New hybrid —> Cube SL Road Race City 2022
 

Hi guys,

I’m a mtb’er that has no mountain near home. Which means, during the week days (and odd wknd) I’ll be using a hybrid bike to keep up with fitness level.

I recently moved to the country side of Ireland and although where we live has plenty of asphalt, I do like to think this n+1 will be able to comfortably tackle dirt roads.

Given my mtb background, gravel bike is not an option, I like the flat bars too much. I will add barends to provide a bit of extra comfort on long rides.

I’ve found this bike:

Cube SL Road Race City 2022

(apologies, newbie user, I can’t upload URL’s)

She ticks pretty much all boxes really, well, I wouldn’t mind going full carbon, but the budget doesn’t allow:

- hydraulic disks (are tektro any good)
- tire clearance up to 42mm, bike comes with 40mm I’m very happy with the thickness.
- Shimano GRX, I’ve read only good things about it
- Front and rear mount ready. I’ll potentially be multi day bike packing around Europe with this bike

Does anybody have this bike, came across her

Any feedback will be highly appreciated

cheers

Welcome to the forum!

Is it this bike? https://www.cube.eu/en/2022/bikes/ur...-fe-bluenblue/

They call it the Road Race FE, but it looks like it has mudguard mounts and GRX, as you noted above. Tektro hydraulic brakes will be fine. I slightly prefer Shimano for easy maintenance bleeds with the screw-in fluid cup, but I've owned Tektro and they work well.

Note that, due to the current supply chain problems, bikes will often ship with slightly different components than originally specified. This may or may not happen with Cube. If you buy it from a local bike shop and can see the bike prior to purchase, you'll know exactly what you're getting.

I am only familiar with the C.62 SLT version, which is the carbon version of the SL Road. The geometry is probably a little different so I'll just cover the nuances of the Cube design as I know them.
First of all, it's my neighbor's bike but he did a lot of the mods in my workshop, and I've ridden it over a couple of weeks myself. The biggest flaw of the GRX is that silly switch to turn on the clutch. SRAM's roller bearing clutch system is always on. He switched out the Shimano RD to the SRAM GX 2X11 long cage RD, which also allows 10-42t cassette, which gives the 46/30t crank a lot more top and bottom end, even if the gears are wider apart. There is some cross chaining but that's what the FD is for.
The fenders from Cube (ACID, if I remember correctly), are plastic and the rack is installed into the fender and acts as fender support as well. They were well made but the fender is short and spray kicks up a bit. So we switched out that Cube system for the AXIOM Streamliner 29er and the SKS Edge AL 46, which added 300+g in weight but the AXIOM mount is about 4cm back from the axle and also braces on the fender bridge. The annoying thing is that the fender/rack mounts face internally, so any maintenance requires rear wheel removal, where the GX cage lock is so much easier to deal with.
The other upgrade done was the brake levers. The Tektro levers don't have stroke adjustment and were pretty long stroked, So switch to the Shimano XT levers gave better stroke adjustment. Otherwise the HD280 pistons are good enough for a bikepacker/commuter.
Overall, the Cube looks and feels well made, and seriously that single rail rack is simplistic, and great for a commuter. However, if you want to add trunkbags etc, their bigger racks are just a little too short for certain bags.

tks for taking the time to answer my question.

The bike I’m looking for will come without the fenders, rack etc. I will look into smtng like thm in the future, but for now I’m happy to just ride around to keep fitness levels.

I’ll have a go with the GXR once it’s worn out I’ll look into replacing etc.

Never had tektro myself. I love shimano breaks, my current mtb has sram, they are ok. Considering it’s a commute/ road/ speed bike and I believe any sorri of hydraulic system would do anyway.

When the time comes to bikepack, I’ll see what I can do about bags etc. might even get one custom made.

Im glad to hear it’s a solid build. I believed this is the right choice.