Movistar’s Canyon Aeroad pro bike: A multiple Monument winner

Movistar’s Canyon bikes are largely unchanged from 2023, barring new Time XPRO pedals

04:46, Monday 5th February 2024

Tom Hallam-Gravells

Online Production Editor

Movistar's Canyon Aeroad for the 2024 season

Movistar Team

Nationality Spain
Founded 1980
Team Principal Eusebio Unzué
UCI Code MOV
Bike Sponsor Canyon

Johan Jacobs

Team Movistar Team
Nationality Switzerland
Age 27
Height 1.92m

Canyon

Canyon Bicycles GmbH is a German manufacturer of road bikes, mountain bikes, hybrid bikes, triathlon bikes and e-bikes based in Koblenz, Germany.

SRAM

SRAM is a components manufacturer based in Chicago, Illinois. The company mainly produces drivetrains, for a wide variety of disciplines, alongside many other components. SRAM’s has acquired other brands within the industry such as Zipp, RockShox and Quarq.

Zipp

Zipp is a cycling component company owned by American manufacturer SRAM. Zipp specialises in carbon fibre wheels as well as producing a number of other components with the sole mission of making cyclists faster.

Continental

German brand Continental is one of the world’s leading tyre manufacturers and has been creating bicycle tyres since its inception in 1871.

Few bikes can match the pedigree of the Canyon Aeroad. A pure winner, it was the joint most successful Monument bike in 2023 alongside the Colnago V4Rs, conquering both Milan-San Remo and Paris-Roubaix at the hands of Mathieu van der Poel. Its success translated to the Grand Tours too where it delivered eight of the brand’s nine stage wins - although all of those were delivered by Alpecin-Deceuninck.

The German brand will be hoping to continue its success into 2024, as will Movistar who will aim to take up some of the winning burden for Canyon that was heavily shouldered by Alpecin-Deceuninck in 2024.

While at the Santos Tour Down Under, we got our hands on the Aeroad that the Spanish team will hope will power them to some of that success.

Read more: Tour Down Under tech gallery: WorldTour equipment and accessory changes 2024

Pure aero machine

Belonging to Johan Jacobs, the Aeroad in question is a pure aero bike which sits alongside Canyon’s lightweight offering, the Ultimate. It’s an aero bike in the traditional sense, with deep tube profiles, chunky stays and aero-optimised handlebars.

The Aeroad has a familiar aero silhouette

The current version ridden by Canyon-sponsored teams was released in 2020 and represented a big upgrade in terms of performance over the previous version, according to Canyon.

“It’s up to 7.4 watts faster. Up to 170g lighter. Up to 14% stiffer,” the German brand said upon its release. “And all that with absolutely no drawbacks when it comes to the bike’s celebrated levels of comfort.”

Narrow head tubes are also common on many modern bikes

If performances on the road are anything to go by, those figures don’t lie. It’s hard to imagine how a brand can make such a successful bike even faster, but bike brands keep finding ways to fine-tune designs and we’re sure Canyon will find a way too. We may not have to wait too long to see a new version either, as Mathieu van der Poel was spotted riding a subtly different model during 2023, given away by a repositioned seatpost clamp. Most release cycles centre around a three-to-four-year orbit, so the latest version may soon emerge on the horizon.

Read more: Can the new Canyon Endurace CFR replace an aero bike?

SRAM-Movistar partnership continues

After nearly four decades of collaboration, Movistar turned its back on Campagnolo in 2020 to make the move across to SRAM groupsets. That move was just one factor in Campagnolo’s overall demise at WorldTour level and, despite its illustrious history, the Italian brand’s groupsets won’t be used by any WorldTour teams in 2024. By comparison, SRAM is used by four while Shimano claims the other 14.

A SRAM Red AXS 54/41t chainset

SRAM currently has one major benefit over its rivals as it is the only groupset brand to have a 1x offering for the road. It wasn’t on show at the Tour Down Under, though, where Jacobs stuck to a traditional 2x set-up with a SRAM Red AXS 54/41t chainset.

Jacob's bike had a large cassette which we believe is a 10-36t

That was partnered with what appears to be a mighty 10-36t cassette to provide ample gearing for the opening stage of the race, when we saw the bike.

Read more: 2024 Men's WorldTour bikes: A guide to the bikes, groupsets, and tech of the top-tier teams

New Time pedals

While most of the build has carried over from last season, Movistar has swapped its pedals from Look to the Time XPRO. That’s not too surprising as Time was acquired by SRAM in 2021.

Time has joined the team as pedal sponsors

Zipp is also owned by SRAM and supplies the team’s wheels in the form of the 454 NSW. These are instantly recognisable thanks to their rim profiles which undulate between a 53 and 58mm depth.