Cube weren't at the Eurobike show, so they didn't make it into our Six of the best e-road bikes roundup from Germany. But that doesn't mean they haven't been beavering away behind the scenes getting some pedal-assist road bikes ready. And here they are!
The bike pictured above is the Cube Agree Hybrid C:62 SLT Disc. Cube don't really major on catchy names, but there you go. Anyway, it's another bike that's fully road-oriented, and doesn't look like an e-bike at all at first glance. And it's light too. Well, not light for a road bike: The non-powered version of this bike, which shares a similar spec save for the motor, is 7.6kg, and the Agree Hybrid tips the scales at 12.8kg. So there's a nudge over 5kg of extra weight, most of which (4.6kg in fact) is from the motor system, and a bit of which is probably in the frame which will no doubt need beefing up to cope with the weight of the motor and the extra power going through the drivetrain.
Fazua's Evation drive system is modular, and you can remove the motor and the 250Wh battery leaving just the bottom bracket gearbox in place. If you do that you'll drop 3.3kg from the weight of the bike, bringing it more or less into line with other disc-equipped carbon road bikes. So if you fancy a ride without any assistance, you've got a fully functioning standard road bike as well as an e-bike.
Fazua's Evation drive system has been coming for a while, and this year at Eurobike we finally got to have a go on it. And it definitely works: it's not as powerful as a top-end motor from one of the big players, but it's aiming at a different sector of the market where riders will be expecting to spend a lot of a ride with no assistance. It's also very inconspicuous: not hidden, exactly, but hidden enough that it doesn't spoil the lines of the bike.
Cube are starting with two models in the range, both built around the Fazua motor and the same C:62 carbon frame and fork. The difference is in the spec: where the SLT gets built with Shimano's top-end electronic groupset, Dura Ace Di2, the SL gets the cheaper (but still pretty top-end) Ultegra mechanical groupset.
Both bikes have 12mm thru-axles front and rear, and Shimano hydraulic disc brakes. There's room enough in the frame for a 36mm tyre, so like the Focus Project Y we recently reported on, this is a bike that could be dressed up as a gravel race or a lightweight bikepacker too with some bigger tyres. The two bikes are very similar, in fact, using the same motor in a carbon frame, with high-end finishing kit. That's reflected in the fact that the claimed weights of the two bikes are only 300g different.
How much will these bikes cost? Well, lots of money. The Fazua drive system is designed and manufactured in Germany, so it's not cheap. The top-spec SLT bike will retail for £7,199 in the UK, with the SL build a fair bit less, at £4,499. But by no means cheap.
See Cube at The Cycle Show at the NEC: get 10% off!
Cube will have the Agree Hybrid (and a whole bunch of other e-bikes) at The Cycle Show at the NEC from 22-24 September. You can get 10% off a ticket using the code EBIKETIPS - Click here to book online.
