The Canyon Grizl:ON CF Trail shows why 'just buy an MTB' is nonsense

"Why don't you just buy a mountain bike" it's an argument that seems to get levelled at some of the more aggressive drop bar gravel bikes on the market at times, e-bikes included. And I just don't buy it. I think there's a lot more to the argument than that, as I'll go on to explain. 

Canyon launched the Grizl:ON e-bike line in March and I've been testing one since then. Canyon called the bike its 'swiss army knife on wheels' at launch and the bike is said to take inspiration from mountain bike geometry. Summed up the Grizl:ON is designed to be a capable bike you can commute on, blast in the woods or take on a longer adventure.

There are four models in the Grizl:ON range and I've been testing the top CF Trail model which is the bike most clearly aimed at aggressive off-road riding; it even has some MTB parts specced. All models are built around a RockShox Rudy 40mm suspension fork, but th CF Trail gets more aggressive tyres, a Sram AXS dropper post and 'bailout' Sram XO Eagle 52T cassette. Canyon has also developed a few other interesting new details and components which we'll unpack further in the review.

It's available in one spec option and is priced at £7,649 / €8,049. The model isn't available in the US, but the CF 9 and CF 7 models are.

Design and Aesthetics 

The CF Trail just looks burly and aggressive standing still. The big e-bike downtube complements the deep section, wide DT Swiss wheels and aggressive tyres well. My size small with a decent amount of seatpost showing also looked fantastic. E-bikes with larger volume tyres just look better if you ask me, something I mentioned in my Specialized Creo 2 review. The glossy grey-to-black fade and bright Canyon logo also look good and I think will probably have most people on board. 

The CF Trail gets the same carbon frame as the rest of the model lineup, but the spec list is different and outlines the model's purpose pretty clearly. 

There's a whole raft of parts from the Sram stable for starters. Starting from the front there's a RockShox Rudy Ultimate fork which has lockout, 40mm of travel and the Charger Race Day damper. There are Sram Force brake levers and calipers, and 180mm discs, paired to an XO Eagle rear derailleur and 10-52T cassette. Then there are a pair of FSA carbon crank arms mounted to a 42T FSA 1x ring. A Canyon chainguard keeps the chain in place up front on rougher terrain. The rear derailleur is also wired into the battery so you don't need to worry about charging it, ditto for the Sram AXS Reverb 75mm wireless dropper post which replaces the Canyon VCLS carbon seatpost other models have for more speed in the descents. 

The DT Swiss rims feature a 24mm internal width and are fitted with Schwalbe G One Ultrabite 50mm tyres. However, if customers want to fit mudguards to this model, they will need to downsize to 45mm tyres. On the subject of mudguards, you can fit them, and Canyon also offers a front fender for the Rudy fork on its website. 

Handlebars and stem are Canyon's own aluminium models, and the shorter 60mm stem again underscores what the bike is about. I also feel the aluminium, round, non-integrated lightly flared bar fits in well here. It's unfussy and you don't need to worry about smashing your carbon handlebars. The bottle cages are also Canyon's own and use steel bolts with Loctite applied. I took these bottle cages with me to ride the Paris Roubaix challenge earlier in the year (on my road bike) and they provided a good firm hold on the cobbles, keeping my bottles safe.   

Thinking outside the box 

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Canyon has also rolled out a few clever design touches with the Grizl:ON the first of which is an integrated light set in collaboration with Lupine which is wired into the battery system. 

The rear lights are integrated neatly into the ends of the rear dropouts and stay constantly on when the motor is turned on. They are replaceable as they are in bash territory and may sustain knocks and bumps over time. The front headlamp can be controlled via a neat switch mounted on the handlebars. 

The rear lights are the Canyon x Lupine SightStays, whilst the front is the Lupine Nano SL. The battery will also reserve 2 hours of light - for the lights, even if you drain the battery which in theory should allow you to get home in the dark. I headed out on a few gravel rides that finished in the dark with friends (after a stop at the pub on the way home) and not having to bother to charge, find and fit lights was great. They are always there, you don't have to think and it's a definite problem solver, they are also bright enough to light the way in unlit lanes.

Canyon has also implemented what they call the Click and Ride system. A series of mounts on the frame allows for an extra water bottle, battery range extender, or the LOAD FidLock Quickloader pictured below to be fitted. This neat frame bag contains some essentials like tyre levers and a C02 canister and inflator with space for a little extra and as mentioned, neatly fits into the main triangle well.  The bike also arrived with a pair of relatively decent flat pedals, I liked this and I can't think of many bikes in this price bracket that come with a useable pair of pedals included.  

My size small test bike has a stack of 592 and a reach of 398. The headtube angle is 69.5 degrees in this size, whilst the seat tube angle is 74 degrees across all sizes.

The numbers are nice to have, but what do they mean in context? Well, a neat comparison and one I'll reference is the geometry of the YT Szepter, itself an MTB-influenced gravel bike with the same Rudy Ultimate fork fitted. And a bike I got on really well with riding off-road. 

The Szepter in a medium (the size I rode) and the Grizl:ON small share exactly the same reach number of 398, and the Canyon has a 5mm taller stack height. The headtube angle is .1 of a degree slacker on the YT and the seat tube angle is .4 of a degree steeper. 

In short, both bikes share almost identical geometry and it's one I've found to be great riding off-road, confidence-inspiring and playful, yet it doesn't go so far that it's not an engaging ride back on the tarmac. The stack heights of both bikes in particular mean you can hook into the drops and just get stuck into technical off-road riding which is exactly the case with the CF Trail.  

The powerplant of the CF Trail is provided by Bosh. In this case in the form of the Bosch Performance Line SX motor and Bosch Compact Tube 400WH battery. 

It's a pretty lightweight system, weighing in at 4kg, split evenly between the motor and battery. There's also an optional range extender available. 

The system provides 55Nm of torque and 600 watt max power and I found this to be more than enough. All can be controlled and monitored via the Bosh e-bike flow app. 

Controlling the system is done via the top tube-mounted control unit and there are four ride modes to choose from Turbo, Sprint, Tour and Eco which are represented with four different colours. The system is intuitive and easy to get to grips with and learn. Light bars on the control unit decrease to indicate battery usage and it's very easy to see. 

The Bosch flow app provides range estimations as can be seen below and updating firmware or carrying out updates is a breeze. 

The power delivery and torque were ample for me, more than enough to tackle anything in my way and starting from a standing start off-road in Turbo felt aggressive and torquey. 

Battery life was solid on the road and I completed some on-the-road off-road longer gravel loops of thirty miles or so without issue and with a decent battery level left. Riding off-road at my local trail centre and letting it rip drained things faster, though it is a fairly climbing heavy loop. I finished a 15-mile off-road MTB loop on around 10% I think but I'd just been letting things rip. 

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Performance 

I'm a roadie at heart and always will be, but I'm yet to set off on an e-bike and not start grinning. They are just downright fun bikes to ride and the CF Trail is no exception. 

My first ride on the bike was an hour-long lunchtime blast in the rain, and this was an interesting one. The power on tap was obvious straight away and I just headed to my local woods and lanes. I ended up taking two new trails I've ridden past all my life but never taken and linked together a brand new loop, which was exciting and fun. This is a point to e-bikes in general but it was a great reminder of how much ground you can cover and what you can fit in. I descended back to my house covered in mud and grinning, off to a good start. 

Off-road, the bike can tackle a hell of a lot, with the fork, dropper, tyres and good geometry you can push things as far as you want. I love tackling technical terrain on gravel bikes and the CF Trail won't disappoint if you're into this too. I also rode on road loops with friends on regular gravel bikes and the bike is nippy there, it certainly isn't slow and sluggish. Lock the fork out, and even fit faster tyres if you want to and there wouldn't be much of a handicap. But if the power is there, why not fit aggressive rubber?

The Grizl:ON in its CF Trail guise is so capable and aggressive that I knew I wanted to test it on some proper MTB terrain (for the Midlands in the UK) too, beyond that of my local woods. Canyon itself says the bike takes inspiration from MTB geometry and I knew I wanted to explore this with the bike. 

I headed to my local MTB trail centre, Cannock Chase, and rode the roughly 15-mile Follow the Dog and Monkey Trails red-graded trails. I'm familiar with these trails, but hadn't ridden them for a year or two and quickly felt at home on the CF Trail, it didn't miss a beat really and I rode it pretty much like I would a mountain bike.  

Climbing is no sweat with the electronic power on tap, I also didn't have any issues with the frame headset bump stops on really tight switchback turns, something else I wanted to test. I was on a slight time limit so it was great to power around the trails, perfect if you're on a lunchtime blast. But MTB-focused riders will probably just enjoy linking the 'boring' pedally sections of trail to get to the more exciting stuff quicker. I also seemingly was having too much fun to notice I'd dropped my car key in the forest on the ride but that's another story! 

On technical, mtb terrain I noted I would have liked a mode switch on the handlebar drops ideally to cycle through motor modes without taking my hands off the bars. Turbo for instance was just too much on tight, twisty singletrack but I had to wait to clear the section to change mode using the top tube button without stopping or completely slowing down. I checked with Canyon and a shift button can be retrofitted with no problem, but given this model's spec and purpose, one from the factory would be nice. 

On rough and rocky sections, there was also a little bit of internal rattle, but it wasn't too distracting, and I've heard noisier road bikes if I'm honest. I felt a little bit of motor 'lag' coming off the power and freewheeling into a section, there was just a second or two sometimes when the bike felt really bogged down. I think if you were riding technical terrain all the time you would learn to accommodate this - it's part of learning to ride an e-bike in my view.

The last big descent on the loop is easy to session (roadies, this is MTB speak for repeat) thanks to a quick access road and climb up to the top. I repeated this and it was a perfect example of using the e-power to enjoy the descents. This will be nothing new to MTB riders, but it's nice to include it here, flick the bike into turbo and get to the top more quickly so you can enjoy the descent again. 

Value

At £7,649 / €8,049 this Grizl: ON model isn't exactly cheap, but it's a bit of a monster spec and the only thing I can really think I'd want to add is the aforementioned additional mode shift button on the bars. 

How does it compare to rivals, such as they are? Well, the Specialized Turbo Creo 2 Expert which I have ridden is £7,500 / €8,049. It's a lighter bike without a suspension fork, but it doesn't have an AXS dropper, instead uses a cable-operated one. I'd say the Canyon spec beats it. The Cannondale Topstone Neo Carbon Lefty is also slightly cheaper with its mechanical groupset and Lefty front suspension fork. But this space in the market is one that's growing which means it's open to interpretation. 

This value section brings me back to the original question which was 'why wouldn't you just buy a mountain bike?' Well, this is pretty far away from a mountain bike. 

Looking at a bike like this you may think that it is essentially a hardtail MTB but there's still a great deal of difference between the two. Straight away there's the slacker frame angles, sometimes a lot slacker. More than double the amount of front suspension travel, different riding positions due to flat bars and potentially lower gearing that most modern hardtail mountain bikes have. On lots of real MTB terrain for my money, a hardtail would be the faster and more capable bike, you could just ride it in a different way and let things go even more. There's still an element of looking after and managing the bike when riding a drop bar gravel bike off-road.

This is a more nimble, light-handling bike that whilst incredibly capable off-road, will keep you on your toes a bit more than a mountain bike. There is a lot of room on the spectrum between road and mountain bikes and this type of bike has added another band of colour to it over the past few years.

So, if you have the cash and want a fun, aggressive gravel bike to ride on and off the road, but that crucially isn't as aggressive as an MTB, you won't be disappointed. 

Verdict 

The Grizl:ON CF Trail has been great fun to ride and is brilliant to ride off-road, eating up the technical off-road terrain.

I haven't had a single issue with the bike over the whole review period, and everything has worked exactly as it should have. The integrated lights in particular are a clever Idea and add value to the overall package. 

I think the bike is specced well and competitively for the money, the Canyon direct model is partly to thank here. I don't think this particular model will be at the top of riders' purchase lists, with perhaps other types of bikes taking precedence but if you are in the market, have the cash and are looking for a solid gravel e-bike this is an excellent option.