Gravel Bikes Keep Getting Faster. I'm Not Sure Anyone Asked For That.
That’s my old Crux leaning on a fence post in the photo up top — no aero tube shaping, no wind tunnel time, not even the current generation of the bike. And I had a great day on it. I just finished writing up the new Canyon Grail, and buried in the press materials was a stat that stuck with me more than the tire clearance number did: Canyon tested the bike in a wind tunnel with a pedaling mannequin, simulating yaw angles up to 20 degrees, to chase watts at a race pace of 35 km/h. That’s a genuinely sophisticated piece of engineering. It’s also a lot of institutional effort spent on a question I’m not sure enough people are asking: faster toward what? ...