Grail vs grizl: Which Canyon gravel bike should you buy for getting off the beaten track?

We had the pleasure of testing the Canyon grail cf sl 8.0 last year and even featured it in our best gravel bikes round-up. It’s a true jack-of-all-trades that’s comfortable and quick on dirt but doesn’t get sluggish when the trail turns to tarmac.

At its core, the grail is designed to be lightweight and fast on mixed terrain. It’s a highly capable all-rounder and happily dealt with anything our tester’s stomping ground of rural Northumberland could throw its way – cow pats and all.

The grail has clearance for up to 42mm tyres on 700c wheels. This means it’s lighter and sportier than the grizl but it can struggle with very rough gravel and mud. It also features three mounting points for bottle cages, and eyelets for mudguards.

The grail also boasts a unique cockpit design, which immediately sets it apart from rival gravel bikes. All mid- to upper-range grails come equipped with double-decker handlebars that dampen vibrations from rough road surfaces. In our experience, it really does work, and, if nothing else, always drums up plenty of conversation and compliments from fellow lycra-clad bike weirdos.

Canyon’s ever-impressive VCLS seatpost also features, which aside from looking all cool and futuristic, is designed to flex subtly without altering saddle position, taking the sting out of particularly gnarly surfaces. It’s an upgrade that your undercarriage will thank you for.

Prices start at £1,649 for the aluminium grail al 6.0 and go all the way up to £5,229 for the grail cf slx 8 etap. There’s also an e-bike option, the grail:on cf, which starts at £4,999. It’s available in men’s and women’s sizes.

Unlike the grail, the word “tarmac” doesn’t feature in the grizl’s vocabulary. This is a bike designed for all-out off-road action and is about as close as it’s possible to get to mountain-biking territory without swapping your drops and rigid fork for a flat bar and front suspension.

The Raiders Gravel course had us bombing down dusty, pot-holed woodland trails, peppered with loose gravel, jagged rocks, and the occasional cantaloupe-size boulder. And while that sort of terrain would feel sketchy at best on the grail, the grizl and its substantial 45mm tubeless tyres happily zipped over the lot.

The grizl is a bike built around the idea of adventure. Wide handlebars increase control on technical terrain (although there’s no grail-style two-level cockpit), and an abundance of mounting points means you can really load this thing up like a brightly coloured carbon-fibre packhorse and disappear off-grid for days at a time.

Aside from the standard bottle-cage mounts, there’s capacity to carry 3kg on each fork, a top-tube mount, and a mount to the underside of the down tube for those who want to go all enduro with their bidon placement.

Unlike many other gravel bikes on the market right now, the grizl bucks the trend of offering a 650b wheelset option. These smaller wheels have become popular in the world of gravel riding as they leave room for wider tyres, but since the grizl is capable of running up to 50mm tyres on 700c wheels, Canyon says there’s really no need to go smaller. We’re inclined to agree, and since bigger wheels roll more easily over obstacles and reduce rolling resistance (just ask a mountain biker), it really seems like a no-brainer to make this bike 700c-specific.

What struck us most when riding the grizl was just how comfortable it felt on even the roughest of gravel. Naturally, the fat squishy tyres play a large part in this, but there are other factors at play too – including Canyon’s VCLS seatpost, which can also be found on the grail.

If you’re keen to blur the lines between gravel and MTB further still, you may have thought about equipping your bike with a dropper post to get the saddle out of the way on techy downhill sections. If that’s the case, the grizl will happily accommodate one.

There’s no aluminium option here, so starting prices are a little higher than for the grail. The cheapest ticket to the party comes in the shape of the grizl cf sl 6, which comes spec’d with shimano’s GRX gravel-specific groupset and costs £2,199. Or, if you want to go all out, the top-of-the-line, grizl cf slx 8 di2 will set you back £4,999. It’s also available in men’s and women’s sizes.