Canyon Commuter Review – an almost perfect commuter bike

Hi all!

Just wanted to share my experience with the Canyon Commuter bike – Canyon makes lots of bikes but their casual bikes don't get as much attention it, so wanted to share in case anybody in the market finds it helpful.

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I am still fairly new to cycling, having just started to cycle to get around London at the beginning of the summer. I had initially bought a cutesy Dutch-style step through bike (the Decathlon Elops 520) second hand for cheap just to get accustomed to navigating the city roads and build confidence. After a couple months I had started to go further distances and the nearly 19kg Elops bike I was riding was getting to be a bit of pain.

So I started to look for a more serious bike that could take me further in the city.

I had a couple priorities:

1. Needed to be lighter than the Elops, ideally less than 15kg
2. Needed a rear rack included
3. Needed integrated lights so I didn't have to bother with charging or worry about them getting knicked.
4. Needed a belt drive rather than a chain – I'm new to cycling and don't know the first thing about maintenance so wanted something simple. Not getting grease on my hands and clothes is a plus.
5. Needed gears – quite a few (admittedly small) hills near me

After considering all this, the Canyon Commuter appeared to be one of the only bikes that checked every box. It was on sale for almost £500 off making it the cheapest option I could find by far, and at 13.42kg it also appeared to be the lightest option. Additionally, it was easily the sexiest and sleekest of all the options. All of this made the Canyon the obvious buy.

I have been using it almost daily for a month now and it feels soooo snappy compared to my last bike. It is ALMOST perfect – and the ways in which it is not are really infuriating.

Everything I've already listed make it almost perfect, but there are several key things that are really annoying though certainly not dealbreakers.

1. The pedals are low and can scrape when going around corners. Caught me by surprise at first and was a little disappointing but got used to it relatively quickly and adjusting my foot positioning when going around bends. If I'm wearing a bigger shoe however sometimes I'll still graze the road surface.
2. The QL 3.1 rack. Being able to use the QL 3.1 system is great!… if you already have pricey Ortlieb bags that work with it, otherwise it's a bit annoying. The mounting points for the 3.1 system interfere with other pannier bags and it kind of forces you to buy into the Ortlieb system. Canyon makes other racks where the 3.1 mounting points screw off so you don't need to use them, I'm not sure why they didn't do that here. Additionally, the rack is only rated at 15kg which can sometimes happen if I'm doing a big shop. This would all be okay if it was a bit easier to swap out the rack…
3. Limited mounting points/braze-ons. There are none of the typical pannier mounting points if you wanted to change the rack, so it's not easy to put another rack on without a certain level of savvy and modification. I bought an AVS rack to replace the one it came with, but (as a cycling newbie) was a little daunted by the idea of trying to unscrew the wheel and fit it on, and it would've needed additional mounting points on the mudguard and a new seat clamp with rack mounts as well. I ended up returning the rack and just ended up buying an Ortlieb bag
4. Additionally, there are no mounting points for a frame/ring lock on the seat stay. In an urban environment having this extra bit of protection against potential thieves is nice (Canyon's new urban bike the Citylite comes with a frame lock pre-fitted), so it's disappointing not to have an easy option to mount this. I did manage to mount one with the Abus frame lock tensioning straps, but the fact that the seat stays tube are not perfectly cylindrical but are oval shaped made finding an adaptor strap that would fit a bit difficult, and even the Abus straps took some futzing around with to get right.
5. This is not a design flaw by Canyon but a mark of naivete by me: I wish I got the step over rather than the mid step. It leaves the only place to mount the lock on the top tube and eliminates the potential to actually step through the frame. If I had gotten the step over, the larger triangle would've allowed me to mount the lock and a bottle cage too.

These are minor things, but things that are pretty annoying – I think the fact that they are so minor makes them all the more annoying because it doesn't feel like it would be hard for Canyon to make it better. It's 90% there to being the PERFECT commuter – but that last 10% is so crucial. It is pretty damn close though and I don't think I would've bought a different bike. Helps that the bike is sooooo sexy too.

A month or so after I bought this, Canyon came out with the Citylite which appears to address all of my qualms with the Commuter. It has a rack with removable QL 3.1 mounting points, integrated MIK HD mount, and rated for up to 27kg – which is better all around. It also actually comes with a frame lock pre-fitted! I like how the integrated front light is more discreet, but overall I think the Commuter still looks way more attractive.

If the Citylite was out when I was shopping around a couple months ago, it would've been a much tougher call. I think the sale price on the Commuter and the more refined look would've still brought me to the Commuter, but that could just be cope.