Featuring bold rainbow decals and ‘unicorn hair’ carbon fibre, the new 2021 Canyon Exceed has been engineered to be one of the lightest mountain bike hardtails on the planet. The Canyon Exceed CFR (Canyon Factory Racing) frame is quoted at an astonishing 835g. And that INCLUDES chainstay protector, chainsuck plate, seatpost clamp and (universal) derailleur hanger – in a size medium (a raw frame is 740g…). Even in less pricy mode, with more standard carbon layup and filament, the SLX frame weighs 1015g and the CF weight is 1312g.
Interestingly, whereas its peers like Specialized and BMC reckon that World Cup courses are the place for full suspension bikes, Canyon has made the new Exceed for just that kind of flat-out, between the tapes racing. The bike comes with a ‘slackened’ 69° head angle, 10mm more reach and shorter 80mm stem lengths. Going off the launch literature, it appears that the big market for the Canyon Exceed is likely to be in the marathon and epic cross country race kind of rider. The one who wants just enough compliance and damage limitation to get them nearly, but not quite hollowed-out broken, to the finish line.
The bike features two sets of bottle cages for all sizes (even XS, which incidentally should fit riders down to 5ft 2in). Taller riders will be pleased to hear the chainstays lengthen on the L and XL sizes.
Let’s take a moment to marvel at that integrated front end of the 2021 Canyon Exceed. The CFR and SLX ranges feature a new, full carbon bar/stem combo that also cleverly captures the cables above the head tube to keep things neat and stop cable rubbing. There’s also Canyon’s Impact Protection Unit headset, that features a stop to keep the frame safe if your bars whip round in a crash. At the other end of the top tube, you’ll find a DT Swiss DT232 ‘upsidedown’ dropper post that gives 60mm of binary up/down drop. This seatpost is held in place by a minimalist, hidden seat binder that does up from underneath the top corner of the top tube. After all, with a dropper, you’re not actually going to need to move it that often, eh?
There are seven levels of the new Canyon Exceed, plus two women’s models. All feature one of the three levels of full carbon frames and the spec runs from mild to wild. Entry level for the Exceed CF 5 runs at a reasonable £1599, with prices rising slowly up the scale towards pro-racer level. The two SLX models, the Exceed SLX 8 and 9 are £3499 and £4449 respectively. The two chart toppers, the Exceed CFR Team and CFR LTD are then £5349 and £6149, by which time you get full SRAM AXS Eagle, carbon wheels and no more excuses as to why you’re not winning races.
For more details and the whole rundown, visit canyon.com and if you want to see what we thought of it, check out Daz’s review of the top of the line Canyon Exceed CFR LTD on this very website.