Canyon Spectral:ONfly
Wheel Size: 29’’ front / 27.5” rear
Travel:
- Frame: 150 mm
- Fork: 160 mm
Geometry highlights:
- Sizes offered: S, M, L, XL
- Headtube angle: 64°
- Reach (size L): 495 mm
- Chainstay length: 440 mm
Frame material: Carbon fiber
Price: Complete bikes starting at $5,999 USD (build details below)
Intro
The Canyon Spectral family has taken many forms over the years, with the Spectral 29 and Spectral 125 proving to be fairly versatile Trail bikes in our testing experience. That focus on all-rounder appeal also applied to the electrified Spectral:ON, which has been in the lineup for several years as a 150mm-travel do-it-all eMTB with a full-power motor.
Now, 2024 has proven to be a big year for the Lightweight eMTB category — check out our recent Head-to-Head video for more on the topic. Canyon has officially joined the party with their new Spectral:ONfly.
Featuring a lightweight TQ HPR50 motor and compact 360 Wh battery, Canyon says the new Spectral:ONfly was designed to blend the speed of an eMTB with the more dynamic handling traits of a regular Trail bike. Let’s get into it to see just how they’ve accomplished their goal.
The Frame
The Spectral:ONfly gets 150 mm of rear travel paired with a 160 mm fork, placing it in the more aggressive side of the “Trail bike” class. The frame is a carbon-only affair and comes with dedicated mixed wheel sizes, which seems to be an increasingly common feature of modern eMTBs since it allows for shorter rear centers and a more maneuverable ride characteristic.
Canyon claims that the Spectral:ONfly frame alone weighs 5.8 pounds (2.65 kg), with complete bike weights as low as 40 pounds (18.1 kg) in a size Medium. That’s fairly lightweight but not earth-shatteringly so, but as we’ll get into later, Canyon has done well to choose parts that focus on durability and function rather than trying to hit the lowest possible weight.
Moving onto the suspension design, the Spectral:ONfly sticks with Canyon’s familiar Triple Phase four-bar suspension arrangement, which generates a fairly smooth, linearly progressive leverage curve that flattens out a bit at bottom-out to account for the inherent progression in an air shock. The leverage curve below is a bit confusing in that the axes are positioned in reference to the sag point rather than starting at zero, but the shape of the curve gives an idea of how the Spectral:ONfly’s suspension has been designed.
As for other details, Canyon has eschewed the trend toward flip chips and adjustable headset cups — simplicity is the name of the game with the Spectral:ONfly. It gets threaded inserts at all pivot points to avoid damage to the frame itself in the event of overzealous torquing of pivot bolts, and all bearings are double-sealed for longevity. There’s also room for a bottle below the shock, an accessory mount under the top tube, and protection details throughout.
Canyon has also employed their K.I.S. 2.0 steering stabilizer system on the Spectral:ONfly. We briefly tested an early version of the system several years ago, but for those unfamiliar with the system, K.I.S. uses a simple pair of springs inside the top tube that are attached to the fork’s steerer as part of the headset assembly. These springs essentially try to keep the front wheel straight, creating a stabilizing effect to reduce wheel deflection and wheel flop, and tension is adjustable via a bolt and slider embedded in the top tube. While the system is unique to Canyon, it could absolutely have its merits in stabilizing the front wheel on a heavy eMTB — but skeptics can still remove it fairly easily, too.
Drive System
While Canyon’s shorter-travel Neuron:ONfly opts for the more powerful Bosch SX motor, Canyon surprised us a bit by opting for a TQ motor in the Spectral:ONfly — it’s the first bike from them to use this system.
The TQ HPR50 is a familiar motor for us, featured on the Trek Slash+ and Fuel EXe. It’s a rather compact little drive unit, packing 50 Nm of torque, 250 W of continuous power, and 300 W peak power. It’s proven to be a quiet and smooth-running motor on those Trek bikes, and we’d expect a similar experience with the Spectral:ONfly.
Between the small motor format and 360 Wh battery, the Spectral:ONfly barely looks like an eMTB at all. That smaller battery does mean that its range isn’t likely all that great, and as mentioned in our recent review of the Trek Fuel EXe Aluminum, we’d likely spring for the 160 Wh range extender — fortunately, that’s available as an upgrade from Canyon and fits in the place of the water bottle cage.
Fit & Geometry
Some of Canyon’s recent bikes in the Trail and Enduro categories have featured some generous sizing (i.e., they’re quite long relative to nominal sizes), and the same trend holds true with the Spectral:ONfly.
While all four sizes get a moderate 64° head tube angle and 440 mm chainstays, the size Large Spectral:ONfly has a 495 mm reach and 648 mm top tube length — both of which are a good 10–20 mm longer than what we typically expect for a “Large.” Its bottom bracket height is fairly low at 342 mm, and the seat tube angle is not all that steep at 76.5°. Riders with particularly long legs should note that the actual seat tube angle is 72.9° on a Large, which could feel a bit overly slack at higher-than-average saddle heights.
Detailed geometry figures are as follows:
The Builds
While there are multiple options available internationally, Canyon is launching the Spectral:ONfly with just two builds here in the US — the CF8 and the CF CLLCTV.
As with most things Canyon, the price points are quite compelling. The $5,999 USD CF8 model gets a RockShox Lyrik fork and Deluxe Select+ shock, and there’s a full Shimano Deore drivetrain paired with Code R brakes. As typical with Canyon, the cockpit and dropper are all house-brand components.
The higher-spec CF CLLCTV (said as “CF collective”) will cost you $7,499 USD and gets several key upgrades. A Fox 38 Performance Elite fork is a good bit burlier than the CF8’s Lyrik, and a GX Transmission handles shifting duties on the CLLCTV build. It also gets you DT Swiss HX1700 LS and nicer SRAM Code Silver Stealth brakes, but otherwise, the Canyon finishing parts remain.
I do want to note a few things hidden in the build details, the first being Canyon’s use of very long dropper post lengths. The size Small Spectral:ONfly gets a 170 mm post, Medium and Large get 200 mm, and XL gets 230 mm — well done there, Canyon. Brake rotors are also properly large at 200 mm front and rear. The only notable letdown is the tire spec, which goes with a Maxxis EXO casing up front and EXO+ casing rear. As far as I’m concerned, EXO isn’t suitable on much outside of XC and very lightweight Trail bikes, let alone an eMTB — and even EXO+ feels a bit light duty, at least on the rear tire.
Here are the highlights of the two builds:
- Drivetrain: Shimano Deore
- Brakes: SRAM Code R (200 mm rotors)
- Fork: RockShox Lyrik Base (160 mm)
- Shock: RockShox Deluxe Select+
- Wheels: SunRingle Trail Expert 329/327
- Dropper Post: Canyon G5 (S: 170 mm, M–L: 200 mm, XL: 230 mm)
- Drivetrain: SRAM GX Transmission
- Brakes: SRAM Code Silver Stealth (200 mm rotors)
- Fork: Fox 38 Performance Elite (160 mm)
- Shock: Fox Float X Performance
- Wheels: DT Swiss HX1700 LS
- Dropper Post: Canyon G5 (S: 170 mm, M–L: 200 mm, XL: 230 mm)
Some Questions / Things We’re Curious About
(1) With 150 mm of rear travel, does the Spectral:ONfly ride like a Trail bike, or does it fall more on the Enduro side of the eMTB spectrum?
(2) Part of the Spectral:ONfly’s low weight is no doubt due to its compact 360 Wh battery. Does the 360 Wh battery offer enough juice for typical rides, even in steeper locales, or does the range extender quickly become a necessity?
(3) How does Canyon’s K.I.S. system feel in an eMTB implementation?
Bottom Line (For Now)
Canyon’s Spectral:ONfly combines middle-of-the-road travel (150 mm rear / 160 mm front) with fairly long geometry and a lightweight TQ drive system. With the Lightweight eMTB category seemingly heating up, it’s a versatile-sounding package that should have fairly broad appeal for folks who want one bike that covers a wide range of riding scenarios — so long as the battery size doesn’t provoke too much range anxiety. We’ll be getting our hands on one for testing soon to see how the Spectral:ONfly stacks up to the ever-growing competition in the Lightweight eMTB space.
Nice bike. Big fan of the TQ, but not mullet-only capability.