to the performance of your bike?

- Well, we're going to find out in

"Cheap Bike vs. Super Bike".

- Ding, ding!

- Two bikes at the opposite ends of the spectrum.

Firstly is this, Canyon's Aeroad bike.

Lightweight, carbon fibre, moulded into aerodynamic

shapes, but not at the expense of comfort.

And on board,

We have Shimano's latest and greatest R9170 groupset.

And that means electronic shifting and hydraulic brakes.

And also we have Shimano C40 wheels,

so low weight and aero too.

- Yeah. And then, we've got this a Raleigh,

which we bought on eBay, for 90 pounds.

To be fair to it, it is actually an awful lot of bike

for the money, but how much of a handicap is it going to be?

You know what mate?

I actually think it's all right.

Apart from the bar tape, that's not white,

but the rest of its all right.

- Yeah. It's pretty much spot on this side.

Round number one.

- It's simple on this one, climbing.

Man and machines, against this.

Which is actually a particularly uncomfortable climb.

Just shy of 2 km long, an average gradient of 11%,

which I always think is weird

because most of it feels like its above 20%.

It's a tough one.

Ah, I'll just grab that one for now shall I?

- No, no, no, no, this is mine after all Si,

so I'm going to have first dibs on this.

For the first ascent, if that's okay?

It's all right mate.

- Yeah, it's all right, 'cause you will be tired

then when you will be riding this one.

And that one will feel better.

Okay, that's fine mate,

if you want to do it that way 'round.

It's your call.

- [Matt] Oh, and have we mentioned,

we're going flat out?

Now the major difference between these two bikes

when climbing, it their weight.

The Super Bike is a lean and mean 7.3kg,

with a Wahoo Elemnt attached.

Remarkable, when you take into consideration that it's an

Aero bike, with disc brakes.

And our cheap bike, is a rather weighty 11.95kg,

a difference of over 50%.

- All right, Si you go first,

I'm going to give you a minute.

- Okay.

- But I'm not overly hopeful to catch you.

You know what to do?

- Yeah, alright, wish me luck.

Off we go!

- Look at that! Poetry in motion.

- Beep, beep, beep, boop!

The first time, whoa hoa!

- Aaahhh, I hate that climb! I absolutely hate that climb.

To be fair though, I do like this bike.

That felt cool!

Most importantly of all up there, big range of gears.

I ended up using my lowest, which is 34 at the front,

and 30 at the back.

So we'll see how it goes on the other one,

with racier gears.

He loves it doesn't he? He loves it!

- Well, that's my first proper hill climb for a

long, long, time but I didn't even need to think

about the bike, it worked a dream,

it's just me that's a little bit lacking,

but I certainly emptied the tank,

went a bit steady early on, but when that steep bit,

pitched up I just had to give it everything just to get up.

- Yeah, you can see how hard I went mate,

'cause I got a patch of snot on my leg warmer,

that I cant' get off.

- I got a little bit on my sleeve as well.

- Yeah, British hill climbs eh?

- [Si] Run number two then, after a quick bike swap.

As well as the weight, there's also the issue of the gears,

pedalling doesn't feel particularly different.

It has to be said.

Even cheaper gears are remarkably efficient.

As a design, chains and sprockets are fantastic.

Just as long as you keep them clean.

Which as you know, I do mention from time to time.

The gear range of the two bikes is broadly similar.

Even if our Super Bike has 22 and our Cheap Bike has 16.

And although the Canyon is an out and out race bike,

the new Shimano DURA-ACE has allowed us to fit

an 11 to 30 cassette, which is just as well, up here.

- Okay, run number two, I'm looking forward

to this actually, weirdly enough.

- Super Bike time for you, Cheap Bike for me.

- Go on Si, give it all you got mate.

- Oh, will do mate. Off you go.

Look at that, sweet as a nut.

- Wah hoo! Yeah!

Oh my goodness me that feels good!

Like stiff, responsive, I'm intrigued to know the results.

But, purely based on perception,

this is another world I'm afraid.

- Here we go, cheap bike time!

First time.

Well, here we go, run number two,

and the bike doesn't feel too much different.

Feel the weight a bit,

positions a bit different.

But even the cheaper gears are remarkably efficient

and that was design, the chain and the cogs,

well it's just great, especially if you keep them clean.

As not all of us presenters do.

- Whoa.

I hate to say it, but that was,

that was like night and day.

That was very different.

Although, less so in the steep there actually.

The biggest difference was when getting out of

the seat and accelerating.

And I managed to stick it in the big ring over the top.

Which you see at times.

Well to paraphrase, three time Tour de France Champion

Greg LeMond, it doesn't hurt any less, you just go faster.

The question is, how much faster?

And the answer is actually quite a lot wasn't it?

Nearly a minute, for both Matt and myself.

Which corresponds to just about 10% time difference.

- Yeah, what about the feeling?

'Cause that's pretty important too.

Well for me, obviously, this bike, the Canyon,

the Super Bike, did feel faster.

Far more responsive and I must admit,

I spent a lot more time out of the saddle,

I felt the power was transmitted far better.

This bike, I felt more comfortable sitting down and

applying the power in a slightly different way.

It just felt generally, a little bit more sluggish.

- [Si] Round number two, with the climbing

out of the way for today, we've got a simple,

but very important test. Braking.

- These Shimano hydraulic breaks are the absolute

bomb, when it comes to performance.

They've got all the power you need,

but with added modulation.

Meaning, you can use that power to stop, far quicker,

rather than skidding down the road.

And the tyres?

Well they're gold standard as well.

Continental Competition, 25 mil, tubulars.

- [Matt] It's a pretty simple test, riding at

40kmph, downhill, and then trying to stop

as quickly as possible.

- Woof, the weight distribution, that was impressive.

- Thanks mate.

- That's all right, went well.

5.4, well 5 and a half, 5.4 so 5 metres 40, 5.40.

- So the markers been laid down,

how is our cheap bike gonna fare?

Well, on the positive side, the cables are super smooth.

Loads of life left in the pads,

and I have spent time setting them up.

However, you'll see if I squish on the lever,

there's quite a lot of flex actually in the calliper itself,

meaning that you can lose a bit of power,

and you're going to lose modulation.

And, I've got a sneaking suspicion,

that these pads are really hard compound.

Meaning that they're going to last a super long time.

But, they're not actually going

to slow us down very quickly.

Still, I'm going to give it a good go.

- Ooph.

- Just keep that bike steady please, Si.

- Sorry Matt, sorry.

- Thanks Mate.

- 10 Bang on, 10.5.

- 10.5, so we have 5...

- 10.5 metres

- So we have 5.4 and 10.5, ahhh...

- Yeah so, roughly stopped at double the stopping distance.

Wow Si, the results are in.

And I can tell you, there's nearly 100% difference

in the stopping distances of the two bikes.

I mean, let's be fair.

The Raleigh, it stopped safe enough

- Yeah, yeah.

- But the stopping power of the Canyon

is mightily impressive.

- Yeah. There was a significant difference.

Admittedly, this is quite a controlled test,

so there's not going to be that many occasions

where you'd be doing an emergency stop in real life.

Well, hopefully not anyway.

But you've go to wonder, haven't you?

That if that difference over the course of the whole ride,

even just coming up to junctions and on descents,

and things, you'd have thought that would have

quite a big effect, wouldn't you?

Or will it?

- Challenge number three. Descending.

Now armed with our braking knowledge,

just how are these bikes going to stack up?

Will the added confidence of better braking make us faster?

Will the improved aerodynamics help as well?

- Yeah. It's going to be interesting isn't it?

Now you know that we don't exactly have any Alpine

descents on our doorstop,

but this one is pretty good.

3 km long, an average gradient of 5%.

All right, stop laughing at the back.

It's the best we've got okay?

We're not going to go flat out because it's open roads

and we are of course getting old, but nevertheless,

I think we should see how we get on.

- But significantly, I get to go on the Super Bike again.

See you in a bit Si, hee hee.

Okay, Super Bike run, downhill.

Here we go, oh no! I'm not clipped in!

- Okay, here we go. A descent I know well.

On a bike I'm not very familiar with.

Poor brakes, but let's give it a nudge.

- 25 seconds.

- I cannot believe that. Literally.

- Well, lets have a little look at this bike though,

aerodynamics have got to play a big part.

- Yeah. Yeah.

- Okay, on that descent. There's no...

And there was a bit of a headwind on the descent.

But, disc brakes.

So much power, they give me so much confidence

going into those corners.

I could brake, relatively late compared to using

normal calliper brakes.

And even in these wet conditions as well.

So, yeah, aerodynamics and these

wonderful, powerful brakes too.

- Yeah. I still can't believe 25 seconds.

There were a couple points where I, I ran out of gears

so I just free wheeled.

- And I did pedal. I've got bigger gears than you.

We need to add that into the mix as well.

- Yeah, yeah, you do. But....25 seconds!

I was not expecting that mate.

I was not expecting that.

That's right.

It's another brutally simple test.

Ride 10 km as fast as we possibly can.

Now so far, the differences between these two bikes

have been significant, but not, I think, insurmountable.