Best bike for long distance touring?

[Mr. Max]

I've looked all over this forum and don't see that anyone has asked this question. If you could have any ebike, what bike and bike set-up do you think would be the best for long distance touring, like the entire West Coast or across the USA? Thanks in advance!!

 

[Saratoga Dave]

It would be pretty hard to argue with one of the Riese & Muellers with the two 500 WH battery setups, I think. Certainly there are others, but these things are big favorites around here (I don’t have one!). Set it up tubeless and head out.

 

[smorgasbord]

Yeah, R&M SuperDelite with Gates Belt and Rohloff. Full-suspension, but has a good rear rack and you can add a front rack as well. You'll need to decide whether you want the high-speed version or mountain climbing version. Same power and torque specs (for 2020), just the torque comes on earlier with the mountain climbing version and they limit the top assist speed more. Most are temped to go for the HS (high speed) version since the torque spec looks the same, but if you're climbing something steep with a ton of weight on your bike, you might want to re-think. That said, getting assist up to 28mph sure is tempting.

This setup will cost you well over $10K USD.

 

[Johnny]

I've looked all over this forum and don't see that anyone has asked this question. If you could have any ebike, what bike and bike set-up do you think would be the best for long distance touring, like the entire West Coast or across the USA? Thanks in advance!!

The person to answer this question best is @dblhelix .

 

[Mr. Max]

Thanks! I didn't want to put any limits not the question, just to see what people would recommend, but sadly, I can't really spend $10,000 on a bike.

When I was younger I did a lot of lightweight bike touring and that's my plan now. To carry minimal gear.

Any other recommendations than Riese & Mueller? The new Gazelle Ultimate T10 with an extra battery looked like it might be a sweet set up, if you weren't carrying a lot of gear.

 

[Mr. Coffee]

Probably your best bets these days are one of the dual-battery R&M e-bikes or the Watt Wagons bikes with dual batteries. Depending on where you ride, and how far and how fast your ride, you might actually need an extra battery or two.

I have done several long (> 10 days) tours on a 2017 R&M Charger and am still pretty happy with it.

You can do an e-bike tour on most any bike, but for the tours you are talking about you will be a lot happier and your odds of success a lot higher if you have an e-bike that was made for touring or bicycle travel.

Some people are touring on Bike Fridays, which have electric versions. They aren't really in the same category as the bikes discussed here previously but, like I said, people are touring on them.

 

[Mr. Max]

Okay, I guess, I'll just have to start saving money in my dream bike piggy bank! Thanks everyone!!

 

[rcdanner]

I recommend Aventon Pace 500 with 2 batteries and rack/fenders for about $1900 delivered. I routinely ride 60 miles on my Pace 500 with 20% charge remaining. Two batteries should provide a comfortable 100 mile day. The Pace 500 in small frame only weighs 47lbs. Much lighter than the suggested bikes.

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[Mr. Coffee]

I recommend Aventon Pace 500 with 2 batteries and rack/fenders for about $1900 delivered. I routinely ride 60 miles on my Pace 500 with 20% charge remaining. Two batteries should provide a comfortable 100 mile day. The Pace 500 in small frame only weighs 47lbs. Much lighter than the suggested bikes.

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Yes, that looks like a good bike, but likely a poor choice for touring.

IMHO, the 8-speed cassette and 180mm brakes disqualify it. If you are riding on long tours you will inevitably encounter hilly terrain where those will both be inadequate.

 

[Saratoga Dave]

There are lots of great bikes from virtually every manufacturer - like the Aventon, but we are looking here for something that can do the Trans Am ride, fully loaded. That means 50 or 60 pounds of stuff, if not more, and crossing the Blue Ridge Mountains, Appalachians, Ozarks, Kansas headwinds, Rockies, Tetons, Wyoming and Montana plains, and the Cascades. Afton Mountain, Hayter’s Gap, all of the Rockies... maybe up to 90 days, rain, heat, huge winds, cold, all of it. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! What have I left out?

This is a whole nother level, as I am certain Mr Coffee and some of our other touring vets would agree. The nicest commuter in the world is not going to get this done, nor should it.

 

[Mr. Coffee]

I'm just going to expand on what I posted earlier, and make a bit of a clarification. The big clarification is:

While there are "best options" for a touring e-bike, even the "best options" are not really great.

A lot of this comes down to the requirements for a long-haul bicycle expedition:

• You are going to be carrying a lot of stuff. Even if you are going very light you are probably routinely carrying far more than the typical cyclist does. Sometimes even if you are going very light you might have to carry a lot more stuff for at least part of a day.
• You will often be riding in atrocious conditions. Either poor roads or poor weather or sometimes both. Your bike is going to get wet and dirty. Sometimes very wet and very dirty.
• You will be a long way from a bike shop, sometimes you will be a long way from any kind of assistance. Depending on where you travel, the "bike shops" you do have may have a very limited stock of parts for your bike.
• You will be riding for a long time, day in and day out. Even a very short day can translate to 3-4 hours in the saddle. A longer day can be twice that or more.

What this implies in bike features:

• You need a fairly beefy bike.
• You need decent racking to carry all of that stuff. None of the e-bikes that are halfway decent four touring and are available in the States have a decent front rack solution. And some of the rear racks that come stock with those bikes are really inadequate for the heavy loads a bike tourist might carry.
• You need a very stable bike with wide tires and a very wide gear range and really good brakes. 203mm rotors should be standard on any e-touring bikes. No 1x gearing system is going to make you a happy rider on tour while hauling a load.
• Your bike should use pretty standard parts, not have internally routed cables, and a real "world traveler" rig would probably use mechanical brakes as opposed to hydraulic brakes. That makes those 203mm rotors even more important. Since 26" tire tubes are standard and widely available, your touring e-bike should at least have the option to use 26" wheels.
• Ergonomics are super-important. Drop bars or Jones bars are better than flats (more hand positions). It should not be an engineering project to adjust the stem height.
• The bike should be waterproof. Not spray-with-a-mist waterproof but dunk-in-a-river waterproof. That implies IPX standards on all of the electronics and cabling.

I would really like to see 203mm rotors as standard. If you are ever carrying heavy and going down a steep slippery hill you will understand.

I think that both the R&M and the Watt Wagon should at least have the option to have a fixed fork with eyelets so you can mount anything cages or a front rack. While I generally feel that you can do fine with just two panniers, front-to-rear loading is pretty critical to balancing the bike and I suspect that a lot of the time I'd be happier with two smaller front panniers and a good-sized saddlebag, rather than two larger rear panniers.

Steel is real. Steel-framed bikes have good flexing properties and are much more comfortable on longer rides. The R&Ms are great bikes but unforgivably stiff and they will beat the hell out of you on a long rough ride, even with the suspension. What's more, in my opinion, is that the stiffness of their frame design kind of "forces" them to include a suspension system to keep the bike ridable. The Ti frame on the Watt Wagons looks great, but I'd still like to swap out that front suspension fork with a springy steel fork with lots of eyelets and a suspension stem.

 

[Mr. Max]

I should confess at this point that while I have been a regular pedal bike junkie for my whole adult life and have done lots of cycle touring in my past, I'm very new to ebikes. I live in rural New Hampshire and ride about 1500-2000 miles between April and August commuting and having fun. I'm 64 and still in decent shape, but it's all getting harder.

Since I'm a rural person, all my research is through the internet. This website and all of Court's YouTube reviews are incredibly helpful.

In early Dec. I was in Seattle. My friends who I was staying with have a brewery a block away from Rad headquarters. I went over just to look, do some test rides and see what ebikes were all about. I rode all of the models and liked the RadCity the best. It was the last day of Rad's Black Friday sale. At $1300 and free shipping, I couldn't figure out why I shouldn't take a chance and bought a 2019 RadCity. I feel like my life has been transformed. I've only used the Rad bike at its lower levels of power assist and that feels like a miracle. It's like I'm 30 years younger. There's currently a snow drought in NH and it has pretty much been in 30-35 degrees, which for most of the USA sounds cold, but here in Dec/Jan, that's like a heatwave. Since the RadCity has arrived I've pretty much quit driving my car and ride about 15-30 miles most days a week.

But, I can definitely see that the Rad Bike is an entry level bike, that probably won't be much more than a fun bike for around town in the long run. But, the concept of electric power assist is making me imagine things that seemed out of reach and be possible like doing a long distance ride. Right now, I'm doing research and learning all that I can. There is a heck of a lot to learn!

Thanks to all of you for your thought responses! I very much appreciate your help!!

 

[Oberst]

If you can still find one, look at the Trek Cross Rip+. It has provisions for a front rack although I have never put one on mine.

 

[Mr. Coffee]

If you can still find one, look at the Trek Cross Rip+. It has provisions for a front rack although I have never put one on mine.

Trek makes nice bikes. But in my opinion the 1x drivetrain disqualifies it.

 

[dblhelix]

Thanks! I didn't want to put any limits not the question, just to see what people would recommend, but sadly, I can't really spend $10,000 on a bike.

When I was younger I did a lot of lightweight bike touring and that's my plan now. To carry minimal gear.

The new Gazelle Ultimate T10 with an extra battery looked like it might be a sweet set up, if you weren't carrying a lot of gear.

Yes, I imagine that rack doesn’t carry much. The second battery will be a PowerTube which is cumbersome to carry. The bike has a Purion (minimal) which I could live with but would prefer not to.

Gazelle switched to Purion because the Intuvia mount (for larger displays with more features) doesn’t play nicely with the Gazelle handlebar. Kind of an odd situation.

I would plan the route first. This will help you figure out your requirements. I do think the Bosch motor/battery combo is most reliable for touring. The amount of gear you take will be proportional to the difficulty of the route/breadth of terrain. Since you want to limit your purchase to $3k-$4k, you’ll probably spend money on specific upgrades in anticipation of challenging terrain.

 

[E-Wheels]

Gazelle switched to Purion because the Intuvia mount (for larger displays with more features) doesn’t play nicely with the Gazelle handlebar. Kind of an odd situation.

It is an odd decision to use the Purion for the US & EU markets, where the same spec bike is supplied with the Intuvia for the Australian market

 

[dblhelix]

It is an odd decision to use the Purion for the US & EU markets, where the same spec bike is supplied with the Intuvia for the Australian market

That’s interesting! Just last week I was discussing this with a US-based dealer who mentioned the switch to a Purion was based on the Intuvia mount incompatibility with the handlebar. Perhaps you have a different handlebar? Of course, that would be the optimal solution.

 

[Deleted member 18083]

• I can't really spend $10,000 on a bike.
• Any other recommendations than Riese & Müller?.

Max …
Perhaps, you should consider a secondhand R&M Delite, Charger or Homage with dual batteries. Would half price for a 2018 or 2019 model tempt you? (No, I'm not offering mine!)
… David

 

[e-boy]

I've looked all over this forum and don't see that anyone has asked this question. If you could have any ebike, what bike and bike set-up do you think would be the best for long distance touring, like the entire West Coast or across the USA? Thanks in advance!!

How many miles a day and on what terrain ?

 

[Stefan Mikes]

So @Mr. Coffee effectively killed my dream of the coming summer e-bike trip to Czech Republic I was thinking of travelling extremely light, up to 100 miles per day, daily elevation gain of 3600 feet, paved roads only. 10 days, most of them not as demanding as the hardest described day. Seems none of my bikes qualifies. The other participants of the rally will ride on acoustic recumbent bikes or trikes: that's another world of cycling. It is fairly easy to pedal for 8-10 hours daily on their cycles.

I think a custom made e-trike would do. These are very expensive.