Wilde has just announced on his SM that he is leaving Specialized. Didn’t sound like it was mutual either. Will be interesting to see what he rides in Abu Dhabi in a couple of weeks.

I’m interested to see what Kat Matthews will ride this year, sounds like an announcement coming soon from her.

Heather Jackson to Canyon too.

Kat Matthews on Canyon. Pics on her SM of her on the new bike, you can work out from the distinct chainstays its a Speedmax

With their moves on riders this year, Canyon obviously had some cash to spend. Good on them!

It will be interesting to see if the predictions of plummeting sales & huge inventories comes true, and how that may affect Canyon and their athlete roster moving forward - especially considering the recent roster reductions of other competing brands.

I know there isn't a lot of motorheads on this forum, but it reminds me of KTM vs the Japanese motorcycle manufacturers during the sub-prime mortgage (SPM) crisis in the mid to late 2000's. KTM was a pesky gnat globally to the Japanese manufacturers in the early-mid 2000's. The SPM crisis hit. The world economy went into a huge recession. The Japanese retracted on all fronts, as most did during the time. They didn't shut down like Covid, but close. At the same time KTM literally doubled their R&D & marketing spend. It was a huge risk, but they took it. By the end of the SPM crisis, KTM wasn't a gnat any longer. They made the jump to get on level with the Japanese and have since become a leader in some market categories.

The similarity to me is 1) if the predictions are accurate - does Canyon see and agree with those too? And if they do, 2) are they doubling down setting themselves up to jump levels? They're not as far off the "top" brands today. Certainly nothing near the gap between them and the top of the cycling market like KTM was to the Japanese back when. It will be interesting to see it play out over the coming few years.

She is on Canyon too isn’t she?

Emma Pallant is announcing her new bike sponsor today. Judging by the late timing I am guessing it is going to be American.

That makes zero sense tbh.

But damn maybe they should just sponsor alle pros and be done with it.

It's completely for gravel. She's a gravel and ultra girl now - and I think she's got a pretty good following already with those crowds. It's a good pick up for them.

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DFRU - Detta Family Racing Unit...the kids like it and we all get out and after it...gotta keep the fam involved!

I think Canyon's best pick up is Alec Briggs or alec_pedaler in Instagram. Go check him out.

Interesting KTM comparison.
I got one in '98 390SX, then a '13 RC8R.
Yeah, the company was different, come to think of it.

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I saw this on a white board in a window box at my daughters middle school...
List of what life owes you:
1. __________
2. __________
3. __________

They are top brand. Full stop.

She’s with On shoes too. Wow On and Canyon are spending money. My gf just bought a pair of On and they look incredible. Not sure on Canyon bikes because I’ve only heard horror stories about the long and never ending wait in the U.S.

This is interesting since they have a hard time actually selling bikes.

Have a Canyon MTB and Roadie but Speedmax CFR & SLX are Vaporware in the U.S. Been trying to give them my money for 2 years...

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Team Every Man Jack

http://www.teamemj.com

Hard time making enough bikes to meet demand, just to be clear that the issue isn't having bikes in inventory that they can't sell.

A manufacturer would likely rather have the former problem than the latter. Though both are legit problems.

A friend of mine sold his tri bike to buy Speedmax. Guess what Canyon bike never arrived so he didn’t race. He eventually got the bike after 2 years of waiting.

You are correct, they don’t have a lot of inventory collecting dust which is better than the alternative, but I’ll stand on a limb here and say they would sell a lot more bikes if they could get them in stock. There are people literally buying other brands because they are sick of the dates pushing. I'm glad if they're hitting their projected numbers but they could be crushing those numbers especially with all the doom and gloom being projected elsewhere. I'm not sure if it is Shimano/SRAM or frames but across their lineup they are having issues supplying the US market. I was looking at getting an Aeroad but I’m not willing to chase their delivery dates.

The “date pushing” is literally inexcusable IMO! Bad business and makes Canyon look like they have no clue to what they are doing.. I’ve talked to countless customer service agents at Canyon and they are completely embarrassed about the situation. As far as the supply chain goes, likely more of a Shimano issue than Sram but they don’t seem to have issues with components for Gravel, Road, MTB… Been looking hard at Cervelo, Argon but would really love to get a SLX
or CFR. With today’s logistics, Canyon should know exactly when and where all inventory sits yet they give zero transparency to their customers..

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Team Every Man Jack

http://www.teamemj.com

George Hincapie now on a Ventum.

Surprised that took so long, listening to his podcast with LA and Ventum are one of their sponsors/partners.

I bet you the On deal is down to the fact she's now managed by the same team as the Norwegians

Canyon now putting coffee in their paint and calling it a Frodissimo special edition. It is April 1st?

Never seen a company win the marketing game so hard, yet have zero product to sell, at least in NA. They say a speedmax cfr is about a month out from being in stock, but it's said that since last summer. They just keep pushing the dates.

Maybe in tri, but I see Canyons all over the place on trails and on the road. So it must be more than zero.

They're not just pushing the dates. They're selling out their stock as it comes in. You're not fast enough pulling the trigger.

I bought one in July three weeks after deciding I wanted it. I've seen them come in stock multiple times since then.

Its been discussed on this forum multiple times recently the way to do it is run a scanner on the website that checks every couple minutes for them to come in stock and alert you in some way. I have a python script that I used and sent me a text to buy. I'm thinking of turning it into a free mini Saas but not sure I want to take that much risk of collecting data and all the GDPR restrictions.

Back in the summer I pretty much checked daily for my size to come in stock. One day, while getting close to the expected stock date, they simply changed the dates to another month a half out. If I missed an XL CFR coming in stock it was literally by hours or minutes.

Don't worry, I only played that game one time and went on an ordered a custom painted quintana roo that took about three weeks from custom order to delivery.

Minutes not hours. As said before there's quite a few people doing it the common sizes are going fast.

Just out of curiosity how many IMs did you do during the 2007-2009ish time period? Because I can assure you it was much tougher to register than buying a new speedmax is.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CoKkRCZKgEx/
Looks like your chainstay recognition is top notch. With a monogrip.
So we have Philipp (NB), Sodaro (on) and Matthews (Asics) at the long distance sharp end, all riding the same bike. It's like one-design dinghy racing. World Champions get choice of frame colour.

But first they need to learn to make a profit. As far as my info reaches they never made any profit yet.

Jeroen

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Owner at TRIPRO, The Netherlands

I waited a while, but am thrilled with my Canyon Speedmax CFR. Yes, I live in the US.
All companies had a hard time delivering bikes, but yes, you have wait and constantly check their website and be on their list.

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Team Zoot So Cal

I ran a bot to get my Speedmax. Ran it for three months on the CF7 eTap and CF8, before a CF8 actually came in stock. My bot refreshed the page every two minutes. The bot was only pinging the text changes on the page as the dates were changing (getting pushed), not because bikes were coming in stock and selling. The CF 7 eTap has been getting pushed back since at least October when I first tried to get one. It has been getting pushed and pushed without a single bike coming in stock on the website. Just got pushed again a week or 2 ago (stopped running my bot after settling for a CF8 when it finally came in stock, after losing all hope for a CF7 in 2023)

What was your bot looking for specifically? When I did it I remember each bike has a unique number id and from there each size has a unique CSS selector with a property that signifies if its sold out or not. I was going off that CSS class and waiting for it to show as available then it would alert me. I was fetching a new page every five minutes. I have my bot still on github and can link it later when on desktop.

Although it could be an etap stocking issue because I think electronic group sets have been really scarce lately. I know at one point they had some spare bikes waiting and they just had to put di2/etap in and were making them available one by one as they came in. When I got mine it was one of two available.

Could have found them a few cyclists that aren't pros with more instagram followers to sponsor. Big waste of coin that!

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

This definitely isn't true

They have zero stock because they're selling as fast as they can make them (aside from some mtb/city models). The dates on the site are not pushed.

To be honest, this is what I heard the last time over the year 2020. Maybe they did in the last 2 years. Or the info was wrong.
Anyway, it is very good, even great, to see that they continue to invest in our sport.
My comment wasn't mean't as a negative (it was midnight in my time zone ;-), but more as something that we don't need another company as in we had in the past like RL, K-Swiss, etc.
Or some others and suddenly move in the sport and leave 2 years later

Jeroen

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Owner at TRIPRO, The Netherlands

I could understand it if it was a brand new product but this has been going on for 2+ years... It seems to me that IF demand exceeds supply they would focus on where the demand is and ramp up production. Getting real people on the Speedmax in local communities seems to me as a great way to market these bikes...

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Team Every Man Jack

http://www.teamemj.com

The best marketing is to get investors...like LEBRON JAMES...and use that money to grow your brand and strengthen your supply chain.

They get stock regularly. If you're not signed up to get notified, then you would never know. I get emails regularly notifying me of bikes that have arrived. They just sell out within the day. It's simply a Supply<Demand problem.

And don't forget all the $$$$$$$$ spent stocking local bike shops with 'wholesale' pricing is skipped. AND pricing direct to consumers is more than what the big brands are selling to the stores, so their margins are better. They're setting the standard which others will follow.

Yeah, they're sponsoring athletes with free gear, maybe a salary and all get some incentives. That's not much in terms of total marketing. Now supporting Movistar cycling team is BIG money. Giving pro triathletes free bikes is not.

And don't think that everyone is getting a Frodeno deal. He put Canyon on the triathlon map and was/is their marketing champion in triathlon.

Ventum has been sponsoring Lance and George's podcast for a while.

I assume it's hard for them to be riding anything but a sponsor's bike

If a company are sponsoring anything to do with those people, I'll actively NOT buy anything from that company.

There's definitely a Venn diagram out there showing

1) People who believe Lance and Co were innocent/justified in doing what they did
2) People who will buy low quality, expensive bikes
3) People who are easily parted from their money

Picture a selection tool that you click and drag to make a rectangle bigger or smaller on a computer program. I clicked and dragged to make a box around the section of the bike's page that showed the sizes and their estimated in stock dates. My bot would register any time a single character changed in that area of the page. So, many times I watched the "character change" be a change in the expected stock availability date. The day the CF8 came in stock, it alerted because the text changed to "4 available" from "coming soon"

"Ramp up production" varies in difficulty if you:
1. Fill existing capacity
2. Add a line to existing factories
3. Add a new factory

The last one takes more than 2 years from planning to ramp up.

Also, when you are only in control of making the frames and then get all other parts from 3rd parties, you don't have control over their availability. Some bike manufacturers still have a ton of Shimano inventory that can't be used because a crank is missing (or another part). That's why you're seeing some off-spec cranksets, brakesets, etc.

Canyon are very careful about doing their production forecasts for the time when the bikes will be ready. Their D2C model gives them a lot of flexibility other brands don't have, but it also means they don't have much capacity for overflow. A traditional brand has distributors and dealers to absorb a chunk of the cost and warehousing of extra bikes. Canyon owns and houses all of theirs apart from the one distributor.
So their lead times and structure mean limited ability to respond to the pandemic surge and you won't be seeing a glut of tri bikes.
They are constantly monitoring buying patterns (which they have great info on) and modifying their plans to avoid getting caught out with 1000s of slow moving SKUs.

Hayden Wilde has moved to Canyon too
https://www.instagram.com/p/CoaRhpsDyPy/?hl=en

Sounds like he was pretty bummed about losing the Specialized sponsorship too