The Canyon Endurace platform has been a value standard-setter for the past five years or so. Back in 2017, the rim brake version of the previous-generation Endurace AL won our Budget Road Bike category for Bike of the Year, while just this summer Simon Withers called the Canyon Endurace CF 7 eTap “a near-faultless endurance road bike”.
That’s high praise, indeed, and different permutations of the bike over the years have never scored lower than four stars in testing.
Happily, the latest Canyon Endurace AL 7 is still one of the best aluminium road bikes you can buy, especially if you value a lively handling bike that you won’t feel a need to upgrade out of the box.
The Endurace AL 7 is an incredibly well-specced bike for the money, and can more than hold a candle to carbon-framed bikes with arguably racier aspirations, and which cost a chunk more cash.
Canyon Endurace AL 7 specifications
The Endurace AL 7 frameset is constructed using double-butted tubing, which Canyon says contributes to low weight and high stiffness.
That’s a claim repeated by almost every bike brand time and again, but for the record it yields a claimed frame weight of 1,375g in a size medium. My test bike is a size large, and tips the scales for the whole build at 9.39kg.
What strikes me about the Endurace frame is how neat and smooth the weld junctions are. Canyon says simply it files and sands away offending welded segments to achieve a smooth aesthetic.
It might only be an aesthetic, and the result of what is a very simple solution, but you get an extremely well-finished frame.
The frame features partial internal routing of the hydraulic brake hoses and gear cables. The front brake hose enters into the fork shoulder and exits at the front caliper.
The rear brake hose and gear cable enter at the top section of the top tube in adjacent ports, running down the down tube until they exit together out of a vent-like hole on the underside of the bottom bracket.
From there, they split and run externally along the corresponding chainstays to their destinations.
The exit hole is capacious and, instinctively, I wonder if it leaves the inside of the frame (as well as the cable and hose housings) a little exposed to the elements, especially as the Endurace AL frame doesn’t include mudguard mounts.
The top tube houses something of a party piece – mounting points for a bento box, which you normally see on bikes geared more towards gravel riding.
Interestingly, the seatstays aren’t dropped one iota, joining to the top tube high up, as they do on the brand’s carbon Endurace and Ultimate range of bikes. Clearly, Canyon’s design ethos leads it to think such