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Thinking about your next cycling holiday conjures up the most beautiful images in your mind's eye. The planning alone lifts the mood, awakens the imagination and creates vivid images of varied landscapes, beautiful weather and relaxed gliding along. Whether you are only planning short escapes or extended multi-day tours, it is only fun with the right bike. Good touring pedelecs are ideally all-rounders. They are safe, robust and stable even with heavy luggage on the carrier. The beauty of a pedelec is that the rider can choose whether the motor does the lion's share of the cranking or their own legs. All you have to do is press a button at the end of the handlebars. But eating up kilometres always means sitting in the saddle for several hours. The pedelec must therefore fit the rider perfectly. Excessive fatigue caused by any incorrect posture will spoil the enjoyment of the most beautiful bike ride. Defects far away from the workshop are also a real spoilsport. Nobody wants to think about something breaking on the bike and a breakdown interrupting the tour. The best prerequisite for unadulterated touring pleasure is therefore a reliable, largely puncture-proof bike.
- CONWAY CAIRON T 500
- CUBE KATHMANDU HYBRID SL 625
- GIANT EXPLORE E+ 1 GTS
- HIGH EIGHT PASIO TERO
- MERIDA EBIG.NINE 600 EQ
- RADON RELATE 8.0 CX 625
- STEVENS E-TRITON PT5
- VICTORIA E-ADVENTURE 12.8
A question of type
Sophisticated touring pedelecs also have different characters. If you want to use your bike regularly in everyday life, you can cope with a slightly shorter range and will be happy with a rather light pedelec with a comfortable riding position and uncomplicated handling. In this test field, Giant and Stevens are recommended for this. Sporty riders attach more importance to high riding dynamics and good performance away from tarmac roads. For them, crossover tourers such as the Hoheacht, the Merida or the Victoria are the first choice. Long-distance cyclists prefer pedelecs with a high level of riding comfort, an ergonomic riding position, a long range and safe handling, even with heavy luggage on the carrier. In our test field, this category primarily includes the Conway, the Cube and the Radon.
The following applies to all Tourer variants: The linchpin is a rigid and solid frame assembly with stable wheels and puncture-proof tyres. This is because pedelecs are significantly heavier than bikes without a drive, and luggage adds to the weight. A carefully constructed chassis is therefore a must. In recent years, the chassis of pedelecs has become significantly stiffer, which is also reflected positively in our test field. None of the bikes stood out for their unsafe handling. The good riding safety is realised by frame builders with thicker walls or voluminous frame tubes. Unfortunately, this also increases the overall weight: although the Victoria is the bike with the stiffest frame in the test field, at 29 kilos it is also the heaviest. A stiff, touring-compatible pannier rack is also a must. It must be connected to the frame without any play. Otherwise, the luggage and rear triangle can swing up uncontrollably when cornering and push the bike off track.
The carrier constructions of the Cube and Radon are particularly stable, they are firmly welded to the rear triangle. The pannier rack of the Conway is also very sturdily connected to the frame. In order to be able to brake the heavy tourers safely even on longer descents with luggage, the bikes need reliable braking systems. All test candidates have hydraulic disc brakes with adequately sized 180 millimetre brake discs. The only 160 mm disc is on the rear wheel of the Stevens, where its smaller diameter is fine. Two smaller outliers emerged on the test rides: Shimano's standard MT-200 brake on the Hoheacht Pasio Tero is sufficient for everyday bikes, but it is not the first choice for touring pedelecs like this one. We would prefer a higher-quality model here. And the Tektro brake system on the Conway only provided sufficient braking power when new with a lot of force. Once the disc and pads have been run in, they should work much better.
Because powerful motors are a strong selling point, manufacturers of pedelecs in the price range from around €3,000 rely on the top models from the market leaders. Hardly any buyer is willing to settle for anything less than a Bosch Performance CX, Giant SyncDrive Pro (actually a Yamaha) or Shimano's EP8. High-torque motors also make sense in the centre of the frame of touring bikes, as they push heavily loaded bikes up long climbs relatively effortlessly. However, they need plenty of energy to do this. It is therefore a good thing that 625 Wh batteries are now standard in this price range. On our test bench, we determined the range rather cautiously, with a high proportion of motor power. If you are prepared to invest more leg power, you can get a good 20 to 30 per cent further on one battery charge. With such an active riding style, it helps to have as close a gear range as possible with a wide gear ratio range. Four of our test bikes have twelve-speed drivetrains with wide-range sprocket sets (Conway, Cube, Radon, Victoria), while all the other bikes are equipped with ten- or eleven-speed drivetrains. In terms of quality, all pedelecs offer at least Shimano Deore level, and on the Stevens and Cube even XT derailleurs change gears. Fans of navigation systems can use their own smartphone upgraded with the free Cobi app in the Bosch smartphone hub on the Stevens. Navigation and fitness functions are already integrated into the Cube's Nyon display. All other displays are sufficiently easy to read and provide information on the most important riding and motor data.
You can download the complete comparison test of e-touring bikes from MYBIKE 4/2021 including all individual ratings as a PDF below the article. The test costs 1.99 euros.
