Inside Canyon Bikes
 | A disruptive innovation is an innovation that creates a new market and value network and eventually disrupts an existing market and value network, displacing established market leaders and alliances. - Wikipedia |
Maybe more than any other country, Germany has long embraced the idea of buying mountain bikes directly. In a market where customers tend to place more emphasis on value and technical details rather than brand, it is the natural home for this business model. A few years ago you could spot these bikes a mile away - they tended to feature a generic frame, decked out with high-end components and as many cables and levers as you could possibly fit onto a handlebar. It is fair to say that you could not sell many of them outside the German market they were designed for.
Canyon were one of the first of these brands to look towards wider horizons, to start to make bikes for an international market. That meant going back to the drawing board and putting together bikes that can not only win the coveted magazine tests in their homeland, but could be competitive on a world stage. In no small part due to their work with Fabien Barel, today their bikes are towards the forefront of "modern geometry" and proven race-winners in the Enduro World Series. This what makes Canyon such a disruptive force in the mountain bike market - their current bikes are on a par with the established top brands in terms of quality and performance, yet through their direct sales model they can keep the price significantly lower. We visited their headquarters in Koblenz, Germany to take a look at how they prepare the bikes for their customers.
Canyon's headquarters are an imposing affair, situated in the heart of Koblenz.
While it may not look like as much fun in this weather, a pumptrack outside the headquarters is always the sign of a bike company that knows how to enjoy itself.
It may not look like much today, but this trailer is where Canyon began. It was from this trailer that founder, Roman Arnold, first began to sell bike parts at races - and from there the business grew. Today it is on display inside the entrance to the headquarters.
In their headquarters they have their heavily-equipped testing lab. It is here that Canyon tests all of its frames, forks and components to their limits. Alongside the more common examination processes, including microscopes and conductivity testing, they have an CT scanner to examine the structural integrity of the kit. This is essentially the same technology you would be examined with if you went to the hospital, but to work with far more dense metals and composites the power is turned up to levels that would be harmful to humans (they don't turn the machine on with the door open - this was just for the photo).
Every aspect of every component that Canyon put their name to is tested against a myriad of loads and stresses - from impacts on the headtube, to how much force the dropout can take, depending on the test they may face 100,000 cycles or having the force or load increased and increased until the material can no longer take it. 
While the main headquarters are impressive, it's only one of a number of sites they have around the town. The actual production of the bikes happens here - in their vast warehouse and manufacturing facility outside the town.
If you think you receive a lot of post, you should see how much a company of this size receives... This is, admittedly, more than would usually be in this area because this facility when we visited Canyon had only just opened the new facility and were still in the process of cataloguing the garagantuan amount of components you need to build as many bikes as they do.
Before the goods are sent through to the warehouse, each batch is checked by quality control to make sure they are fit to be mounted onto the bikes.
If you're going to produce 100,000 bikes per year you're going to need quite a lot of kit to do that, so you're going to need a lot of space to store the frames, components and finished bikes.
Assembly takes place in this hall - the frames enter on the left, then work their way in a "U" shape to finishing on the right.
Assembly begins with preparatory steps - preparing the cable routing, mounting the frame bolts and greasing the frame's apertures
Some steps are done separately to the main production line - for instance, the handlebars and stem are mounted with all the necessary equipment and cables to one side, they are then mounted as a single unit in one go on the main line.
Within just a few steps the frame becomes recognisable as a bicycle, rather than an assortment of components.
When the basic assembly is done, it is time for the bike to cross the floor to the right-hand side for setup.
The fully assembled bikes are setup to shop standard - all the gears are indexed, brakes tested and alignment of the contact points setup. The mechanics take each bike for a quick spin up and down the hall floor to make sure everything is working order, so the customer can take the bike out of the box and, after some minimal reassembly, get out and ride.
To prepare the bikes for shipping they are meticulously prepared and slightly disassembled to fit in the shipping boxes.
Each bike is then carefully loaded into its box and it is ready to be sent to a waiting customer.
MENTIONS: @Canyon-PureCycling
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Last year i bought a more modern fully (Turner Flux)
Anyone who just wants a bike to be a good ride, doesn't give a damn about dumbass internal cable routing.
The fact that there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, and the guy is having just as much fun riding as anyone else has usually been forgotten by this point
It is a bit unfair to use "dentist" as a placeholder for all of the above waffle, but it's so much easier to type.
Anyway yeah, that guy usually has internal routing. And points it out like it was the main selling point. I guess I can see why people like it, but I just think its a bit pointless.
Also I'm paranoid enough about not being able to see whats going on inside my frame eg weld defects or wear, without a load of cables rattling around in there. I know this isnt a problem on all frames but I'd rather just sidestep the issue altogether.
GM9-I do appreciate your gracious response to my earlier post. I have no experience with rabid feminists, but regularly get my ass kicked by rapid feminists.
They're not as rich tho
canyon should tell their customers: "hey, you want to pay less, you better like long lines"
This meant losing my chain on every race stage due to not being able to run a chain guide as Canyon decided not to use an ISCG standard for their chain guides and their own staff didn't know what adaptor I needed.
Of course they had problems, because of the move to another HQ simultaneously with an IT changeover to SAP, but the way, they treat their customers, is just poor!
1, That area with the inbound goods is a mess. There are boxes likely to fall down from the pile, not organised. It must be very hard to find something specific there if you need it and hard to reach.
2, People in an industrial environment shouldn't be wearing casual clothing imo. For example the guy with that big watch. I bet he sometimes scratches the frame with that thing while working on it. In any decent factory it is forbidden to wear jewelry.
3, The ergonomic carpets are too small. Sometimes you're standing on it while assembling a bike, sometimes not. If you've worked on one of those you know it's the most annoying thing. The place where you stand should be consistent.
These are just a few minor things an outsider could notice based on a few pictures.
To me a chinese factory seems outdated but more organised, more efficient.
I agree on the watch/jewellery comment but looking through the pictures the asian looking guy was the only one wearing it so he might just disregarded something and caught on camera. As long as they have one of the best bikes on the market for great prices and good warranty service I don't care if they are not wearing uniform when assembling them.
I would like to see a follow-up with their new facilities though...
In a nutshell: great, until it turned bad.
Was a proud owner of a 2011 Nerve AM9 SL top of the line, top of the euro rig.
Since I am in Switzerland and back then Canyon had trademark issues with the alpine country, I was forced to have the bike delivered to Italy. No problem with that, got my full VAT refund asap BTW.
Any little issue I ever had was properly handled by whoever was on the line in Germany.
Until october last year, when I really started to get upset by a creaking noise I was hearing. Checked everything, cranks, bushings, rear cassette, etc. Then a terrible thought dawned on me, and I grabbed my camera and micro lens. I checked around and then found a hairline crack in the rear chain stay.
Took a hi-res picture and sent it to Germany, as usual, asking for the price to to buy the whole rear ass'y.
Some time later someone from Canyon Italia writes back wanting more pics of the bike of the serial number, yada yada. OK.
I organize a 8 hr trip back home to take the pics and I send them back to Germany, asking once again to purchase the rear triangle, etc, etc.
Canyon Italy writes back saying I *must* send the required docs to them, otherwise.
The whole theater with Canyon Germany and Canyon Italia goes on for some time.
The last email I get thanks me for the pics, and that they will decide the fate of my request and will let me know through ... Canyon Italia.
As of today both parties are MIA.
On the other hand my riding buddies by now know the whole story by heart.
Over Christmas drinks they're still ribbing me and shaking their heads over the fact that mail order, you know, never as good as buying from a store....
Come New Year's eve more of the same.
Planning the new 2016 rides? Hah - wonder if Paul will have his bike ready by then tsk, tsk..!
So not only did Canyon manage to piss me off, but they shot themselves in the foot in front of the whole club (last count = 12 active riders) - in any language it's spelled marketing suicide.
So as far as I'm concerned - no more mail-order and no more Canyon or Rose Bikes, thank you.
Apologies if I pissed on anyone's parade.
Paul
And forums are crawling under such feedbacks ...
Can't even think about a better one for all Bike! 200mm bike and you can even climb that Thing pretty easy in my opinion. Great kit.
I really do my best to crack it (just to have reason to get the DHX) but .....it's still going strong! Ok tehy have some issues with the Service, but it's no big deal. I experienced the same issues with traditional Brands via local bike shop.
Great article, great pics, and great promotion for all the manufacturers featured in these articles.
I am 99% more likely to make a purchase decision based on articles of this caliber than any banner ad or anything like that.
Thanks again Pinkbike and Matt
www.bikemag.com/industry-news/canyon-bikes-usa-sales/#KzezKLYlgLouc4gt.97
Bikes are 3-4 months out. Parts for brand new (and broken) bikes are months out. So much so that you cant get on the list, and they havent began production. Emails go 2 and 3 days without a response, and then its usually so short and vague its like a tweet. They have this "Youre lucky to even have a canyon" attitude and care nothing about customer prior to or after the sale.
www.pinkbike.com/forum/listcomments/?threadid=149137&pagenum=167#commentid6109574
Amazing engineering. QA and customer service are far below what most consumers are used to.
It seems that this was the right decission when seeing that they were not able to do their homework in the last 3 years,because they are still doing the same mistakes over and over again.
Now I'm with Propain and they know how to satisfy a customer!
I recently went to take the integrated headset (original from factory) cup out of the frame. It fell out of the frame!!! It should be interference fit and its not, I was able to push the new bearing and cup in by hand...eeekkkkk. Not so confident in the manufacturing tolerances. You could see where they faced the frame and its wider than the reamer because it didnt't face evenly. So that is my last Canyon...
www.pinkbike.com/news/inside-schweinfurt-sram-2015.html
Continental in 2012:
www.pinkbike.com/news/continental-tires-manufacturing-2012.html
And Nathan just did Schwalbe a few weeks ago:
www.pinkbike.com/news/schwalbe-tires-home-story-2016.html
I was scheduled to visit BMC, but it didn't work out this time.
Yeah right.
Canyon, instability should not be selling it STRIVE.
It has many faults.
Check, please.
www.pinkbike.com/u/rocina/album/CANYON-STRIVE-shapeshifter-Of-assorted-failure
www.pinkbike.com/forum/listcomments/?threadid=149137&pagenum=161
Typically I own a bike for a year then I replace with a new model, so far my Strive CF Race has been broken for seven months, so over half of my typical ownership- broken.
I'm in my first enduro race for 2016 in a couple of weeks, I'll have to enter on a broken bike- thanks Canyon. Still, they've offered me a £75 gift voucher to say sorry, unfortunately I have to spend it with Canyon....
It is an impressive assembly line but there is no soul there in my opinion.
Personnaly I get more impressed with small bike or components factories/workshops with full production based on their own country.
In the shop where I worked, most of the revenue came from overhauling mid to low end bicycles for everyday use and in my opinion most of the mountainbikes we sold will never be used properly.
I would say a bike shop in Germany isn't very often the heart of a biking community (maybe this stands in contrast to North America) but more or less just a service provider.
I live in a fairly big city and in every lbs i went, each owner was either rude, indifferent, didn't know a thing about setup, or knew anything about local mtb scene. As for now i'm a regular in a skateclothing shop, because the owners are by heart mtber and decided to sell handbuilt wheels.
Direct sales doesn't have that bad rep in our community
What happened to the interview to the owner or majority shareholder of rose bikes tho? the one for cube was very insightful
It's in there, I just know it...
Matt did anyone take you for a ride?
googling googling googling...
I see okay yeah my mistake i was getting confused with an MRI scanner