.
- So you've got the smaller frames and the smaller wheels
but how does this actually benefit women riders
like from a performance level and do the smaller
wheels actually effect the way, the handling of the bike?
- Exactly, you're right, it's effecting the handling.
So one issue you have with the big wheel sizes,
if you built the bike very small and very short,
you have big issues with the toe interference.
So this is one major reason why we
have to change to the smaller sizes.
We are facing a difference of up to two degrees
in the head cube angle and this is in the end result
in a trail of difference on the ground of 20mm.
And this means that if we are reducing the trail on
the ground this means big, big, big change in
steering and handling and you can actually be more
precise and more dynamic on the road.
- So you've got all these different smaller wheels
sizes now but actually how easy is it for people to
buy the wheels and the tyres
and everything for these smaller sizes?
- Yeah, our product management, they're really focussed
on this topic so we got several different companies
which are supporting us at the moment so you can
easily get 650 B wheels from the standard aluminium wheel
up to the high profile carbon wheel.
So currently we are working with brands like DT Swiss.
Then if you need tyres, we've got Continental
and we've got Schwalbe and they are working closely with us.
And you can get every component you would like to
as they are getting it at the moment for 700 C wheels.
- So having ridden this bike all afternoon, I've
found it to be really agile, it handles really well.
And it's actually really enjoyable to climb on.
And I haven't finished climbing yet.
Canyon decided that their current range was
overbuilt for the majority of female cyclists.
They simply don't need to be as stiff.
That means that the frames can be made even lighter,
50 grammes in fact for an equivalent size
but maintaining the same stiffness
to weight ratio as the current model.
Part of that is a result of smaller diameter shoes
meaning less material but also meaning that the
frame is more aerodynamic too.
On this Ultimate's Women's Bike here,
Canyon says it's actually 3% more aerodynamic.
It's fantastic to see a brand that invests so
much in women cycling back up their investment
in women's racing producing a range of new women
specific bikes, after all, who wouldn't want
the promise of a better handling bike?
If you want to see more from the Women's Canyon Trail
Team, make sure you subscribe to GCN.
For a closer look inside Tiffany Cromwell's
Kit Bag, click here and for a more in depth look
at bike geometry, click here.