FIRST LOOK: Canyon Spectral WMN CF 8.0
The Canyon Spectral WMN CF 8.0 is one of few women's specific trail bikes on the market.
Words: Anna Beck
The Canyon Spectral has been lauded as a top-performing do-it-all 27.5” trail slayer, and when Ryan Walsch reviewed the Canyon Spectral CF 9.0 SL – he agreed. But with increasing pressure from the women's market and within Canyon’s own staff ranks, the brand decided to rebuild the Spectral from the ground up in order to offer a women’s specific version of this award-winning bike in 2019.
The bike tested, the Canyon Spectral WMN CF 8.0, sits second from the top in the offering, with the range consisting of five women’s specific bikes comprised of two alloy entry level options and three carbon framed offerings. Kudos to a direct to consumer brand like Canyon designing women's specific bikes, and shipping them ready to go. It's a bold move for a brand that doesn't have the face to face interaction that most brands have to explain why a women's specific fit is needed for some riders.
At $5249, the 8.0 offers a lot of bike for your money: featuring a full carbon front-end (alloy rear triangle), SRAM GX drivetrain with Guide RSC brakes, RockShox Pike and Deluxe RT3 suspension, lightweight DT-Swiss XM 1501 Spline Wheel set and Fox Transfer seat post.
In terms of women’s specific geometry, the Spectral includes a shorter reach, and slightly lower standover, and to kit it out the RockShox suspension has been custom valved for a rider approximately 15% lighter than standard: with Canyon doing extensive testing they found this to be the average difference in weight between the sexes.
The bike also features women-specific contact points with a 740mm bar, lightweight low-profile Ergon Grips and a SDG Allure Saddle.
The women’s range of the Spectral feature 10mm less travel compared to the unisex offering (150/140 compared to the unisex offering’s 160/150). This is based upon Canyon’s comprehensive rider database, which found key differences between the sexes was arm length, rider weight, shoulder width and preference for greater stander clearance. By shortening up the reach on the Spectral Women’s, Canyon aim to put women, on average with less upper body leverage, in a more central, controlled position on the bike.
But it’s not all about geometry and charts. The 140-150mm range seems to be the goldilocks of bike offerings, and with a claimed weight of 13kg, I reckon this could be a very handy ride-everything, all-day whip to have in our quiver. I'm pretty excited to hit the trails on this trail sled and see what the limits of its capacity are!
