I'm going to post this in case someone using a search for feedback might find this helpful. I did a lot of research before purchasing the Grail:ON but info is hard to find.
My background: I am 47yrs old, 6'3.5" (192cm) 195lbs(89kg) used to race road bikes as Cat2 15 yrs ago. Got really sick with a long term illness, and hadn't ridden a bike in 10yrs because exercise made me more ill. Started to get better, and wanted to get back into riding bikes but was afraid I would not be able to put much effort into it because I just can't without paying big price. The Grail:ON seemed perfect. I wanted a gravel bike or something that could be more of an all road bike. I thought the grail
n checked all the boxes and would allow me to ride at my pace of 15yrs ago, and open up other riding opportunities(gravel, easy local trails, etc.). And it did all that.
Yes the cutoff is about 26.5mph actual speed(indicated 28mph) which is kind of annoying, but once I installed a wheel speed sensor to use with garmin edge 1000 and used theoretical circumference of a 700x50 tire I understood the issue. It is indeed 28mph using the theoretical tire size... but the effective tire size is a bit smaller. So its not an intentional thing on Canyon/Bosch's part.
The bike rides exactly like you would expect. The motor is like a riding a perfectly insync tandem with an adjustable stoker power output with no weight. The bike weighs the same as tandem too. haha
I found Eco to feel like riding a normal bike at higher speeds and on road, it was kind of like you could roll those monster truck tires with road bike efficiency and then some. Tour was like mega boost. Sport was you don't even have to try to pedal, and I never used turbo because sport with a modicum of pedaling was already pulling max power out of motor. In the US the motor is rated at 350w. I used to train with SRM power meter and that was roughly my FTP (power I could maintain for an hour). It can put more power than that for short bursts, but 350w sustained in addition to whatever you provide is plenty.
I would definitely get the SRAM equipped bike if you spend any time on the road riding faster than 20mph. The shimano equipped bikes come with 11-42 11spd cassette, and the spacing is all wrong for a class 3 E-bike. Close ratio in the middle, with the smallest cogs being 15-13-11. With a 44t chainring, you pretty much spend all your time in those three gears, with a big gap between each. It doesn't look like there is much clearance on the chainstay to mount a bigger chainring and Canyon had no idea. Even a 46t would be a gamble and it needs at least a 48t. The 10-36 12spd SRAM cassette would be much better, as it has 15,14,13,12,11,10. And man even in ECO mode the 44-42 gear is stupid torquey, like unusable low with the motor kicking in. You can climb 40% grades in the 44f-36r without much effort.
RANGE:
Everybody wants to know about range... how long is a rope? The battery is 500w/hr, but efficiency is probably 80% best case so down to 400w/hr, and because of internal resistance losses that is only at a slow discharge rate, if you discharge it faster, it goes even lower. And of course how much power are you putting in? I did a couple rides at both ends of extremes.
All out: I did a ride around a hilly criterium course close the car to ride till empty and managed 33mi(53km) at avg speed of 23.5MPH(37.7kph) with a cumulative elevation gain of 2280ft. I was mostly in Tour mode not riding hard, but I was staying aero. The higher power outputs drained the battery quick. That's a lot of climbing so I'm pretty sure that is about all I could have done as my 30yr old self going all out, and I did it with a lot less effort. Its important to note I was always trying to stay in zone 2, I never let my heart rate go above 125bpm, so would SWAG my avg power input to be about 200w to augment whatever the motor did. To do that effort on a 38lb bike with those tires would be probably require 480w average, so lets just say I did get close to the rated capacity of battery (280w x 1.5hrs = 420w/hr)
At the other end of the spectrum I did a 49mi ride lots of gravel and 1900' of climbing at avg speed of 18.7mph and got back to car with 1 bar remaining. Toggled to Tour mode for hills, but mostly Eco mode. I would place the effort equal to what I could do on Endurace with GP5000 tires(roll way easier) with a 13.7mph avg. Its a huge difference. There is no question about it, you could easily do a 60+mi ride at much faster speed than regular bike given equal efforts.
I ended up returning it. There was nothing wrong with it, its a fantastic bike... it just didn't suit me. I got an analogue Endurace to replace it. The reasons for me was that I realized all the E-bike was doing was allowing me to ride faster (duh). But where I live in housing development hell, unless you can ride 45mph on high traffic two lanes with no shoulder, you have still have to load it up into the car to drive 10mi outside of exurbia to the nice low traffic roads and gravel, and man throwing a 38lb bike in the back of the car is so much harder than an 18lb one. Plus there was this subtle grinding feeling in the smaller cassette cogs you could feel through the crank that I thought was in the motor (I since had the same problem in the Endurace bike and realized it is a shimano hyperglide thing that goes away when the teeth and chain wear-in).
My background: I am 47yrs old, 6'3.5" (192cm) 195lbs(89kg) used to race road bikes as Cat2 15 yrs ago. Got really sick with a long term illness, and hadn't ridden a bike in 10yrs because exercise made me more ill. Started to get better, and wanted to get back into riding bikes but was afraid I would not be able to put much effort into it because I just can't without paying big price. The Grail:ON seemed perfect. I wanted a gravel bike or something that could be more of an all road bike. I thought the grail
n checked all the boxes and would allow me to ride at my pace of 15yrs ago, and open up other riding opportunities(gravel, easy local trails, etc.). And it did all that.Yes the cutoff is about 26.5mph actual speed(indicated 28mph) which is kind of annoying, but once I installed a wheel speed sensor to use with garmin edge 1000 and used theoretical circumference of a 700x50 tire I understood the issue. It is indeed 28mph using the theoretical tire size... but the effective tire size is a bit smaller. So its not an intentional thing on Canyon/Bosch's part.
The bike rides exactly like you would expect. The motor is like a riding a perfectly insync tandem with an adjustable stoker power output with no weight. The bike weighs the same as tandem too. haha
I found Eco to feel like riding a normal bike at higher speeds and on road, it was kind of like you could roll those monster truck tires with road bike efficiency and then some. Tour was like mega boost. Sport was you don't even have to try to pedal, and I never used turbo because sport with a modicum of pedaling was already pulling max power out of motor. In the US the motor is rated at 350w. I used to train with SRM power meter and that was roughly my FTP (power I could maintain for an hour). It can put more power than that for short bursts, but 350w sustained in addition to whatever you provide is plenty.
I would definitely get the SRAM equipped bike if you spend any time on the road riding faster than 20mph. The shimano equipped bikes come with 11-42 11spd cassette, and the spacing is all wrong for a class 3 E-bike. Close ratio in the middle, with the smallest cogs being 15-13-11. With a 44t chainring, you pretty much spend all your time in those three gears, with a big gap between each. It doesn't look like there is much clearance on the chainstay to mount a bigger chainring and Canyon had no idea. Even a 46t would be a gamble and it needs at least a 48t. The 10-36 12spd SRAM cassette would be much better, as it has 15,14,13,12,11,10. And man even in ECO mode the 44-42 gear is stupid torquey, like unusable low with the motor kicking in. You can climb 40% grades in the 44f-36r without much effort.
RANGE:
Everybody wants to know about range... how long is a rope? The battery is 500w/hr, but efficiency is probably 80% best case so down to 400w/hr, and because of internal resistance losses that is only at a slow discharge rate, if you discharge it faster, it goes even lower. And of course how much power are you putting in? I did a couple rides at both ends of extremes.
All out: I did a ride around a hilly criterium course close the car to ride till empty and managed 33mi(53km) at avg speed of 23.5MPH(37.7kph) with a cumulative elevation gain of 2280ft. I was mostly in Tour mode not riding hard, but I was staying aero. The higher power outputs drained the battery quick. That's a lot of climbing so I'm pretty sure that is about all I could have done as my 30yr old self going all out, and I did it with a lot less effort. Its important to note I was always trying to stay in zone 2, I never let my heart rate go above 125bpm, so would SWAG my avg power input to be about 200w to augment whatever the motor did. To do that effort on a 38lb bike with those tires would be probably require 480w average, so lets just say I did get close to the rated capacity of battery (280w x 1.5hrs = 420w/hr)
At the other end of the spectrum I did a 49mi ride lots of gravel and 1900' of climbing at avg speed of 18.7mph and got back to car with 1 bar remaining. Toggled to Tour mode for hills, but mostly Eco mode. I would place the effort equal to what I could do on Endurace with GP5000 tires(roll way easier) with a 13.7mph avg. Its a huge difference. There is no question about it, you could easily do a 60+mi ride at much faster speed than regular bike given equal efforts.
I ended up returning it. There was nothing wrong with it, its a fantastic bike... it just didn't suit me. I got an analogue Endurace to replace it. The reasons for me was that I realized all the E-bike was doing was allowing me to ride faster (duh). But where I live in housing development hell, unless you can ride 45mph on high traffic two lanes with no shoulder, you have still have to load it up into the car to drive 10mi outside of exurbia to the nice low traffic roads and gravel, and man throwing a 38lb bike in the back of the car is so much harder than an 18lb one. Plus there was this subtle grinding feeling in the smaller cassette cogs you could feel through the crank that I thought was in the motor (I since had the same problem in the Endurace bike and realized it is a shimano hyperglide thing that goes away when the teeth and chain wear-in).
