That usually means you're forced to use cabled brakes rather than the hydraulic ones I prefer. Of the many things the Cube makes me want to change about my own bike, that's the top of the list: my next battery is going to be hidden in the rack.Īnother thing I'll copy is the hydraulic brakes, which are great despite being just mid-priced Shimano ones.Ī lot of e-bikes, mine included, have cut-off mechanisms in the brakes, to stop the motor the moment the brakes go on. The battery, a 400 watt-hour Bosch PowerPack, is reasonably light, the steering is great (it's even quite stable with no hands) and the rear doesn't feel too heavy. But I had no such problems with the Cube. Strictly speaking, the rear rack is regarded as the worst place to mount an e-bike battery, because it can throw off the steering and make the rear wheel very heavy to lift up gutters. Which is one of the many things I like about the Cube Touring Hybrid 400: its battery is placed discreetly in the rear rack, so people don't immediately peg you as a lazy bastard. Believe me, I find myself saying, I'm not half the lazy bastard you might think I am! Rearguard action At least, that's what I find myself telling people whenever they ask about the whopping great battery attached to the frame, a dead giveaway I'm on an e-bike. Of course, the downside of riding an e-bike is that you don't get nearly as much exercise as you would on a regular bike, but my hope is that I'm now doing so much bicycle riding, I'm ahead overall. E-bikes are brilliant, especially for people forced to ride up hills that leave them too sweaty, or (in my case) too nauseated, to build bike-riding into their everyday routine. I've had an electric bicycle for more than a year now, one that I constructed by adding an inexpensive Bafung electric motor to the cranks of a regular bike, and it has changed me from someone who used a bicycle perhaps 5 per cent of the time and motorcycle 95 per cent of the time, to someone who rides a bicycle 95 per cent of the time. Rides that are too hilly, sweaty or tiresome for you to consider on a regular bicycle are all quite easy and fun when you have that small electric motor helping you to pedal. The Cube Touring Hybrid 400 is a nine-speed, aluminium-framed, delightfully upright commuter bicycle with a Bosch 250-watt electric motor in the cranks that transforms odious (and sometimes quite odorous) bike rides into very pleasant ones. Almost everything about it, from the seating position to the brakes, feels wrong.īlame for this misfortune can be sheeted home to the Touring Hybrid 400 electric bicycle, an e-bike from the German bicycle manufacturer Cube, which I had the fortune/grave misfortune of reviewing for almost a week.
My home-made electric bicycle, which until a fortnight ago I absolutely adored, is now dead to me.
It's the worst thing that can happen in this otherwise innocuous occupation, and happened to me this past week. Join the charge: The Cube Touring Hybrid 400 Active places the battery discreetly in the rear rack.
CUBE PRO MOTOR COM FAILURE PROFESSIONAL
In the case of professional gadget reviewing, SACKOMO occurs when you review a version of something that is so much better than the one you actually own, you can no longer even stand to look at yours, much less use it. No longer do you have a nagging suspicion you're missing out on something worthwhile. This terrible condition, the Sure And Certain Knowledge Of Missing Out, occurs when everyday Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) suddenly gets escalated by real-world experience to a state of panicked certainty. There is a grave occupational hazard associated with reviewing gadgets for a living.
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