It may not be the first, and I doubt it will be the last. Only time will tell whether Canyon’s re-envisaged Exceed CFR Gravel drop bar ‘mountain bike’, braving the wild frontiers of retro-futuristic offroading, will be a hit or a miss.
Either way, when I saw that curvaceously wild-looking dropped bar hardtail MTB, I grinned from ear to ear, just like it was 1991 all over again. Flashbacks to the dayglo glory days of a pioneering sport, with the iconic John Tomac hurtling downhill, and uphill, and winning World Cup races aboard his drop bar hardtail, along with that rumbling rear disc wheel. Ahh, it’s enough to make an old biker reach for his Bula hat and rattle his wrists to bits trying to hammer down a rocky trail at full pelt on his old 90s rigid garden gate.
Yeah, we know: ‘it’s nothing new’, ‘it’s pointless’, ‘why bother’… but to me, it matters not. A drop bar MTB with an all-round adventure image is just my ticket. Though I do very much get the fact that it will roll plenty an eyeball, and I do acknowledge that for many the concept of a dropped bar MTB, or even a ‘progressive’ gravel bike may seem pointless in this modern era – and there is some truth in that.
Why the concept makes perfect sense to me, but may be nonsense to others
Things sure have evolved over the years when it comes to off-road riding and adventure – and my leaning has, for decades, been very much towards the travel and adventure side of the great ride.
From travelling with cyclocross bikes to touring and hardtail MTBs with mixed sets of tyres – and even with a set of suspension and rigid forks too (at times), I’ve always made my travelling bikes as multi-functional as possible, and also kept things as simple and easily fixable as is feasible in remote environments.
With not getting too technical in this article, because it’s not my personal focus when it comes to cycling, a bike like this fits my niche wishlist pretty well overall – apart from this model from having an electronic drivetrain, which for me isn’t the best thing if you’re stuck in a far off jungle during monsoon time, which does actually happen to me sometimes living in the Far East.
For me, it’s the added versatility offered by a drop bar hardtail that makes sense – especially on a modern bike (though I’ll likely end up converting an older bike for this). In the past 10-15 years, things have changed a heck of a lot when it comes to off-road riding on the adventurous side, too. Sure, riding drop bar bikes of all kinds off-road is not new, and neither are the natural trails and adventure opportunities out there. However, it’s the awareness, the new off-road adventure image, the mainstream access to route information, the growing number of ultra events and epic off-road races, all combined with the blingy but practical tools to take them on and not be ridiculed, that have changed.
Just a few years ago, there were no gravel races, no gravel bikes, and the very idea of riding 300km a day for a week off-road on a drop bar bike and then sleeping in a goat herder’s hedge would have seemed ridiculous to most riders (even if some of us did similar things). Now, it’s a somewhat inspirational ideal, and the once untamed and unimaginable (to most) is now seen as doable; even kinda normal. This, to me, is why this kind of bike works; it’s not a missing jigsaw piece, but it does spark my imagination and potential for my own adventure rides ahead, and that’s a personal plus.
What if I do manage to concoct such a bike somehow? Yes, for my own everyday simple mixed-gravel riding I’d still stick to the wrist-rattling of my regular gravel bike. For my old school natural MTB local riding, I’d also stick to my old hardtail.
Though for some of the wild rides and trips I do get to take on (less so these days), a bike such as the Exceed CFR Gravel would very much be at the top of my list.
Flattening the Tomac drop bar myth
As much as any early 90s mountain biker, I am too in awe of John Tomac, and of that legendary image and the tales that went with him, including his drop bar exploits, which I like to romanticise over.
A couple of years back, I caught up with the man himself and asked him why he rode drop bars back then – this was his answer: “The dropped bars; the only reason I did that was because I was riding on the road professionally at the time, and I just wanted my bikes to be the same. It was definitely a sacrifice on the descending parts of cross-country courses, and especially in the downhill races I did on them at that time”.
Now, maybe it’s back to the future for me – somehow, along with the spirit of the great Johnny T as company…
