Zaskar

My Grail - an XL CF SL 8.0 - feels very relaxed compared to my road bikes (which helps you guys - zero). When I was researching and trying to compare a handful of bikes, the Canyon seemed the odd-man-out - where Canyon's measuring is not where other manufacturers are. Admittedly, I gave up and took the "Well, they have a 30-day return policy" if I didn't like the fit, and bought one. I love it. It was definitely more upright and more relaxed than I thought it was going to be. I've grown to like that aspect.

Lava

Oh, that's certainly nice to know. Admittedly the reports I saw of aggressive geometry were going off of the geometry charts themselves, and like others have said, some of those numbers aren't the end all be all for fit.

chas58

Yep, I spent a lot of time trying to make sense of the numbers given that the handlebar relationship to the frame is significantly different than most bikes.

I compared to Canyon's endurance bike and the ultimate and inflite to get some more datapoints for someone my size. The grail seemed to fit more like a traditional endurance bike, where the inflite was a bit more aggressive.

chas58

Gravel vs Cyclocross. Which is better.

Warning - includes paid promotion to evaluate which is better: Canyon Grail vs Inflite. ;-)

Hint- Grail is faster on this course.
Although they really need to do these things on the same tires. I get tired of people saying the 33mm tired bike is slower when it is rough. Duh!

gus6464

That's kind of the point though. You can drop a cx tire on the gravel bike but you can't drop a gravel tire on the cx bike. I wonder if the inflite would be faster than the grail with same cx tires on a cross course. There are bikes out there though that have a geometry in between gravel and cx and can take whatever.

chas58

That is not my experience. Generally, you can put 40mm tire on a cross or gravel bike (i.e. the tire they had on the grail). Modern CX bikes can take gravel tires up to 40mm.

Tire size isn't an issue, unless you have a very old cross bike (limited to 35mm), or want to do 50mm x 650b. Either bike can take a 700x40mm though.

specifically, I run 40mm tires on my Inflite. If it is really rough or sandy, I'll go up to 50mm in the front (although I've put on a 60mm 650b on the front, that is a little big for my tastes. 54mm on the front allows me to rip on single track (obviously track where I don't need a suspension).

Going from 33mm to 40mm would easily drop my times by a minute on that rooty section.

I ride gingerly and really pick my lines on 33mm
I ride faster but still somewhat cautiously on the 40mm
I ride mountain bike speed on the 50 and 54mm tires (no holding back on that type of trail).

redlude97

you can see how awkwardly they both shouldered the grail, also the 1x gearing being limiting

chas58

That was just dumb of them, comparing a 1x (Inflite) to a 2x (Grail).

Obviously they did it because it is an infomercial, and the 1x Inflite is yellow and looks good in infomercials (The 2x is boring grey).


I have a 2x Inflite. I can (and do) hammer hard with Cat 1-3 riders on top tier racing road bikes (when I am on similar tires). Typically, those rides top out around 40mph, but I don't run out of gears.

50-53T chainrings are silly. I doubt any of us can accelerate a 50x11 gear, unless we are riding of a cliff.

RedBullFiXX

Quite easily spin out 50x11 in the CA hills, but that 34x30 is worth it going back up those hills

mstateglfr 

That gcn vid is getting ripped on by chas, but it seemed great to me.
it highlighted differences between the two styles.

- large open area of triangle for CX.
- lower bb for gravel.
- lot of mount points for gravel.
- 1x gearing for CX vs 2x for gravel.

they also highlight how significant tire size is and why.

pretty helpful for all those who ask what the difference between CX and gravel bikes are.

chas58

Aw, I love the video. But the gearing and tire size are non issues. My Inflite has basically the same gearing and tire size at the Grail. So yeah, gearing and tire size are critical to me, but They have absolutely nothing to do with comparison of the two bikes.

The basic differences I have found are
- CX can turn much more aggressively and tightly, Gravel is more stable at graceful high speed turns (downhill, loose gravel)
- CX can pedal hard through a tight turn while I have to coast on a gravel bike (pedal strike).
- Gravel is more upright “endurance” geometry – comfortable for rides of 3 hours or more, CX is more aero.
- Gravel can typically do backpacking (strength, weight, mount points).

Redbull - I think you and I "spin out" at different RPM.

redlude97

I think the problem with the video is that its presented as which is "better" but wasn't an apples to apples comparison. says more about appropriate tires and gearing as chas mentioned, rather than differences in frame geometry resulting in better performance