Canyon Announces 2019 Strive with 29" Wheels and Revamped Shapeshifter

The new year has barely begun, and Canyon is already making a flying start to the 2019 season by announcing the latest generation of its enduro bike Strive. The Strive is the German direct sales brand’s most successful and innovative mountain bike – and the latest iteration, with a totally revamped Shapeshifter system, marks a major step forward in its development. A full-suspension, full-carbon 29er built for the world’s toughest Enduro stages and demanding local trails, this bike delivers maximum efficiency and top performance on the most challenging rides imaginable. Welcome to Shred City!

Using a gas spring, the Shapeshifter system lets the rider adjust the Strive’s geometry between the “pedal” and “shred” mode while riding, simply by flicking a handlebar-mounted switch. In the 2019 Strive, the Shapeshifter has been further developed and refined in close cooperation with the suspension experts at Fox, resulting in major visual and functional improvements. But that’s not all: the Strive also now rolls on 29” wheels – a new approach taken after months of testing with pro riders such as Ines Thoma and Dimitri Tordo, who both compete on the Strive for the Canyon Factory Enduro Team, under the stewardship of team principal and former DH World Champion Fabien Barel.

“For some time now, there has been a clear trend towards 29-inch wheels in Enduro racing – but we weren’t interested in just blindly following that trend” says Daniel Oster, Canyon's Category Manager for Gravity Bikes. “Trends don't win races – intensive testing and development do. We know that the 2019 Strive with the new Shapeshifter will be one of the fastest Enduro bikes out there: that was our stated aim when developing the bike. And the vastly more intuitive geometry adjustment system is a big plus for all riders, not only the pros.”

The 2019 Strive has 150mm of travel in DH mode. In XC mode, this is reduced to 135mm and the steering angle and seat angle are both increased by 1.5 degrees. These changes make the suspension stiffer, resulting in less suspension movement while letting the shock work with full efficiency without needing to be adjusted directly or a platform. On the front, the bikes come with robust 36mm-stanchion forks with 160mm (on CF models) or 170mm (on CFR models) of travel. Further key facts and features: full-carbon frame (approx. 2,700g on CF models and 2,400g on CFR models, size M, without shock), Boost standard on both front and rear, through axles, downtube and chainstay protection, dropper posts on all models, internal cable routing.

The Strive comes in four frame sizes, S to XL, for riders from 1.58m to 2m tall. There are three models for sale in the US, starting with the Strive CF 6.0 at $3999, a Strive CF 8.0 at $5300, and going up to the flagship Strive CFR 9.0 Team for $5999, as well as a CFR frameset for $2999.