Review: Haibike Xduro FS

The Haibike Xduro FS is a new bike with a new style.

It has 140mm of travel front and rear and is designed as an AM or do it all bike. Most excitingly the bike runs a fully standard spec except for the chainset meaning that replacement parts shouldn't take light years to get to you. The motor is by Bosch and the drive unit is the 36 Volt, 250 watt motor which has a top out at 30mph. This is powered by a Bosch Lithium Ionen 36 Volt, 400 Wh which gives the bike a range of 35-65miles depending on the setting you have it on. The 21.1kg (46.5lbs) weight is the main flaw in the bike but the motor is certainly large enough to power it adequately.


The Xduro is a suprisingly playful bike, with a slightly longer top tube coupled with a short stem giving the bike a nice feel. The top tube was slightly longer that what I'm used to at 605mm but with a 50mm stem I felt right at home. The Syntace finishing kit was ideal for this bike with a Vector bar at 740mm wide giving plenty of control. The Iodine 3 wheelset was a surprising choice for this bike with its aggresive feel given their weight and nature. They did feel slightly flexier but their weight was trying to keep the complete bike weight down. The tyre choice was 2.25" Schwalbe Nobby Nic's which again was an ideal choice for this bike, however we found the side knobs not quite grippy enough in the sludge and would probably swap the front out for my regular 2.35" Hans Damph or Bontrager XR4.

The Fox Talas CTD (150-120mm) felt slightly sticky out of the both but after the first few hours started to feel better. The talas does suit the nature of this bike, however I found the CTD on this bike slightly annoying as it was blowing through the first 20-30mm of travel and rarely acheiving close to full travel. This seems to be a common problem with the CTD forks but we combated this by putting an extra 10psi in than normal to give a bit more suppleness.

The Rockshox Monarch shock performed faultlessly throughout the test, however I was slightly concerned that it wasn't a high volume shock. For my meager 65kg this wasn't too much of problem but I had to have 200psi in the shock because of the weight of the motor and battery influencing the sag on the bike's design so anyone on the larger side may need a high volume shock to stop blowing through the travel.

The Crank Brothers Kronolog seatpost performed faultlessly throughout the test. Their was a slight problem though that the return rate of the seatpost can't be slowed down and it makes the possibility of you smashing yourself pretty high. It was just too fast and was painful if you slipped onto the remote (this happened once) and the only real way to control it was making sure you was seated before you attempted to raise the seat.

The bikes merit was certainly found with it absolutely destroying climbs without us even touching the turbo setting. The four settings of the motor are controlled by a switch where your front shifter would be, and you get a visual display which sits neatly just on top of your stem giving you a readout. The four settings of the bike were Eco, Tour, Sport and Turbo. The Eco setting obviously gives the least amount of push meaning you can get 65miles out of one charge whilst the Turbo setting gives you a limit of 35miles. But, you can switch off the motor completely on descents meaning no battery is wasted. Although, the turbo setting was great fun in the shop and car park, its use was limited on the trail as it would be great on long fireroad ascents but because of the varying input it made hard work of short, twisty technical climbs so I found myself using the tour mode most of the time.

To test the bike we went to Parkwood Springs in Sheffield a new-ish trail, designed and built by the great people of RIDE SHEFFIELD (http://www.ridesheffield.org.uk/)

This was my first time around the new trail so I timed my second lap which was on the Xduro given me an okay time of 8minutes and 13seconds. I then went back onto my Commencal Meta 6 for a couple of laps and timed my 5th lap which came out at 10minutes and 6seconds. Obviously this was a great cut of time off of a 1.25mile run. However I don't think this bike is aimed at people who are looking to beat any times.

This bike is designed for people who are injured or just out of shape and looking to get back into cycling and having fun. For this circumstance it has incredible merit and great functionality. It was a fun bike and the motor was extremely functional for the duration of the test.