Mathieu van der Poel, Stéphane Tempier and Jordan Sarrou would have actually been fighting for the World Championship medals in the Bullentäle in Albstadt on 28 June. Probably on the brand new hardtails of their sponsors, as the climbing-heavy course on the Alb is not too technically demanding. But then came corona. The race dates vanished into thin air - from the World Cup to the Everyman Marathon. This also delayed the presentation of the 2021 hardtails.
But now BMC, Canyon and Trek have let the cat out of the bag. The Swiss from BMC beat with the Twostroke BMC have taken a radical approach and given the hardtail the same long, flat geometry as their race bike. In addition, the BMC scores with a lot of seating comfort. Which is where the Swiss Trek come in, who have already launched the IsoSpeed joint on the Procaliber have been trying to get rid of the hardtail's stubbornness for years. We were already convinced of the durability of the "decoupler" between the top tube and seat tube on the previous model. But instead of developing the system further, the Americans have adopted it 1:1 in the new model. And in doing so, they overlooked the fact that more comfortable bikes can now also be built significantly lighter.
How, that shows Canyon with the Exceed for 2021. The successor to Alban Lakata's world champion bike is packed with well thought-out details and closes the gap to the spearhead of 29er hardtails in the CFR version. In contrast to its direct competitors, the direct-to-consumer brand caters to amateur racers who want to be at the starting line on lightweight professional equipment. At Trek and BMC, the hardtail range ends at 3500 and 4000 euros respectively with our tested models. Only the Canyon is suitable for the World Championships, but unfortunately the Dutch superstar van der Poel will be absent from the World Championship replacement event in Leogang in October.
You can conveniently download the entire race hardtail test with all grades, points tables and technical data from BIKE 10/20 as a PDF below the article. The test costs 1.99 euros.
Why not free of charge? Because quality journalism has a price. In return, we guarantee independence and objectivity. This applies in particular to the tests in BIKE. We don't pay for them, but the opposite is the case: we charge for them, namely tens of thousands of euros every year.
You can find these three 2021 race hardtails in the BIKE test:
- BMC Twostroke 01 One
- Canyon Exceed CFR Team
- Trek Procaliber 9.8
