The start of the downhill World Cup is just weeks away, and just in the nick of time Canyon has a new big travel bike it hopes will carry Troy Brosnan, Marine Cabirou and the rest of the CLLCTV team to victory.

The latest Sender gets a new high pivot design with an idler wheel, a setup that plenty of the top DH teams have adopted for the 2025 season. In January we saw the Atherton A.200G gearbox bike with a high pivot, and last winter Pivot released its latest Phoenix downhill bike with the same setup.

The new Sender will be ridden by the likes of Marine Caribou and Troy Brosnon this season

The new Sender highlights include stacks of adjustment that’ll provide keen amateurs and pros alike with hours of fettling to get the perfect setup. We’re talking about the ability to tune the leverage rate of the shock, as Trek pioneered on the Slash last year, and geometry adjustment independent of this. There’s also something totally new to me, a cool reach adjustment that’ll shrink or grow by a huge 8mm.

Canyon Sender need to know

• New downhill bike with high pivot suspension design and idler wheel
• 200mm travel bike with mullet wheels and a full carbon frame with downtube protection
• Adjustble leverage rate suspension giving either a linear or more progressive feel
• Adjustable geometry independent of the suspension, dropping or raising the BB 5mm
• Reach has been supersized, adding 8mm to all sizes, and stack height is up too
• Reach is also adjustable by +/-8mm for fine tuning the fit
• Two bikes in the range, the Sender CFR ar £4,199; and CFR Team with SRAM Ultimate suspension for £5,599

Who doesn’t love a high pivot design? The Sender gets that and more for 2025

Let’s get started with the new suspension setup. The old Canyon Sender CFR 29 was our favrourite direct sales DH bike last year, but the German brand has chucked away that design and given it a radical overhaul.

The travel stays at 200mm but you now get the high pivot design the industry is so keen on right now for its perceived ability to swallow big hits without slowing down.

Of course no high pivot design would be complete without an idler to set the chainline higher, and make it easier for Canyon to fine-tune the bike’s anti-squat characteristics.

“Progressivity and anti-squat engineered into the design provides support and stability in the mid stroke of the coil shock, equating to predictable and responsive behavior when pumping and jumping,” Canyon says. Or in other words, it’ll ride high in its travel and give riders something to push against and generate speed.

The Sender is the bike the Canyon CLLCTV DH team will be racing this year

At the same time Sender pilots will now get 130% anti-rise (presumably at sag),which means the bike will squat into its travel under braking. It’s hard to comment further without riding the bike, but my guess is that – combined with the high pivot idler – the Sender will keep its geometry and avoid getting out of shape.

Canyon says it will also “keep pedal kickback to a minimum and offer superb small bump sensitivity, to further enhance traction whatever the conditions.”

The Sender also has an adjustable leverage rate, which riders will be able to adjust on the upper shock mount. There are two settings, 32.7% for a more linear, plush suspension, or 37% for more ramp up.

The carbon fibre frame offers fully guided internal cable routing – this should reduce cable rattle, and it looks sick

Separate to that is independently adjustable geometry, via a flip chip. You can add or subtract 5mm from the bottom bracket height and change the head angle by a negligable amout. We’re talking 62.7 degrees in the low BB setting, 63 degrees in the high setting, while the low BB setting puts the bottom bracket at 347mm, and 352m in the high setting.

The Sender frame is full carbon fibre, with fully guided internal cable routing to keep things quiet. Canyon’s also used its HIT technology in the downtube, which is claimed to offer superior impact resistance. You also get a rear fender, downtube protector and rocker skid plate, and chainstay and seatstay protection.

As you’d expect, the Sender is a mullet bike, with a 29in wheel up front and 27.5in at the rear.

Canyon has also supersized the Sender, the reach is 8mm longer than the old bike, and that’s on all sizes. If that doesn’t work for you though it’s possible to trim that – or grow it – by 8mm with adjustment cups in the headtube.

The reach has increased, and the stack height has, too. This should generate a more upright riding position

It’s not only the reach growing the size though, the stack height is also 9mm higher on the small size, and 4mm taller on the XL. This is going to generate a more upright riding position for the ride, just as Forbidden has done with its new Druid CorE e-bike.

Canyon’s added its KIS steering stabiliser to the Sender this time around, I’ve tried it on the Spectral:ON Fly e-bike and really apprecaited the stability that adds… particularly when climbing. Not so useful on a downhill bike, but going downhill it adds extra control too.

The bike’s pivot hardware and bearing seals are replaceable, threaded inserts are used where possible, and bolt heads are easily accessible for servicing. And the rear triangle is a standard 148×12 boost spacing, rather than the Super Boost we’ve seen on lots of bikes recently.

No super boost for the Sender. Instead, the compact rear triangle uses a 148×12 boost spacing

Canyon says this more compact rear triangle gives less chance of heel rub and frame snags, but it allows riders easier access to more wheels in a pinch.

There are two models in the range, the Sender CFR is probably the bike that’ll sell best as it’s well specced but not silly money. You get a Fox 40 fork, Fox DHX2 Performance shock and SRAM Maven Bronze brakes.

The Sender CFR Team looks spectacular, and the bike Troy Brosnan won on at Mont-Sainte-Anne. It uses a RockShox Boxxer Ultimate fork, Vivid Coil Ultimate Shock, SRAM Maven Silver brakes and X01 Dh Transmission.

canyon.com