What else characterises the universally usable, simply designed bicycle as much as the ability to click on a few panniers and ride off towards the horizon? Be it for a few hours, days or weeks. We test 10 touring bikes.
"Tour" is an elastic term. Accordingly, the requirements for a suitable bike are rather vague. That's why we opted for test criteria at the upper limit. First of all, all candidates completed the usual unloaded riding test on the TREKKINGBIKE house track with different surfaces.
There is also a 16% incline and corresponding downhill section, a short slalom course and an acceleration and braking section. This is followed by a second, somewhat shorter run with a test load totalling 18 kilos in two panniers on the rear rack. Riding with such additional weight is noticeably less fun.
However, results can only be experienced under these conditions. After all, "good" and "bad" can still mainly be determined by how the interaction between the rear triangle, main frame, fork and rack of the respective test candidate changes under load. Riding tests largely confirmed the correlations between the rack design and position in terms of height and length, and more or less controllable pendulum effects when changing the load on the bike. It doesn't hurt that the frame tubes are increasingly moulded with fluid pressure.
The bikes in the test:
Breezer Beltway, http://www.advancedsports.eu
Diamant Elan Super Legere, http://www.diamantrad.com
Ghost Trekking 5700, http://www.ghost-bikes.de
Giant Aero RS 0, http://www.giant-bicycles.com
Gudereit LC-95, http://www.gudereit.de
Maxcycles Steel Lite SL 27-speed, http://www.maxcycles.net
Raleigh Rushhour 4.0 XXL 27-G., http://www.raleigh-bikes.de
Staiger Oregon, http://www.staiger-fahrrad.de
Stevens Randonneur Lite Gent, http://www.stevensbikes.de
VSF Fahrradmanufaktur T 600, http://www.fahrradmanufaktur.de
