What's new

The Canyon has landed. My experience of buying a bike online

leicaman

Maximum Pace
Sep 20, 2012
2,878
2,698
I have been very excited for the past few weeks. Since reading a review of the Canyon Ultimate CF SLX last year, I had always wanted one, so on the 9th of Feb I ordered one online from Germany. Canyon are a web based bike company only. You can't get buy them from a bike shop. I received an email the next day confirming my order. I had originally wanted the SLX7.0 but they were out of stock, and with a due time of late May, I wasn't prepared to wait so long. I therefore decided to go with the 8.0, along with its full DA9000 groupo, as it was in stock.

On the 13th Feb I received an email saying that my bike had been handed over to UPS. There was a link in the email that directed me to the UPS online tracking service. The email advised that it sometimes took 24 hours for the tracking number to work. Impatiently I tried within 12 hours and it didn't work. I tried again after 24 hours and it still didn't work. I tried countless times over the next 4 or 5 days before deciding to call Canyon. A quick call to Germany via Skype (cost about 10 yen) and it was suddenly became apparent why my tracking number wasn't working. They had sent the bike via DHL. I tried the DHL website with the same tracking number and was told that my bike was in Japanese customs.

Last week I received a letter from customs asking me for more details about the bike. I ticked the box which said it was a present then faxed the letter back. Kawasaki post office then called me on Monday this week to find out more about the package. It seemed they wanted to know who the sender was. The bike had obviously come from Canyon in German so they didn't understand why they would be sending me a present for my birthday. After explaining the situation to the post office worker (in my best broken Japanese), he called customs, then called me back. He told me they were going to release the bike that day so it should be with me the following day or the day after that. The next morning the postman arrived with a huge box. I paid the duty to the postman (about 3.8%) and I am now a very happy chappy.
I got some DA pedals this morning as I couldn't bring myself to buy Ultegras and put them on with full DA (even though I would never be able to tell the difference) :)

IMG_1712.jpg IMG_1712-2.jpg IMG_1714.jpg IMG_1719.jpg
 
Looks great - love the arty Black and white photos..:)
 
Candy! Beautiful bike and photos! Although they don't convey the red highlights that well ;)

Time to change avatar image me thinks.

Now we'll never be able to catch you up the hills, not that be could before either to be fair.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
That is really nice. Prepare yourself for absolutely mental levels of braking power compared to what you had before, and silky smooth, positive shifting.

Excellent rig.

Stem is too short though.
 
No mate that's Saitama, very drab place to live. It's a bit like Milton Keynes.

Milton Keynes being the home of the Denbigh Leisure Centre. Evolution, Dreamscape, Helter Skelter, Raindance, Lion-X, Pure-X, United Nations, etc...
 
Ouch...I will be in MK in late March.
Woburn has a few good taverns....not sure if that counts as being in/near Milton Keynes or not?

I was there exactly two years ago and I must have lucked out on the weather. It was sunny 6-days straight...

BTW, nice bike. Have heard a lot of positive things about the Canyon bikes. Very sweet setup!
 
Mixed emotions.

Mostly positive but with bits of jealousy and loathing thrown in.

Keep the tri bars off it when you ride with the group;)

When does your skinsuit arrive?
 
Wish I could get bicycle companies to send me "Birthday Presents" :cool: Pivot Cycles are you listening?
 
Beautiful... Before I bought my most recent bike, I seriously considered purchasing from the Canyon Online website. Congratulations on the new bike~
 
Great! Must say I am a little tempted to follow in your tracks. They do seem to make the whole process fairly easy...
 
  1. Nice bike
  2. Is that a compact?
  3. Which crank are you keeping?
  4. I know a good place to store the other one (hint - in my bottom bracket).
 
I approve of this.

Imagine if someone was selling the rest of a Dura Ace 9000 group too. :oops:
 
I approve of this.

Imagine if someone was selling the rest of a Dura Ace 9000 group too. :oops:
His crank was your crank?

This has all been engineered by the big two camera manufacturers who are trying to extract as much money out of all of us by having their sponsored photograpghers shooting narrower and narrower depths.
I blame Skyrim MODs
 
Yawn. "We all" = "you" does it? Please, the thread is about his new bike not technically review my photos please wanna be know it all photographers.

Very nice bike but getting cheesed off with the world wide acclaim for out of focus photos


So much bokeh that I can't actually find anything in focus on the first or second photos. The depth of field in the second photo is so shallow that the nearly-in-focus cranks become out of focus wheels and stays despite them being in the same plane of field to normal eyesight.

This has all been engineered by the big two camera manufacturers who are trying to extract as much money out of all of us by having their sponsored photograpghers shooting narrower and narrower depths. As a result we are all being attuned to "micro depth photography is great". Those depths are only achieved by the most expensive lenses and full-frame cameras = we all go out and buy them thinking we are now great photographers if we can emulate narrow depth of field.
 
His crank was your crank?

Wake up there... he sells his spare DA9000 chainset, as suggested by GrantT, and I am selling my DA9000 shifters and mechs so this could make up the lions share of complete DA9000 group for the potential buyer. It was a cheap attempt to ride on a potential sale in order to shift what I am selling. Parasitic coat-tailing of the worst kind, I freely admit.
 
Back
Top Bottom