Originally Posted by
davethelefty
I have a Canyon Endurace road bike that has quite a back story attached to it.
Just did a gravel/MTB race practice ride, and a guy was there on an Endurance with 33mm CX tires. Seemed to work pretty well for him, although I'll say that hitting some of those pot holed sections at speed (15-20mph) - well ya really had to pick the right line to avoid them.
The new Crux is a great example of this. I think it was Cyclingtips that described that bike as a "fat tired Aethos". It's a light and nimble drop bar bike with snappy handling that can fit 47mm tires. The only downside I see to the Crux is that all of the builds currently being sold are 1x drivetrains, which would be more limiting for road riding, so as you say - finding and buying a frameset and building it up with a 2x drivetrain would be the way to go.
The only other downside to the Crux (and this is a big one) is the insane pricing. Forget about the $12k S-Works model, but even the entry level Comp is $4200 and has Rival 1x11 mechanical. That is REALLY expensive.
Yeah, I bought a Canyon as a gravel bike (Inflite). Its similar to the Crux in a lot of ways, but Crux gave up the 2x option for wider tires in the rear. Still on my bike, 40mm rear, 50mm front gives me some good tire options. And, it is a LOT cheaper.
Last time I road a diverge, my impression was that it did not accelerate very well, and I had to be carful not to hit my pedal when pedaling through turns. Stuff that not everyone really cares about.
The thing that stood out to me about the Checkpoint was that I really liked that steeper head tube angle and the agility it gave the bike.