Field Trip: Canyon's $1,200 Stoic Is All You Need to Have Fun
PINKBIKE FIELD TRIP
CANYON STOIC 3
(AKA Stoic 2 in other markets)
All you need to have fun
Words by Sarah Moore, Photography by Tom Richards
CANYON STOIC 3
(AKA Stoic 2 in other markets)
All you need to have fun
Words by Sarah Moore, Photography by Tom Richards
The first bike in our Field Trip value bike review series is the Canyon Stoic 3, a 29er hardtail with a 140mm fork that'll cost you $1,200 USD to get your hands on. The German mail-order brand describes as being a "phenomenal trail bike with no added squishy bits.’’
At this pricepoint, you won't find a dropper post, but you will find an SR Suntour XCR 34 fork with 140mm of travel with a lockout lever and adjustable rebound, internal routing for both the dropper post and rear shift lines, Shimano’s Deore 10-speed drivetrain with an 11-42 cassette, and Schwalbe tires mounted to 30mm wide Alex rims.
At this pricepoint, you won't find a dropper post, but you will find an SR Suntour XCR 34 fork with 140mm of travel with a lockout lever and adjustable rebound, internal routing for both the dropper post and rear shift lines, Shimano’s Deore 10-speed drivetrain with an 11-42 cassette, and Schwalbe tires mounted to 30mm wide Alex rims.
Canyon Stoic 3 Details
Fork travel: 140mm
Wheel size: 29"
Frame construction: Aluminum
Head angle: 65-degrees
Chainstay length: 428mm
Reach: 455mm (medium)
Sizes: 2XS - XL
Weight: 32.2 lbs / 14.6 kg
Price: $1,199 USD
More info: www.canyon.com
Fork travel: 140mm
Wheel size: 29"
Frame construction: Aluminum
Head angle: 65-degrees
Chainstay length: 428mm
Reach: 455mm (medium)
Sizes: 2XS - XL
Weight: 32.2 lbs / 14.6 kg
Price: $1,199 USD
More info: www.canyon.com
Climbing
The first half of our test lap on the Sunshine Coast was a rooty, slick singletrack climb that then transitioned into a wider, smoother gravel section. How did the Canyon Stoic do on the climbs? Well, it's no secret that hardtails are pretty darn efficient on the climbs. That being said, the Stoic doesn't feel like a cross-country race bike just because it's a hardtail. Canyon hits a good middle ground with the geometry, which means that while it isn't the snappiest of climbers, it will still get you to the top of the mountain with energy left in the tank for the descent.
There are a couple of things you could change if your goal was to improve the Stoic's climbing prowess. The meaty tires definitely don't make the Stoic a fast rolling bike. Mike Levy may even have likened the feeling of riding them uphill to "rolling through molasses." If your local trails are hard packed and dry, you might want to ditch the grippy Magic Mary up front for something a bit quicker. The other thing that holds the Stoic back on the descents is the 11-42 tooth cassette that it comes with. It's a bit of a narrow range for our liking and you'll likely want to factor in the cost of a new cassette to the price of the bike if you have steep climbs where you live, especially if you're a newer rider.
Descending
Was I just moaning about slow-rolling tires? On the descents, especially on the wet trails we encountered on the Sunshine Coast, having wide, grippy rubber on a hardtail is essential for maximum fun. They really help with confidence and it's a blast to corner on the Stoic and to pump through rolling terrain, essential skills for any new rider. Smooth trails are really where the Stoic shines and it was a really fun bike to carve through the trees on our test lap.
The fork may not be as smooth and active as more expensive forks out there, but it actually works really well. However, when things get fast and rough, the Stoic can feel a bit nervous when the impacts are coming fast and hard, killer tires or not. There's also not a dropper post, which is definitely something you'll want to change when possible in order to make the descents and rolling terrain more enjoyable. It's no easy task being the product manager on an $1,199 USD bike, and at that price point it's easy to see why a dropper post didn't make the spec list.
It’d be easy to complain about the the narrow range of gearing, lack of a dropper, and the fact that the Stoic doesn’t use a raked-out head angle that would let it feel more at home in the rough or rowdy stuff… But that’s not what the Stoic is all about. Yeah, there’s room for upgrading, but what did you expect? It’s meant to be a little fun machine that gets you out there, and that’s what it’ll do. There are things to upgrade, but you can do that when you discover how much fun this sport is and keep wanting to do it.
The entire bike probably costs less than what Mike Levy spends at Tim Hortons in a month, but it’s way healthier and a whole lot more fun. Canyon bills it as a bike that can go for a trail ride, head to the jumps, or spend an afternoon at the pumptrack. I’d agree that it’s capable of all that, in moderation.
Pros
+ Shines on smooth trails
+ Great price point
+ Geometry hits a good middle ground
Cons
- Not ideal on rougher descents
- No dropper post
- Limited gearing
Note: The model is called the Stoic 2 in all markets outside the USA. Canyon released it as the Stoic 3 in America, however, in a week’s time Canyon USA will also adopt the “Stoic 2”, so that the names are the same in all markets.
The 2021 Pinkbike Field Test was made possible with support from Toyota.
Video: Jason Lucas, Max Barron
Editing: Devan Francis
Author Info:
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true to that; a 45 year old guy from holland that I know got himself a wife from a small group of poor fisherman islands in the Philipines; her father was the head in the islands; he told me that the only TV in those islands was on the bigger one, at the drinking tavern. That was around 10-11 years ago. Now, she's living with him near Rotterdam and she made him a son. He couldn't be a happier man, with his still very-very young wife and his small son.
but the situation is what it is, he is married with her and their are living happily. You should check this out as this is relatively known facts around northern EU states...danes and sweeds, occasionally take young south east Asian wifes and bring them back to EU with them.
and please, don't be hypocrites and tell me that if you are single man, at around 40-45, you wouldn't *$&# a young woman, regardless of her race and place of birth.
as for my comment, I was just pointing out that, as the joke got around "buying a new spouse".. on this wide world, stranger things could happen, even though you N americans might not be used to them.
take it as a joke... I don't remember if he paid something to her father or not but, then again, that might be a local tradition or a common practice in those parts and we simply don't know about it.
I, for surely, don't know as the closest I've been to a philipenese girl(woman!), was in a bar in HK, 5 years ago. No buying or exchanging for forks happened!
one thing though, and I know this from many suppliers with which zi interact in those parts of the world..., most of the poor girls going to HK, Macau or other coastal big cities in that area, fleeing from their native islands with the hope for a better life, became involved in million/billion $$$ sex trafficing of criminal syndicates.
No amount of downvotes will change that and what will also not change the current status quo is being naive about these kind of situation all over the world and pretend, safely - from your inner "walls" of your conservative city, town, whatever, with mostly civilized local societies, that this kind of things do not happen. If you all truly belive this, you should start visiting countries that are not situated on the north american continent. All of you are in for some big surprises.
Here, in the balkans, even in billion $$$ companies you'll occasionally a CEO screaming at some sort of commercial director in some whatever senior management group meeting. Most of our diplomacy is faked... or it is from necesity; and, in my pov, this is hardly the place which requires such a polite way of adressing.
going dh on red and black diamonds.. yeah.. for those ppl the electrics are the targeted bikes.
for just riding a double flat track once every two weekends, most of the ppl will say you are a crazy man if you plan to spend on a bike more than 500 USD.
If I bought a new fork right now, I might find myself shopping for a new spouse!
So.... sorry, no eugenics from me. if they would have been, I would have put something Khan Noonien Singh related.
Hear me all! I believe this man is not a racist! We have to keep looking!
true, without Ben Pea I probably couldn't have made it.
then again, these guys, who I'm sure most of them are pretty decent people, should start visiting places ouside their continent. If they think they have social and rasial injustice in N America, they're up for a big.. really big surprise when they'll see how the rest of the world looks like.
The most racist thing here in my opinion is @kcy4130 assuming she’s brown :wtf:
That's racist too but nobody cares
There are tons of other factors besides money of course- the most salient ones being the ratio of living men to living women in a given age pool, and whether the women and men find each other attractive. There is far more lizardry and economics to sex and love than most people care to admit or understand.
US model of racism was simpler than European since it was easy to identify and opress the Blacks. Wars with bordering nations didn't really exist. 200 last years of American wars bleeks in comparison to what was going on in Europe. There is more complex form of racism and nationalism on our old continent since there is a bigger mix of cultures who interact with each other. Even Britain is kind of left out. It is them who went out with huge guns and colonized countries, they didn't really take part in brutal wars in the heart of Europe where there was no such thing as evident privilege. IT was a dog eat dog situation with all countries around Germany butchering each other by any closest occasion, then also having civil wars (like Italy). Now similar thing is going on in Middle East. I mean: one cannot apply same narrative of oppression and privilege everywhere no matter how tempting it is. Especially when those who sell this McDonalds form of higher morality, always use same characters as oppressors and as the oppressed. It's all a soap Operah now. And it is racist and it is sexist
Back to your example: what you wrote doesn't sound well inside McMorality. One could say that you are mildly demonstrating your misoginy by assuming different behavior of women. Because women would theoretically not be capable of objectifying a man, it is a man who objectifies women in all the McMorality bed times stories. Me now trying to give examples of men being exploited by women is also getting into dangerous waters. Yes it is not exactly equal, there are details to it. Women are attractive mainly by genetics and their sexual value drops with time whereas it is opposite to men. Their sexual attractivity depends mainly on the size of their wallet and the abaility to signal this size. Women bring up kids, men don't. Women are indeed more vulnerable in lamost every single aspect of lifeand at the same time their approach is more humanistic than one of males. This is also why they are less likely to sacrifice family for career which makes men more likely to be more suscessful at work.
But it's all complicated and all Triggasaures eating McMorality (like DCA and Mattlamb ekhem) refuse to deal with it. There - Sexist! Austrian privileged man willing to objectify women from poorer countries from a sexual angle!
65° head angle: “Am I a joke to you?”
You can of cause worship the geo numbers of a bike when its standing still without a rider on it, or you can look at the actual geo numbers your bike will have on the trail with a rider on it. The fact of the matter is, that hardtails dynamic geometry changes drasticly compared to its static geo and therefore you shouldnt look at its static geo to determine how it rides, unless you weigh 0kg and only ride perfectly flat roads.
That’s incorrect, slack head angles are not the end all be all in mountain biking. They make flat, rolling terrain and climbing a lot more work than they need to be.
This bike is meant to ride all of the trails, not just the ones that point straight down...
I really like that they made this bike more of an all rounder.
Having said this it’s all splitting hairs by woke folks who are into numerology and “how fast will I be if I buy this” horoscopes. 63-64HA ht will climb pretty much as well as one with 67HA given same seat angle/ reach/ cs and an actually skilled rider. If someone sits on their butt all the way around a tight switchback with a rock in the middle, then yeah it may be an issue. But if they move a bit... as they should...
But it’s the very fact that the geometry is dynamic that we should actually look at the constant - the static figures and extrapolate from there imo.
Nobody runs exactly the same sag and no two riders weigh the same and/ or ride the same OR the same terrain.
Better to have a good base line and develop an idea of how that base (static) sag is going to play out for you than over complicate it with arbitrary ‘sagged’ figures that are not really relevant to you. Sagged figures at 30% are no different to a set of figures at 0% in that neither are a full representation of what you’re gonna get. But at least the static is same for everyone.
Granted the two together for a hardtail frame could be useful to see how things change over 30% travel but then you might say well let’s have 0,50 and 100% to really see....where does it end? And is it even relevant to how the thing rides anyway? Does it actually feel like the bike gets steeper? Maybe it does. But what does 2.5° feel like?
Basically - we should just keep it simple, stick with the static numbers. The rest has to come from actually riding and riding experience because no other set of figures is good for all riders/ styles/ terrains/ setups.
With an aggro hard tail, you're trying to maximize fun, not speed. I feel for most enthusiast riders, the top of that bell curve would be a 120-130mm fork with a HTA around 66 degrees.
For a budget trail hard tail like this, maybe 140mm travel up front with similar geo numbers, since the tradeoff for a $1100 full suspension is something with (even more) trash parts hanging off it.
What you should have taken from my previous comment is, that hardtail head angles and full sus head angles from a geo chart arent 1:1 comparable, since a hardtail gets siginifcantly steeper and a full sus usually gets slightly slacker, becasue on a full sus you will usually ride more sag in the rear.
I don't know if it's COVID-related supply chain issues, or currency rates, or the direct to consumer companies upping prices to balance things out and not be so comically back-ordered - but frankly, there's not much "savings" any more on this one, and I think if you look at other parts of the market, you'll find the same thing (friend of my son's got a Capra - and yes, it was a good deal, but no, it wasn't that much less than an LBS-bought bike would have been).
Anyway,at this price I would go for the Giant Fathom 2,with 12 speed Deore,a dropper,and even better looks.
Decent geometry doesn’t cost much.
These trail/AM/Enduro hardtails need to be so stout that most of the compliance will come from wheels and tyres
So doesn’t seem unreasonable unless you’re under biking on stuff a hardtail isn’t meant for. Or you’re heavy.
Or at least I can't parse the difference through a million other factors stacked up on each other. Any time I ride similar-enough bikes I legitimately couldn't make a confident statement about frame compliance.
That’s pretty in line with DH pressures that I’ve heard. Meanwhile Nino runs 15 or 16 on 2.5’s. On a non-dh course it pays to choose a line that avoids the rock since its like hitting your brakes. And when you do “touch” a rock it’s at a very different energy level.
Regarding flex, sure, noticing flex on a bike is easy, I agree. On certain conditions I can even realise I have loose spokes on the rear wheel just from the bike's feel. Thing is, I'd be willing to bet that, on a hardtail, assuming it is stout enough to pass current requirements, people wouldn't notice different frame stiffness
Is the flex of steel just marketing hype? I dont know. Is my steel hardtail extremely compliant? Yes.. i also believe the people that made it seriousoy know how to build a bike
What frame, by the way?
I dunno why, but have this stupid urge to sell the FS frame and build a Moxie
Different grips, pedals and wheels/wheel sizes
I think the average rider is more satisfied riding a less capable bike on the edge, than riding a highly capable superbike far from its limit
The ratio of this cassette is limited, but where the ratio starts and finishes is dictated by the front chainring. Size accordingly, with no drawbacks as there is no rear suspension.
What I really don't get is the new bikes with a 51 or 52 rear cog and a 28 or 30t front ring. surely it's easier to get off and walk at that point??
That's unfortunate if Marzocchi is doing something similar, seems like Suntour at least tries to act like it's a feature that makes the fork easier to service or something
nice
OK CNYN U WN.
Another point on the same subject, How do you all feel About 11-42 tooth 10 speeds? you think they are obsolete? You See I am a rider with little funds and I grab all the budget good stuff upgrading my Cross countyr hardtail. I installed a 1x10 deore on it and I love it, climbs like a mountain goat. People say they suffer with these drive train set ups (10 speeds), I personnaly think they need to get on their bikes more and pump the lungs more. We used too shread 3x8 up and down trails in my area, one particular hill that is actually like an "enduro light" trail system. we are becoming trail princesses if you ask me...and these new electric mountain bikes....still don't know how I feel about that.
i know a long time ago, but i bought my anthem for a few hundred more and it was a lightweight full sus with fox all round
Has tech really moved on so much that this bike is better than that was? must have to warrant such a high price tag these days for a mediocre bike
In Ireland, mountain biking is synonymous with starting in the sun and ending in the rain with mud everywhere
On the bright side, that's saved me money as I just look at my bike and think "You know, it's really totally fine."
That bike should be $700 Canadian. The price of bikes are a joke these days.
I saw that issue on a 2800€ Spectral lastly. The low cup was cut in two after 1 month and it started to eat the upper part of the Fox fork that was mounted on it. My client was disgusted and wrote to Canyon who simply avoid the question.... We finally mounted a Cane Creek 40 headset to solve the problem, but remind this: Canyon is NOT your best friend. I warned you.
1. A rider who doesn't understand the importance of a dropper will take it out on the trails and NOT have as much fun, and will be less likely to become long-term riders.
2. The rider will know they need a dropper but won't have confidence installing, and end up paying significantly more $$ to purchase and install, eliminating the value of the product.
3. A combination of the two above.
This, IM(mostly ignorant)O, is a push to just sell more product without considering retaining consumers long term and growing the industry as a whole.
Droppers are great, but they are cerntainly not neccesary.
OR, the bike would cost $1300 and include the cheapest dropper possible, or $1400 with a decent dropper.
Cause I recently helped two friends from work get into the sport. They’re both single engineers with above average disposable income and who already enjoy similar (expensive) activities. They knew this was for them.
Tried to tell them that they would be a lot happier if they spent ~$1,500 to start with. Gave them all the reasons. Dropper posts, gearing compatibility, 1x performance... They even agreed with the reasons.
And they both said they would rather get something that barely does the job and upgrade it over time than spend 4 figures starting out. And they both have plenty of fun when we ride.
The sport won’t grow if “budget” bikes start at $1,400. That’s a ton of money for something without a motor to people who aren’t in love already.
Personally I think the industry needs to focus on a smoother upgrade process. For example, no stealth dropper hole? WTF. Include an “upgrade sheet” in the manual that tells them what they need to buy to make it a 1x, 12s, add a dropper, burlier brakes and tires etc. A new rider probably doesn’t know they can fit an NX cassette on a standard free-hub for example. A website where you enter a serial number that shows compatible parts could really open up a lot of options. The current model relies on conversations with shop employees to bridge this gap, but that’s not sustainable or effective.
And when you consider the upgrade paths, it turns out a dropper is one of the simplest things to upgrade. Even wheels are more complicated.
Anecdotally, I have noticed that pretty much anyone coming from another outdoor sport knows not to cheap out on gear this way. My climber friend bought herself a $3000 used Evil and that thing will last her literally forever since she's still progressing into its capabilities.
Doesn’t mean it’s not seriously helpful. You simply can’t corner as hard without that freedom of movement and margin to pick up a slide. Unless you’re not cornering that hard to begin with.
Comparing a HT to an enduro rig seems misplaced. It should be compared to a XC or efficient trail bike. My general experience is that a little travel really opens up line choices that rob too much speed or traction on a hardtail. And the suspension does a better job keeping the tires hooked up in general. And if I get sloppy it’s more forgiving. That last one is a negative in the long term, but it sure helps in the moment.
We’re probably just arguing about the definition of “necessary” here. If you mean “not necessary to have fun and go fast” then I’m totally with you. Though it certainly takes more skill to do both. But if you mean that you can go just as fast on a HT or with a high post on typical trails then I think you’re off base. Especially for a new rider who needs all the help they can get.
There is a reason nearly every bike other than race XC bikes are specced with droppers - they help with bike control immensely, helping you corner more aggressively and pump more effectively.
In terms of fun, yeah I think you can have fun on anything - but to say that a dropper post wouldn't significantly help a newer rider 1. have a safer experience and 2. have more fun more quickly, I think is fooling yourself.