The Canyon Downhill bike is not their highest spec 2016 model, they'll release the higher build kits somewhen between now and October.
Those Radons are even crazier, regarding specs, but while their geometries and suspension are very dialed, the frames are designed with some cost saving in mind. Really good quality, but if you look at them, they are rather functional than fancy. Ride great though.
The newer Canyon frames however, especially the carbon ones, are absolutely gorgeous. They are absolutely on par with Santa Cruz and Specialized high end models. Paintjob quality is very, very high. Bearings and hardware are well made.
So the company has really grown into a major innovator which now sells a lot of bikes because of quality and not ONLY because of good value. They sell a boatload of bikes in Europe and have the funds for R[HTML_REMOVED]D at the highest level. I know some of the designers and engineers and they are real bike-people.
I wouldn't have ridden/owned a Canyon past, because I grew up working at a bike shop and always drooled about all the boutique US brands, so a mail order Canyon "cheapskate" bike was always a no-go.
But with all the standard and wheel size crap, which forces people to buy complete bikes instead of swapping parts over, the ever growing prices (and some first hand warranty experiences with super expensive "real" brand bike products) - I absolutely could imagine riding a Canyon and not be ashamed.
And while I still think a lot of people are absolutely in over their heads with setting up/dialing in a state of the art bike, the biggest argument against mail order bikes has been killed by the big LBS brands:
Try buying a nice spec specialized, giant or every other good brand without preordering and waiting for a long time. You'll have a pretty hard time, even just walking into a. store and buy a specific tire.
And that's not the LBSs who are to blame.
The big brands are to blame with their uncountable model variations, model years, "innovations" and color choices.
No shop can stock all that crap and still make profit.
I don't say I like this development, but if you look at other industries, the bike-biz seems pretty unprofessional in some ways and margins for the dealers are tiny!