It takes a bold imagination and a leap of faith to create a bike like the Lux Trail, and perhaps only Canyon could actually pull it off. It’s so unique there was really to benchmark it against when it launched a year ago, no competition to price it up with, and no firm details about whether riders really wanted it in the first place. It’s the sort of bike I’d expect to see as a prototype at a trade show, or stylistically drawn on a Macbook, but never on the trails.

Step up Canyon though, a brand intent on filling every possible bike niche out there, and now apparently making up their own too. I’ve been testing the CF6 for nearly 12 months so it’s firmly a reality. Canyon has taken a World Cup race bike and added mod cons I’d never have expected on a proper XC machine – a full length dropper post, internal frame storage, robust tyres, and a stiffer fork. All essentials when Canyon is competing for your money against the best mountain bikes in 2025.

Canyon Lux Trail need to know

• Carbon fibre short travel trail bike, with XC geometry and big-ride intentions
• Fox suspension gives the Lux Trail 115mm travel with a 120mm Stepcast fork
• Full carbon frame with flex stays, steering stop, mini chain guide, UDH, and multitool
• Internal frame storage with spare tube, bacon steps and CO2 canisters
• Shimano Deore/XT drivetrain, SLX brakes, DT Swiss wheels and Schwalbe tyres
• Sizing from XS-XL

Not a down-country bike then, with slack geometry and weighty trail components. And not an XC race bike with rock hard suspension and the lightest possible build. The Lux Trail is something in between. Canyon has taken a brutal beast of an XC bike and tamed it for trail riders, something I believe is genius, at least in terms of intention. There are plenty of riders out there who want to cover big miles, feel that surge of speed when they accelerate, and not have every trail reduced to a pump track by 170mm of suspension. How do I know? I’m one of them.

Frame and geometry

Canyon has jacked the shock up as high as possible on the Lux Trail, cramming it under the flat-bottomed top tube. It looks similar to the Lux World Cup layout, but instead of mounting the lower end to the seat tube, both ends are now attached to the top tube. This design and the lower mounted rocker link gives Canyon greater freedom to adjust the suspension curves, it’s claimed, with a softer off the top feel than its XC bike.

Placing it here also gains the bike an uninterrupted seat tube tube and with it space for a full length dropper post. Inside the front triangle you can also fit two full size waterbottles, which come included with the bike, and that stretches right down to the smallest size too.

Canyon says it’s developed two different shock tunes for the Lux Trail, the L-XL sizes get firmer and more damped setup, with sizes XS-M enjoying a softer tune. The whole idea is to ensure big and small riders get the same suspension feel when they’re actually riding the bike.

The top end bikes in the range get posher CFR carbon that saves a couple of hundred grams in weight, while the CF 6 here gets basic CF. It still features the internal storage though, and you get nice touches like a dinky chainguide (which only lost the chain once), a steering stop to prevent the bars overrotating, and a multitool under the top tube.

Internal storage

XC race bikes don’t come with internal storage because, unless you’re Tom Pidcock, you don’t get to win the race if you get a flat. Racers don’t want tools weighing them down, and they don’t want the couple of hundred extra grams in weight it takes to reinforce that big hole chopped into the downtube. Me, I’m pretty happy with the sacrifice though.

Inside the Lux Trail’s downtube is a CO2 canister attached to the door, and a big Tool Pouch wrap stuffed down towards the BB area. I crammed in two tyre levers and a tube, and a couple of tyre levers. I’m not convinced the door will stay put forever though, it’s bent out of shape and doesn’t completely cover the door now, meaning water can flood in when you wash the bike or hit a puddle.

There’s also a mini-tool slung under the top tube and secured with a stretchy rubber strap, but you don’t need to use it for the rear wheel because the bike comes with a Quixle – Canyon’s clever tool-free rear axle lever. Finally, you can buy a tyre plug kit separately to secret away into the bar ends.

Suspension

In an ideal world the Lux Trail would come with SRAM Flight Attendant or better yet, the latest Fox Live Valve Neo to automatically control the suspension damping, all without cluttering the bar. But as both those systems cost half as much as the entire bike here, we’ll forgive Canyon for speccing a simple cable operated switch.

On the top end Lux Trail this remote lockout suspension is neat and compact, operated via a gripshift I had a hard job spotting it when I first rode the bike. On the CF 6 it’s frankly pretty ugly, with an extra two cables sprouting from the bar to the shock and fork. What it does though is to let you toggle between three shock positions, Open, Pedal, and Locked, so you can match the suspension feel to the terrain.

The cables hook up pretty discreetly to a FOX Float SL Performance shock, released in 2024 it uses an internal floating piston for better damping, and Canyon has probably specced it to allow for lower pressures in the positive chamber. There are no compression dials to fettle, but you do get indexed rebound adjustment. On the Lux Trail that Float SL delivers 115mm travel, via the single pivot suspension design with flex stays rather than an additional pivot.

The other remote lockout cable heads to a Fox 34 Stepcast Performance fork, with 120mm travel. It’s the same deal as the shock, with Open, Pedal and Locked settings to lock out the oil flow and adapt the suspension to your terrain. At the Performance level build the Stepcast fork is almost identical to a regular 34 but it has a lighter chassis to save weight, with distinctive cut away lowers to still allow room for big rotors.

Components

Shimano’s Deore M6100 drivetrain on the Lux Trail is one of the unsung heroes of mountain biking. The engagement is crisp and precise, and while it’s not quite as quick as equivalent level SRAM NX thanks to a long lever pull, it’s more reliable. The clutch lever isn’t as useful as SRAM’s because you can’t hook the mech up and out of the way, but I don’t take the rear wheel off my bike very often so it’s not really an issue.

I’d be singing the praises of the Shimano SLX brakes just as loudly if it wasn’t for the inconsistent pull I sometimes found through the levers. Hang the bike up vertically for a day and it takes a long time for them to settle down, even after repeated bleeds to purge the system of air. That said they don’t lose power on the trails once I’ve pumped them up a few times, and there’s no fade from the rotors on trial riding conditions. They’re also powerful enough to easily outmatch the stock tyres for grip, so adding in any more bite here would be a waste of the bike’s lightweight build.

The saddle and dropper combination is excellent, Ergon’s SM10 Sport saddle is ridiculously comfortable and the Fox SL dropper post is a perfect way to save weight on a bike like this. There are only two positions, fully extended or fully retracted, and most of the time that’s fine. Only occasionally do I miss having the saddle most of the way up, when scaling really techie climbs.

Schwalbe’s Wicked Will tyres the bike comes with are surprisingly grippy in dry conditions, the rubber lugs are shallow but there’s a lot of grip from the rubber compound itself. I was pleasantly surprised then, especially when climbing or covering big miles where they’re really quick rolling and lightweight. The problem comes when it’s wet or muddy, the lugs quickly become overwhelmed and really imprecise verging on downright scary if you’re riding trails with roots and mud – standard UK riding conditions then. I swapped the Wicked Wills out for Maxxis Forekaster II 3C MaxxTerras to improve the bike’s capabilities, but also to better compare it to the YT Izzo in my bike test.

The DT Swiss AM LN 370 wheels proved reliable and stiff enough, but after riding some seriously quick XC bikes I did miss the pickup of faster hubs, and it can make the Lux Trail feel slow on those techie climbs where you’re on and off the gas.

Performance

Canyon pigeonholes the Lux Trail as a bike to cover big miles on, on proper trails, with comfort and control. And in that regard it’s hugely successful because, looking back over my Garmin ride data, I can see I’ve done some pretty hefty miles on it. It’s easy to misunderstand the Lux Trail and what it’s all about, mistaking it for a down-country bike that misses the mark. But for riders who want to ride mellow trails, trail centre blues, epics like the South Downs Way, it is spot on.

Climbing

The first thing to say is that, for mellow trail centres and flowing terrain, I’ve never ridden a faster bike than the Lux Trail… unless I’ve had electrical assistance. Part of that is down to the quick rolling tyres for sure, which offer the perfect level of traction on hardpacked surfaces typical at trail centres.

That’s not all that’s going on though, the traction lever must take some of the credit too, once you’ve mastered it and stopped accidentally releasing the dropper post it’s actually extremely useful. That’s something I never really expected, given we’re talking about a bike with barely more than 100mm travel here. But the suspension is genuinely active enough to warrant it and, combined with the fact the lever isn’t a world away on the shock, I used it plenty on fireroads and long drags.

This bike is so good at it in fact that technical climbing is almost fun on this bike, another thing I never thought I’d say as a lazy trail rider who lives for the descents. It’s a lightweight bike, which really doesn’t hurt when you’re dragging, bouncing and leaning it up sketchy climbs, and it tends to follow wherever your body jackknifes towards. The upshot is I scaled stuff I’ve only ever gotten up on a lightweight e-bike before.

Relatively long chainstays, a high-ish BB and modest head angle all make climbing with precision so much less of a pain than I’ve always found it, and while I wouldn’t go out of my way to session a climb, I don’t dread them either.

Could I get round trail centres like Swinley in Berkshire faster on one of the best race hardtails or a proper XC race bike? I’d argue no, because I’m not prepared to put up with the spine-jolting efficiency of bikes like the Pinarello xxx, which would have me backing off and crusing.

Descending

The lockout is useful for sure, but it’s a disgusting piece of architecture on an already busy bar when combined with those awful looking headset spacers. Worse than that though, it takes a fair amount of learning before you know your way around. It’s embarrassing, the number of times I flicked what I thought was the dropper lever, only to find I was heading into a descent with the shock locked out. You also have to be very precise to half press it and get the Pedal mode, and I often overshot and fully locked the bike out. I got there eventually though, but it’s a shame it’s so darned ugly given how clean and easy to use the top end grip-lockout bike is.

I’m not done cursing the controls yet either, the grips are OK but not great in terms of damping, while the Transfer SL dropper is occasionally annoying. Sure it saves 167g over an infinite adjust Transfer, but there are some times when you want the dropper half way, rather than fully up or fully down. Then there are the times when I’ve missed engaging it in the dropped position, only to have it shoot straight back up again at the worst possible time.

Again, I’ve gotten used to this over multiple rides, and it’s made me appreciate how sloppy I’ve been when engaging normal dropper posts. I’ll forgive it too because the action is crisp, the lever nice to thumb and it’s so fast it’s almost alarming when it springs up.

I’ll forgive the Lux Trail all its oddball spec though for how much I like its suspension performance. The bike dips into its travel easily and this makes the ride feel soft and lets the bike flow quickly on chattery trail centre stuff that I’ve been hammering the bike on. It’s really light to ride because of this, you can move it in the air and on the ground, flick the back round anything tight and generally feel like you’re riding on ice if that’s how you want it to behave. I actually had to add low speed compression damping to the shock to tame some of that liveliness, something I rarely do for Surry Hills riding.

All this makes the bike really useful if you’re planning on being in the saddle for long rides, and combined with the comfy saddle it makes all day epics less grinding. You can enjoy the fun parts of a ride, nail the descents, and still be comfortable for big climbs and transitions.

It doesn’t rip through its travel and instantly dump you onto the bump stop though, despite the fact it only has 105mm of travel in the first place, with support enough to hold you in a berm. I’ve hit the bump stop on the shock a couple of times though, getting carried away on bigger drops and flat lands, but the back of the bike failed to explode, despite my worst fears. The rear wheel does come dangerously close to the seat tube, which explains why there’s no bridge connecting the seat stays.

Put those two elements together and you have a lush and compliant suspension feel that’s in danger of pushing you beyond the geometry of the bike. On fast trails where the terrain is humming beneath I found the Lux Trail stable and composed. Sending it off drops and into jankier stuff it’s bizarrely competent thanks to that squishy suspension. Picking my way through something slow and techie is zen like because the bike is light and the suspension easy to preload.

But send it down something steep and slithery and I quickly found its limits with a head angle short enough to tuck the front wheel underneath me and trip me up. I don’t think Canyon will want to do this because it’s clearly targeted all-day riders with the Lux Trail, but it could have an absolute down-country weapon on its hands if it modernised the geometry. A lower BB, longer front centre and slacker head angle would turn the bike into a different bike though, something that wouldn’t climb as easily or work as efficiently.

I’d also like the Lux Trail to generate the suspension travel it claimed to. It’s billed as a 115mm travel bike, which is already pretty minimal, but I measured a scant 10mm less vertical wheel travel than that.