“The fastest track bike in the world” to make its racing debut at the 2023 World Championships in Glasgow
The new Canyon Speedmax CFR Track is the brand’s “fastest ever bike”, with an exceptionally slim profile, clincher tyres and a 40mm-wide front axle.
Developed in collaboration with Chloé Dygert, the wider Team USA track squad, the Danish national team and Swiss Side, the Speedmax CFR Track will make its racing debut today at the 2023 World Championships in Glasgow.
Complete bikes are also available to buy by for €20,000/£18,999, making it the most expensive bike in Canyon’s range.
“The fastest track bike in the world”
When viewed from either end, the profile of the Speedmax CFR Track is remarkably narrow, which makes it something of an outlier versus the latest crop of track bikes.
Speaking to BikeRadar, Lukas Schuchnigg, development lead for the Speedmax CFR Track said: “From [Canyon’s] perspective, we couldn’t see the reason for the wide stance design” adopted by the likes of Hope.
“A narrower stance offers the same aerodynamic advantages, while also being stiffer.
“They [Hope and British cycling] have their own testing but, in the end, our testing shows we’ve built a fast bike”.
Nowhere else is this divergent design philosophy more apparent than the fork.
The Speedmax CFR Track’s fork has exceptionally deep legs, but a very narrow overall width. This is, primarily, thanks to the custom 40mm-wide axle. Most track bikes use a conventional 100mm-wide axle, reducing the width of the front end of the bike significantly.
This necessitates the use of Canyon’s own custom wheels, which have been developed to accompany the bike. A conventional 100mm-wide fork is also available for bunch-racing builds – more on both of these points in a moment.
Viewed from the front, the fork legs are narrow, slanting inward until they meet the semi-sloping crown. The crown of the fork sits inside a cut-out on the base of the deep head tube.
Moving up, a defined ridge is moulded into the deep head tube, creating a narrow hourglass-like profile.
The base bar (or stem in the case of bunch-racing builds) also sits inside a matching cut-out on the top of the head tube.
The horizontal top tube then extends past the aero seatpost to meet the broad, yet narrow, seatstays.
These sit proud of the rear wheel, though far less so than the likes of the Hope HB.T.
On the Speedmax CFR Track, they are angled inwards from the dropouts, joining either side of the extended top tube. The rear wheel is hugged by a deep cut-out in the seat tube.
Though it hasn’t provided data comparing the Speedmax CFR Track to competitor bikes, Canyon says it has created “what we believe is the fastest track bike in the world”.
Speedmax CFR Track-specific wheels
The Canyon Speedmax CFR Track is designed around Canyon’s own disc wheelset.
Unusually, the wheels are optimised around 25mm-wide clincher tyres – 18 to 20mm-wide tubular tyres are still used commonly on the track.
Canyon says it tested a range of tyres, starting at 19mm and eventually settling on 25mm as the fastest width for track racing.
Despite the smoothness of a velodrome, Canyon found rolling resistance reduced as it increased tyre size, with no meaningful impact on aerodynamic performance.
As such, the bike’s wheels are optimised around 25mm tyres, with a 26.5mm external width.
The wheels are also designed to be used with clincher tyres, which Canyon found to be consistently faster than tubular tyres.
According to Schuchnigg: “We found a 10-watt saving between the worst clincher vs the fastest tubular.
“Clincher is the way to go if you’re interested in going fast in the track”.
Schuchnigg says Canyon also tested the wheel tubeless.
Although it found a tubeless setup offered a reduction in rolling resistance, the difference was so small that the convenience of a clincher setup outweighs the benefits of tubeless in this case.
A widely compatible cockpit
The bike teased in October was built using a WattShop Anemoi cockpit.
Schuchnigg said Canyon used these as the starting point for the bike’s design because they were Dygert’s preferred cockpit.
However, Canyon believed it could offer improvements over the design of the Anemoi, incorporating adjustable finger hooks and broader armrests into the final design of the Speedmax CFR Track.
Schuchnigg conceded that “on a pursuit bike, it’s about being comfortable – that’s what’s more important”.
While Canyon believes its extensions offer performance benefits over WattShop’s, it has retained compatibility between both systems.
The US team will use a mix of the Speedmax CFR Track’s cockpit and WattShop components in Glasgow, but Danish riders are expected to be racing on the stock setup.
Who will be riding the Canyon Speedmax CFR Track?
The project to develop the Speedmax CFR Track began when seven-time world champion and Olympic medalist Dygert signed for Canyon-SRAM in 2021.
She was closely involved with the design of the bike, with the initial aim of the project focused on producing a bike suitable for Dygert’s speciality in pursuit disciplines.
However, Canyon was then approached by the Danish national team, who wanted a bike suitable for bunch racing.
Despite some initial concerns, internal testing showed the bike could be stiff enough for the rigours of bunch racing, but only when paired with a conventional 100mm-wide fork.
As such, bunch builds will be offered with the 100mm fork, which also makes the bike compatible with third-party wheels.
Canyon’s most expensive bike, but not the most expensive track bike
The Canyon Speedmax Track CFR is available to purchase by the public for €20,000/£18,999.
For that, you get a top-spec built that incorporates the best of modern track tech – an SRM power meter, a matching Kappstein 3/32 drivetrain, Continental GP5000 tyres, and Canyon’s own cockpit and wheels.
However, a Canyon spokesperson said the cost (or value, if you prefer) of the bike comes largely from the research and development hours involved in the partnership with Swiss Side, the Danish Cycling Federation and Team USA.
While €20,000 is a lot of money, the Speedmax CFR Track is by no means the most expensive track bike out there – the Worx WX-R Vorteq Track, as raced by the Malaysian sprint squad, costs €28,000 for the frameset.