Tech of the Month March: Canyon's seat post and handlebar malfunctions plus one gorgeous Racer Rosa

The big news this month, unfortunately, centres around issues Canyon has been having with elements of its finishing kit.

Canyon’s finishing kit problems

The 2021 Canyon Aeroad has a seat post which has been engineered to allow a little bit more flex in order to increase comfort. However, there have been complaints from some customers that this flexing has caused significant gauges in the carbon seat posts and left the bike unrideable. For more detail on this story, you can check out our full article here.

Shortly after this news broke, so did Mathieu van der Poel’s handlebars at the one day race, Le Samyn. Canyon issued a stop ride order for all bikes with these handlebars – due to the high levels of integration, a different set of handlebars couldn’t simply be fitted.

Although this meant most pro cyclists had to switch bikes for their upcoming races, Canyon was able to modify Mathieu van der Poel’s frame to accept a different handlebar ahead of Strade Biacnhi – which the Dutch rider went on to win.

Open moulds

It might surprise you to learn that there aren’t many bike brands which have total control over the construction of their bikes. Factor and Giant are very much in the minority in owning their own factories – most brands will design a frame and then pass it on to a manufacturer to do the messy work of making the bikes.

In other cases, the factory develops its own bike designs – open moulds – which poorer bike brands that can’t afford to design their own frames can then commission a certain number of and sell under their badge.

Although you can as a customer purchase these open mould frames from the factories direct – and gain a significant saving – you don’t have the assurance of quality control that you would do if purchasing the same frame from a recognised brand.

For more details on the bike design process, we’ve got an in-depth article on everything from open moulds to in-house manufacturing.

Racer Rosa SC21

Custom made from Dedacciai Aegis scandium tubing, this frame is designed to fit tech writer Simon Smythe like a glove. At the joins on the inside of the main triangle, there are deep inserts designed to increase the stiffness of the frame.

In English, we call these gussets, but in Italian they go by the far more elegant term fazzoletti, meaning handkerchiefs – drawing on the image of how it looks when one’s tucked into a breast pocket.

As you might expect, it’s a full Italian build, with a Campagnolo Chorus groupset, Bora wheels and Vittoria Corsa tyres to name a few highlights. In this build, the price comes to £5,570, while frame only is £1,950 – which for a fully custom geometry and such quality tubing is actually quite incredible value.

Simon's full review hasn't yet landed, so keep an eye out for when it does.