Bike Check #010 | Timothée: Jacky tuning, proudly owned

At 29, Timothée rides a Canyon Ultimate CF SL7 that he himself describes as a “merguez” (his word for a rough-and-ready bike) costing €4,500 and weighing 9.5 kg. Mechanical Shimano 105, SPD pedals, DT Swiss wheels dressed up as ENVE with €7 worth of AliExpress stickers, and above all a €900 custom paint job that completely changed the bike’s identity. On paper, nothing to make a peloton panic. In real life? Timothée is happy to remind you that an entry-level bike doesn’t stop you from holding the wheels of “dentist bikes”… or sometimes dropping them. Welcome to a Bike Check where style matters almost as much as watts.

By Jeff Tatard – © Photos: @eloshaka

Five years ago, Timothée wasn’t especially looking to become a cyclist. Mostly, he was looking to rehab a torn cruciate ligament. The bike was supposed to be temporary. A parenthesis while he got a knee back in proper shape.

Five years later, at 29, he owns a road bike, a gravel bike and a time trial bike, and spends enough time at Longchamp to call himself a “Longchamp-phile since 2023”. “Almost glad I wrecked my ACL…” That sets the tone.

And his Canyon suits him rather well: not exactly academic, not entirely rational, quick to poke fun at his own gear when he talks about it, and colorful enough to be spotted in the middle of a peloton from fifty meters away.

The summary comes straight from its owner, in fact: “It’s a Jacky tuning bike (flashy and souped-up, proudly so). And I fully own it!” Impossible not to make that the common thread. Welcome to 3bikes Bike Check #010.

What’s your bike?

A 2023 Canyon Ultimate CF SL7, size XS. And Timothée is careful not to invent a spec sheet it doesn’t have. “As for components, it’s the very basics.”

Mechanical Shimano 105 drivetrain, currently set up with a 52/34 up front and an 11-34 cassette, a configuration chosen in particular so he can take the bike into the mountains.

The original wheels gave way to DT Swiss ARC 1600 carbon ones. Well… officially. Because looking at the bike, you might be tempted to read something else on the rims. ENVE. Except no. We’ll come back to that.

The tires are Vittoria Corsa Pro pink edition, just to make sure the bike never becomes discreet. On his feet, Timothée uses SPD pedals. Yes, on a road bike. And it’s not even an accident. “I put the same ones on all my bikes. Even my TT bike… I respect nothing.”

The bike weighs about 9.5 kg and represents a total investment of close to €4,500, including €900 for its custom paint job alone.

Timothée’s verdict is immediate: “Super expensive for such a merguez of a bike, I know.” Except there is precisely one part that stops this Ultimate from being just another Canyon. Its frame.

Why this bike?

Because it was his first carbon bike. And as is often the case when you step up to a first equipment level, the dream quickly meets another reality: the budget.

Timothée therefore fully accepts the compromise. A carbon frame, sure, but a fairly simple drivetrain and components. And looking back, that actually suits him rather well. Mechanical 105 is cheaper to maintain, easy to repair and more than enough for the way he rides.

“Even on an entry-level bike, you can hold the wheels of the dentist bikes. And you can even drop them.”

Behind the joke lies a rather interesting idea. A more expensive bike doesn’t produce the watts for you. And above all, Timothée likes the idea of not having started right at the top of the pyramid.

Riding an accessible machine still leaves him steps to climb, differences to discover and therefore gear wishes for the years ahead. His Canyon lets him, in a way, still have something to wish for.

But the real aesthetic turning point comes when, one day, almost on a whim, Timothée decides the original black and white is no longer enough for him.

Destination: Régénère Vélo, in the Val-d’Oise, for a fully custom paint job. €900. A choice that’s hard to defend in an Excel spreadsheet. And completely obvious when you hear Timothée talk about it. “I wanted to radically change the look. It became the bike’s identity and I don’t regret it one bit.” That’s probably where his Ultimate stops being a mere CF SL7. It becomes his bike.

How did you build it up?

Not by stacking up overpriced parts. And that’s precisely what makes the build rather funny. Timothée’s biggest aesthetic “game changer” costs… €7. “I added ENVE stickers on the wheels. I think it completely changes the look of the bike. And it only cost me €7 on AliExpress!”

So, to be perfectly clear: they really are DT Swiss ARC 1600 wheels. Just in disguise. And he loves it. The rest of the modifications are more about use.

The small chainring and the cassette were adapted for the mountains, carbon wheels replaced the original setup, and Timothée sees no rational reason to go much further today.

Why invest heavily in top-end components on a frame he himself considers an entry point into the carbon world?

The logic may seem odd to someone who just put €900 into a paint job. It becomes far more coherent once you understand that Timothée draws a very clear line between two things. Performance has to stay rational. Fun, much less so.

Hence the pink tires. Hence the ENVE stickers. Hence the paint job. Hence the SPDs on the road bike, the gravel bike and even the TT bike. In his own way, he has built a bike that is technically pretty simple but aesthetically impossible to mistake for your neighbor’s. And that’s exactly what he was after.

So, how does it ride out on the road?

Longchamp. The Chevreuse valley. A bit of mountain. For all of that, Timothée considers that his Canyon does the job perfectly. No more. But certainly no less.

His rating? 6.5/10. “It’s a good bike, but let’s say it has more style than performance.” The line might sound harsh. Mostly, it’s terribly lucid.

The Ultimate isn’t a bad machine. It simply sits at a level of the range whose limits Timothée knows, and he never tries to hide them behind component marketing.

On the other hand, he greatly appreciates its mechanical simplicity. A cable-actuated Shimano 105 remains easy to understand, accessible and repairable in a huge number of workshops. “Any bike mechanic can fix it without difficulty… provided they agree to work on Canyons.” And then there’s the essential point. He loves looking at it.

In a peloton he still finds “eminently dark“, even if colors are gradually coming back, his Canyon brings something different. You can argue for three hours about the aerodynamic gain of a pair of wheels or a few hundred grams.

But no table of figures will ever quantify the pleasure of instantly spotting your bike among fifty others. And that one, Timothée is unlikely to look for very long.

If it got stolen tomorrow, would you buy exactly the same one?

No. And this time, the answer is immediate. Timothée would probably buy an aero bike, better suited to the way he rides now.

His pick? A Canyon Aeroad with Ultegra Di2. Not necessarily the ultimate build. And that’s deliberate. “It would be a bike where I’d feel a real gain over my Ultimate, but that would still let me move up the range later.”

That’s actually an interesting constant in the way he buys a bike. Always keep a next step. The Ultimate was his way into carbon. The Aeroad would become a first real performance machine. And perhaps one day the bike above that will follow. Without rushing things.

Because there’s obviously another, much less romantic factor too. “And then there’s the financial side, let’s not kid ourselves.”

At 29, Timothée thus owns up to the €7 ENVE stickers just as much as to the future wish for an Ultegra Di2. And that is probably what makes this Bike Check particularly likable. He never tries to make you believe his bike is anything other than what it is.