I've had my bike, a Cube Reaction Hybrid HPA SL500, for a little under two months now so probably a good time to write some first impressions.
I bought this bike from Damian Harris Cycles for £2500, intending to commute to work, a 22 mile each way moderately hilly journey, which seemed a bit much for me to tackle un-assisted. I'm happy to say it's been largely a success on that front - I've covered 700 miles so far, almost all of it commuting.
I wanted an MTB style bike, as my original commute was along a canal towpath for 10 miles. However it's not too rough so I opted for the narrower tyres, which turned out to be Schwalbe Land Cruisers, exactly the same as I've got on my old MTB.
Strengths:
The bike looks great and feels well made, with good spec Shimano Deore / XT drivetrain. The cassette is particularly impressive, a wide ranging 11-46t set. Gear changes have remained smooth and quick across the entire range. Brakes are easily good enough, discs front and rear. Rims are tubeless ready, which I may take advantage of soon. The frame semi-integrates the battery. I'm still a bit torn on this: I think it looks better in website photos than in real life. It's not ugly, just a bit disappointing.
The Rock Shox forks are great, the remote lockout system particularly so, I switch the settings quite a bit as I go over different terrain. I'd not even been aware such a thing existed previously
The motor is the excellent Bosch Performance CX. I tested a few bikes over the last couple of years and definitely prefer the feel of the Bosch system. The 500 Wh battery gets me a lot further than expected. OK on the first attempt at my commute, I ran out of battery, but only after 48 miles. However, I did yesterday and today's commute without a recharge in between. This would have been almost exactly 80 miles. I've taken to leaving the bike in turbo most of the time, letting it accelerate me up to 15mph, and then taking over from there. Since at least now I can pedal above 15 most of the time, I feel like I'm getting enough exercise that way It's great through the city, racing off from lights and keeping up with the traffic.
Weaknesses:
The first day I rode this bike in the rain, the motor failed. At that point I'd done 250 miles, and the motor failed within 10 miles of the bike getting wet. Damian Harris sorted it out for me, but other than knowing there were drive problems from the motor, I'd like to have known more detail about what went wrong. Was there a missing seal somewhere? etc. I've had three or four rainy days since then and it's working fine now at least.
Just recently, I've been struggling with punctures, a large pinch puncture from a pothole on Monday, followed by a blowout of half the inner tube on the same wheel on Wednesday. This is partly a 'me' problem as weighing 110kg, and with the bike plus clothes / equipment probably 135kg total, I'm well above the 100kg limit on the tyres. I'm thinking about going tubeless with some Marathon Almotions.
Also maybe related to the tyres, I find the pedals to be too low down. They're a couple of inches lower to the ground than on my old MTB, and I keep bashing them on the floor when I pedal round corners. But 0.85" clearance was lost by swapping the standard tyres for the Land Cruisers... another reason I'm liking the look of the Almotions.
My changes:
I've swapped the provided saddle for my old one with a cut out channel. I've also fitted Shimano M520 clip-in pedals (the bike came without pedals), and Ergon GP1 grips.
Summary:
It does the job I hoped for, which is gets me to work, and in a fit state to get on with work! The last couple of weeks I've been covering 126 miles per week (3 commutes). I'm not quite in shape to do consecutive days on the bike yet (I did today and yesterday, but due to the inner tube blowout, I skipped the last 10 hilly miles home and got my wife to pick me up). But the Strava times are coming down. I'm to the point where cycling takes under an hour extra compared to driving. That was the magic number since instead of going to the gym for one hour's exercise, I'm getting 3 hours in the same effective amount of time.
My main problem is I wish I'd gone for the Giant Road E, 5kg lighter and more streamlined. With a 'minimum' speed of 15mph, I feel like I'm not getting in the way too much on the road and I'm far more at ease on a busy road than I was on my old MTB. My commute now goes along dual carriageways instead of canal towpaths... But that's hindsight, and without a few hundred miles along towpaths and bike paths, I wouldn't feel so comfortable, and without the Cube Reaction, I wouldn't have done those hundreds of miles.
Overall rating: 8/10
I bought this bike from Damian Harris Cycles for £2500, intending to commute to work, a 22 mile each way moderately hilly journey, which seemed a bit much for me to tackle un-assisted. I'm happy to say it's been largely a success on that front - I've covered 700 miles so far, almost all of it commuting.
I wanted an MTB style bike, as my original commute was along a canal towpath for 10 miles. However it's not too rough so I opted for the narrower tyres, which turned out to be Schwalbe Land Cruisers, exactly the same as I've got on my old MTB.
Strengths:
The bike looks great and feels well made, with good spec Shimano Deore / XT drivetrain. The cassette is particularly impressive, a wide ranging 11-46t set. Gear changes have remained smooth and quick across the entire range. Brakes are easily good enough, discs front and rear. Rims are tubeless ready, which I may take advantage of soon. The frame semi-integrates the battery. I'm still a bit torn on this: I think it looks better in website photos than in real life. It's not ugly, just a bit disappointing.
The Rock Shox forks are great, the remote lockout system particularly so, I switch the settings quite a bit as I go over different terrain. I'd not even been aware such a thing existed previously
The motor is the excellent Bosch Performance CX. I tested a few bikes over the last couple of years and definitely prefer the feel of the Bosch system. The 500 Wh battery gets me a lot further than expected. OK on the first attempt at my commute, I ran out of battery, but only after 48 miles. However, I did yesterday and today's commute without a recharge in between. This would have been almost exactly 80 miles. I've taken to leaving the bike in turbo most of the time, letting it accelerate me up to 15mph, and then taking over from there. Since at least now I can pedal above 15 most of the time, I feel like I'm getting enough exercise that way
It's great through the city, racing off from lights and keeping up with the traffic.Weaknesses:
The first day I rode this bike in the rain, the motor failed. At that point I'd done 250 miles, and the motor failed within 10 miles of the bike getting wet. Damian Harris sorted it out for me, but other than knowing there were drive problems from the motor, I'd like to have known more detail about what went wrong. Was there a missing seal somewhere? etc. I've had three or four rainy days since then and it's working fine now at least.
Just recently, I've been struggling with punctures, a large pinch puncture from a pothole on Monday, followed by a blowout of half the inner tube on the same wheel on Wednesday. This is partly a 'me' problem as weighing 110kg, and with the bike plus clothes / equipment probably 135kg total, I'm well above the 100kg limit on the tyres. I'm thinking about going tubeless with some Marathon Almotions.
Also maybe related to the tyres, I find the pedals to be too low down. They're a couple of inches lower to the ground than on my old MTB, and I keep bashing them on the floor when I pedal round corners. But 0.85" clearance was lost by swapping the standard tyres for the Land Cruisers... another reason I'm liking the look of the Almotions.
My changes:
I've swapped the provided saddle for my old one with a cut out channel. I've also fitted Shimano M520 clip-in pedals (the bike came without pedals), and Ergon GP1 grips.
Summary:
It does the job I hoped for, which is gets me to work, and in a fit state to get on with work! The last couple of weeks I've been covering 126 miles per week (3 commutes). I'm not quite in shape to do consecutive days on the bike yet (I did today and yesterday, but due to the inner tube blowout, I skipped the last 10 hilly miles home and got my wife to pick me up). But the Strava times are coming down. I'm to the point where cycling takes under an hour extra compared to driving. That was the magic number since instead of going to the gym for one hour's exercise, I'm getting 3 hours in the same effective amount of time.
My main problem is I wish I'd gone for the Giant Road E, 5kg lighter and more streamlined. With a 'minimum' speed of 15mph, I feel like I'm not getting in the way too much on the road and I'm far more at ease on a busy road than I was on my old MTB. My commute now goes along dual carriageways instead of canal towpaths... But that's hindsight, and without a few hundred miles along towpaths and bike paths, I wouldn't feel so comfortable, and without the Cube Reaction, I wouldn't have done those hundreds of miles.
Overall rating: 8/10
