Cube Touring Hybrid 400 or a conversion?

[Audio2]

I am trying to decide between a cube touring hybrid 400 (approx £1500) & converting existing Thorn with Rolhof gears using Woosh XF07 front hub kit (approx £650 fitted). I am unsure how the two systems compare power wise for hill climbing. We do not at present have any difficulty on the flat but assistance for hills & head winds would be useful. In some ways I would prefer to keep our existing bikes, but in our middle 70's is this the sensible decision. If the we purchase two Cubes or similar we would then probably never use the Thorns.

Your comments will be very welcome especially on comparative hill climbing ability.

 

[sjpt]

We have a basic tandem with Woosh XF07. Certainly a bit underpowered (Woosh warned us, but there was limited availability at the time). It helps a lot on the hills (Winchester, hilly but nothing at all extreme), but we still need quite a bit of effort and our lowest gears. We slow down enough on the hills that the motor is not able to work anywhere near its maximum power. Despite the limitations we are very happy with it.

We also have a Raleigh Motus (hub); similar to the Cube with slightly older motor. That gives much more effective oomph on the hills than the XF07. Of course, it is only a solo, but the main thing is that being crank drive means the motor takes advantage of the gears. A couple of neighbours have the Cube; very nice.

We have kept one solo non ebike (25 year old Giant) for when we both go out but not together. It gets used very little; my wife used it today because I was fixing a minor issue on the Motus Nexus hub.

How about a nice electric tandem and keep your Thorns?

p.s. at mid 70s I really appreciate the step-through Motus. Mounting the standard tandem is getting more difficult ....

 

[Andy McNish]

I have the Cube Touring Hybrid One (mine is a 500) and it's a very nice bike (especially if you can pick up the 2018 or 2019 Iridium version with the suspension seatpost, Intuvia display and integrated rack).

Cube Touring Hybrid One 400 Iridium
£1439

You have the options of traditonal crossbar, trapezium or step-through.

The tyres do have some puncture protection but I would suggest swapping them out for Marathon Pluses anyway.

Otherwise the bike is pretty much ideal for touring road/cycleways/riverside and forest paths etc. and the range of the new Activeplus is insane. The motor is a big step up from the old Activelines (lighter, more compact, better range, zero-resist, more powerful, effectively silent etc.).

Another benefit of having 2 Cubes would be that you can share batteries (or if one person is going solo take one along as a spare). I'm not clear if that is as easy with the conversion option. The range of 800W/hr of battery on the Cube Touring Hybrid is basically going to be far further than you can pedal in a day.

The only issues I can think of are the price (£3000 is a lot more than £1300) and the weight (I'm not sure what the convereted Thorns would weigh but the Cubes will be about 25kg each, which is a lot to wrestle up steps/portage in your 70's if your routes might require that.

 

[sjpt]

Sharing batteries between two XF07 conversions should be just as straightforward as between two Cubes.

One downside of electric step-through is they can be awkward to fit on a bike stand if you do your own maintenance.

 

[Audio2]

I already have a Dawes galaxy tandem, but my wife has already jumped off the back a couple of times when she was unhappy with my driving. I don’t think there is any chance of getting her on it with electric power as well!!

What I did not want to do is to buy the kits & then decide that I needed to buy the Cubes.

Thanks for the quick responses, you have given me some really useful information. I had not considered the weight aspect, but don’t think currently it would cause too many problems.

 

[Benjahmin]

With a self conversion there is the advatage of knowing the bike very well, and all components are sourceable and replaceable. Not so with a proprietry system (Bosch) on the cube. Hub motors take a lot of killing (mine has 7500 miles on it now) and minimal maintenance.

 

[sjpt]

One more thought: One disadvantage of crank drive motors is that you usually lose the front chainrings. However, with your Rolhof this presumably does not apply. How about a CD kit on your Thorns? I should think the Woosh TSDZ2 on the Thorn would give brilliant results. http://wooshbikes.co.uk/?cdkit#tsdz2

You would need to check the Rolhof could cope (I think it unlikely it can't as long as used sensibly) and that there won't be issues with cable guides etc under the bottom bracket. I am sure Woosh will be very happy to advise.

 

[Audio2]

Unfortunately the Thorn has an eccentric bottom bracket, like on tandems, so that the chain can be adjusted. I have asked Woosh & they do not think it is possible to fit a crank drive motor.

I would be interested to hear if anyone has overcome this problem.