Hands-on with the Riese & Müller Culture Mixte

I rode the Riese & Müller Culture Mixte for a couple of weeks – come find out what I thought of this powerful, elegant and completely assured ebike. (Spoiler, I liked it!) Let me know what you think of this new format too!

Find out more: https://www.r-m.de/en-gb/bikes/culture-mixte/

Thanks to Electric Bikes Scotland for the borrow! Find them at https://electricbikesscotland.co.uk

welcome to ebike nugs welcome to Sunny dunde welcome to this the reent Muer culture mixed a new ebike from ebike Superstar reys and Muer and welcome to a slightly new format for ebike nugs in which we’re going to have a look at a bike that has been loaned to me by electric bike Scotland here in dunde I’m going to tell you a little bit about it tell you what it’s like to ride it and then we’re going to jump on it and go and chat to Daniel from electric bike Scotland to find out more we’re going to start though with an overall view of this bike we’ll go top to tail and take you through what this bike is the first thing though is just First Impressions and isn’t it pretty it’s just the most beautiful thing I got a real uh affection for Rees Muller’s industrial design language it is elegant refined but soft it’s not too bch too matcho really suits me there is by the way as well as this Blossom color there is a denim blue color that’s a little more Butch if that’s what you want I think this is gorgeous all right let’s start at the front big 28 in tires my own bike has got little 20in tires so riding a bike with full size tires always feels very elegant you’re just drifting along the road nice big chunky Hub uh uh fenders that keep the rain and the mck off your clothes that extend right the way down with little kickouts same on the back keeps you nice and clean that is incredibly important especially in Scotland bright light it really is a nice sharp piercing clear clean light rid this bike in the pitch dark and it lights the way you see what you’re doing there are little cutouts in the side so there’s light comes out to the side as well so you get a nice overall view that is matched by the way by one on the rear mud guard there’s a red light here as well and it’s all integrated of course as you’d expect with a bike like this so you not having to charge light separately big benefit of knee bike big chunky grips it is a Twist gear system and it’s an 8-speed uh system I find that uh gear 6 is a nice cruising speed if I take it to gear eight I’m working a little harder than I like to but six is a nice gentle piece for me it’s a very simple display setup by default you can buy the pon display as part of the bch system to put a little LCD so you can see what your bike is doing but by default it comes with this little heads up display thing here which simply allows you to turn the bike on it shows you the power level here and it shows you the charge level of your battery as well I will note that the battery is integrated you can’t move it you charge it from a port on the back here which a bit of a pain in the ass sometimes for some people so you shouldn’t ever charge ebikes in the in Sub-Zero temperatures you can use them in Sub-Zero temperatures although you get less range but you should never charge them in Sub-Zero temperatures and that’s going to be a bit of a sticking point for some people because the ability to take your battery off the bike and take it into the house and charge it is really useful this way you got to be able to put the bike somewhere where there’s an electrical socket and where it’s going to be kept out of the cold temperatures in win if you live somewhere that experiences subzero temperatures one thing I will say I mean the brakes are great they’re sharp hydraulic uh disc brakes you see the disc here no problems with that at all one really cute feature I like this a lot is that here on the stem there is a support a little clip for you to put your mobile phone onto this uses the standard well one there’s two big standards I see in biking one is quad loock the other one is sp connect this is the ler SP connect so if you buy any SP connect compatible case for your phone or another accessory a a bike tracker computer or GPS satav thing whatever if it supports SB connect or can be made to support SB connect you can put it straight here what’s nice about that is you can then I haven’t cuz I’m just borrowing this and I don’t have a SB connect case but you can then pair the bike to that phone via an app so that you’ll get much richer display you’ll see speed Cadence range all that stuff whole bunch of chunky Crispy Crunchy data and I love that we’re getting to the stage now the bike manufacturers are kind of doing what car manufacturers long ago realized they have to which is when it comes to uh dashboards in effect which is what this is just let people use their phones cuz we’ve got our phones we upgrade our phones quite a lot our phones are great let’s not mck about with like independent third party so this is quite a smart I think um cost cutting yes but actual uh um engagement with and dialogue with how people actually use Tech and bikes these days as well so I love that I think that’s a really smart move the seat is all right and my wife takes my wife’s seat bike has got a big chunky padded gorgeous seat on it and with her when she switches onto one of my other bikes she finds them a bit hard I find this a we bit hard but it is absolutely fine couple of uh Alan keys are to raise or lower it I might be tempted to go for something a little bit cuz it feels cuz the sweat handles feels quite relaxed quite Dutch style I might attempted to switch this out for something a little more luxurious down to the important stuff then the business end of this there is down here the Bosch performance line SX motor and this is the thing I really want to talk to Daniel electric bike Scotland about cuz he said as he was handing this bike over to me that with this motor um it is quite powerful but you need to have the revs up before that kicks in and boy do I feel that I this isn’t about this is especially easy to get off the line I mean it is it’s an ebike and especially if you’re used to a manual bike you’ll be like oh my God what was he talking about it’s so easy but for me used to the performance line CX I think it is on my other bike which is which was at the time the top of the line motor which just bombs away from the line with no problems this one you got to put a little bit of effort in but once you’re moving once you’re cycling and and and sort of soaring along cycle paths you really feel that Cadence kick in in and the power kick in and it feels glorious it feels like flying there’s also you’ll notice a carbon belt drive here rather than chains so nice I love carbon belt drives they require much less maintenance the last for the lifetime of the bike in effect I think check that with Daniel um they’ll certainly last for a very very very long time whereas with a chain it’s a bit more um susceptible to wear and tear needs to be replaced every so often and I noticed on my bike with a chain that uh performance kind of suffers a little bit and you can’t belt you can’t thrash the bike as much as you perhaps want to when the Chain’s feeling a little bit loose this is optional I think the carrier that’s been put on here as far as I’m concerned a carrier is not optional for an ebike you need to put a carrier on a bike uh otherwise you’re just taking yourself and what the hell is the use in that most of us have got stuff to do things to take so able to put some paniers on here or a bike or a seat for a kid is great it says maximum load is 27 kg this is really really chunky great love it other options on this bike include so there’s a couple of screw points here you can put a I presume like a drinks holder here or something but you can also put an optional 400 W range extender battery on here it’s a little under 500 quid I think so the main battery is 400 WS as well you can put another 400 WT battery onto here so that you’re doubling your range I’m not going to talk about what the range is I don’t really care about range on ebikes cuz for most of us especially we were living in a city we’re never using the full range of our bikes anyway if I I guess maybe 30 40 m by default doubling that if you put the Range Extender on which is really nice the other option that was quite cute was suspension so this has by default has got no suspension on it you can opt up and I forget what the price was it is this much thank you future me um you can put a suspension Fork on here and I presume it’s a thud Buster that’s what you usually use in Rec wheer you can put a little suspension post on the on the seat as well to give you a slightly smoother R I will say my normal bike doesn’t have suspension my other bike does have suspension at least in the front fork and my wife’s bike has suspension on the front fork and on the seat and I got to say it is awfully nice if you got a little bit of softness to make that ride a little easier what’s it like to ride it is joyful it’s glorious it just feels so confident and secure I mean I said right at the top of the show I think I meant to if I didn’t it’s £3,800 thereabouts for the base model so it is not cheap I get that I’m kind of a bit bored of talking about how ebikes are not cheap especially the good ones but the experience of riding this is just such a delight it feels elegant refined sophisticated comfortable assured that’s my word for this bike it feels assured when you’re riding it and it is a deep deep Joy however so this is the new format for this kind of part of the show what we’re going to do now is going to jump on the bike there might be an edit point where it’s a different day who knows but at some point we’re going to jump on the bike we’re going to nip into dund City Center we’re going to talk to Daniel at electric bike Scotland and figure out from him what his three reasons are that you should buy this bike and his three reasons why I should buy a different bike I want to find out more about this motor and I want to find out why this is the bike to buy why it’s the bike to skip let’s [Music] go [Music] and even though I very carefully laundered this jumper so that even though this was being filmed a week later I could fool you into thinking it was being filmed on the same day I’m afraid the weather did not cooperate and the eagle eyed amongst you will have noticed that this is indeed not quite as sunny as it was in the first half but you will recognize I think this route I take it often this is my Road in from Ry Ferry where I live into the center of dunde where electric bike Scotland has their shop cleverly on National cycle Route One so that they can catch people on their bikes to pass by and convert them lure them in to talk about electric bikes and the joy they can bring hi Daniel thanks for welcoming back into electric bike Scotland that’s welcome back so the Channel’s never been inside the shop before but obviously I have a few times and this is one of the electric bike shops you’re a Bosch specialist um but you’ve got a huge range of bikes for lots and lots of different use cases and you’re based here in dindi where I live on City Keys um and there’s T of bikes around us but the one we’re going to talk about is the one that I’ve been testing for the last few days the recent M culture mixed what’s your Top Line what do you like about it me personally I like the color I like I like how it’s lightweight and I like how it’s just it’s simple to use it’s nice it’s easy it’s not overly complicated they’re probably my top things I like about it really is it’s notable actually that with this bike in particular I can just like jump on it press one button and then I’m away um which is in contrast which sounds like aren’t all bikes like that but actually I found that sometimes the bike will for example reset the assistance level or uh it will take a little while to start up or if I’m using my own bike then it’s a quite complex Bluetooth Link into to my phone system stuff but this it’s one button you press and you’re off and that to me is just it almost Bridges a gap between a normal bike and an ebike I think I think you’ve mentioned before like getting all that data and things like that from bikes that you can just hop you don’t have to have your phone you can if you want to but if you don’t excellent it’s it’s there and ready your Ro y absolutely so you’ve described this as an urban bike to me before what makes up an urban bike for me an urban bike is it’s got full range of mud guards light something you can use obviously day and night almost inhub gearing system that’s main the main thing I find is an urban bike yeah um the difference between your derer and your your inhub gearing system is when on a derer you know yourself when cycling you got cycle to change gears and that can be if you come to a stop it’s always a pain because if you get it wrong or you know You’ came to something it’s in the wrong you’ve got to change in clunk clunk clunk that you go for it you stoping the wrong gear down you’re sorted yeah so let’s explain that a little bit so um a derailer gear is one of those looks bit like a chicken leg or something sticking down at the back of the bike you see the chain coming from uh around the here and it comes down out that way and there’s a system there a little lever arm that changes the gear basically um but you have to be in motion in order for that to work and so the point you’re making is that if you’re coming to a stop at a road or traffic lights or something you have to think ahead to change down gears as you’re cycling as you’re approaching the stop whereas with the inhub gearing system which both my other bikes have got as well you don’t have to do that in fact you actually explicitly have to stop pedaling to change and so you can come to change your gear get the right one and then off you that’s actually it’s one of things I talked about in the channel before one of the things that I think Marx ebikes out that’s a really like secret superpower that nobody ever talks about is um uh starting and stopping is so much easier and simpler than on a manual bike and and that comes with a a kind of unanticipated benefit I think which is that um it’s really easy when you’re on a manual bike to or rather when you’re on a bike you don’t want to stop no because stopping is pay in the asss and you cuz you got to like put a lot of energy into get back up again where’s the E Bike doesn’t really matter and like this is a controversial thing to say but I honestly think that ebikes tend to make cyclists a bit more polite for that reason because you’re not having to like you’re not chasing that momentum uh so you’re much happier to like slow or stop if there’s a dog on the road or something um and you’re not blasting through red lights like to criticize C for for that reason and the inhub makes a big difference in that as well definitely definitely um also a few other things is this one comes with a belt drive you can get a chain drive or a belt drive this one has a belt drive on it which again great for urban use all that Grime muck that you can see doesn’t affect the doesn’t affect the belt drive it’s it’s going to try and keep it clean as best as possible so that was one of the things I said in my little introductory a bit at the start of this video was about the lifetime of the belt drive and I’ve seen figures in the tens of thousands of miles for life for belts what do you see so I I won’t go that 10 thousands of miles I can give it in years so I have a couple belt drives that coming about seven eight years old now and again it’s just make sure you get them service keep them clean and make sure the belt tension is right you they will last you I’ve had a couple of belts that have went and that’s maybe user misuse but you can’t you can’t really see but yeah if you it’s the sort of thing you look after after that it will last you you know you just Implement that whole thing that’ll go so yeah and the other thing I mentioned in the in the start of this video about the belt drive was I find that on the bike of mine that’s got a chain drive the chain as you know will slack and over time get a bit loose and that does affect the responsiveness of the bike because it means you can’t quite thrash it as much as You’ want it to get away from a standing stop in the same way whereas I find with a belt drive on my other bike it’s always exact it feels exactly the same single time over years and years move yeah just I think with over that tension that the belt can keep that a lot longer where on a chain like the pins will stretch and like that will just go quicker especially on an ebike yes with the power going through that’s the thing I mean we talked about I’ve talked about that in the channel a lot people will say why don’t you just convert a normal bike and that’s a completely valid thing for people to do 100% it really is um but one of the things that one of the reasons that ebikes are expensive is that uh the components will be up rated because we expect people to use them more and we expect them to be doing you know you’ll have more momentum more Cadence because you’ll be going a bit faster yeah so you’re talking about better brakes better everything basically across the across the board for you like definitely um so the motor then was the main thing I wanted to talk to you about the performance lines SX here and you said to me as you handed the bike over to me one of the notable things about it is that uh it doesn’t really have a lot of power at standing but once you’re going it really does and I really felt that so talk a little bit about that the new SX motor from Bosch was I I believe it was to get into help get into that lightweight Market a lot of people were say moaning about the weight of the bike this which is which is valid right I mean most ebikes are pretty chunky and we kind of don’t care about that so actually my original bike which was which is from Ora they explicitly put a thing on their website that says we will not tell you how much this bike ways and the reason they do that is because they know that people like who are doing spec sheet shopping will be like it weighs this I’m not going to get that because people think about in those terms for normal manual bikes that lightweight is better because it usually is because you’re you’re having to move the bike as well as you and also like putting it up in racks and stuff and that’s still true with ebikes but with an ebike you don’t really care about the weight because you got the power to help you yeah so the I believe this motor weighs 2 kg or just under 2 kg um and where it differs from all the other Motors that Bosch do is it only has 55 Newt M of power but where it brings it back up is the 600 wats um of power it brings out itself so it almost levels with the CX line when like you you’re putting the Cadence in and bring up so as I mentioned earlier it really Bridges the gap between you were maybe once a cyclist you can’t do it as much now um just due to some reasons and you want to get into an KN you’re still holding on to the fact of I want to be a cyclist this motor is fantastic for mountain biking Road use urban use e gravel the the type of areas where you may need to put the high Cadence in to get places this is the motor and I noticed as well because so the 10 ways bike I’ve got that you’ve had a we go on as well it’s got quite a weedy motor um comparatively it’s a hub drive system um and I find I find actually in terms of like once the once that bike once the recent Muller culture mixed and that 10 Way c800s once they’re moving they feel identical same sense of like movement and Cadence and flow where the 10 ways is much weaker than this is it has got no gears and so getting up hills you have to stand up sometimes to get up a hill whereas with this it actually again when I’m used to my performance L CX motor in my little or E10 LR this still feels a bit like oh yeah I’ve actually got to work a bit harder year but you’ve got the you it does help but you’ve still got the power to get you uphill definitely definitely got that power to help you go up there like said 55 Newton met of torque great it’s a a good amount of power especially in urban use but like that you get the Cadence in that really brings that power up and gets you like you said gets your places and gets you up the hill so things you’ve got to work at it but the reward at the end is well worth it definitely so what do you reckon about range so I I I misspoke in the first half I called it a 400 wat battery of course it’s a 400 wat hour battery yeah um and the same if you put the little click on here that was 400 as well 250 was it 250 I wrong it’s a 250 range extender um and it’s literally the size of I couldn’t even a bag of sugar the best way I could and it just plugs right as you said plugs right into the the the charging socket and know you get 650 Watts instead of the compact 400 W hours got which is great that’s fine so I misspoke I this one was a 400 so it’s 250 so it’s 400 inside you can add on another 250 um how what do you reckon you’re going to get with 400 W hours in terms of range if you got the power at Max so I’m going to go for me and my my riding style which is a little bit you’re a bit more adventurous than me so I always have my power at Max you tend to Dr yours I’m normally a tour Rider myself I’m a bigger person I personally would probably get about 45 miles okay and you probably get we bit more but I’m just being a bit bigger I would say um which which ches cuz I think I said in the first half it was about 30 or 40 miles would get so I think that’s probably about right but but we hate talking about this right because it depends on your riding style how much effort you put in how what power you have set on the motor and also on the terrain that you’re in and the conditions temperature will have an effect if it’s colder you’ll get less range yeah it’s like just now it’s it’s colder just in the morning so if you are cycling in you might get that mile or two less definitely so how do you deal with that question when you get it from customers cuz I get it all the time about range we our general rule of with doing this for so long is is we say about 10 miles for every 100 W hours so if it’s a 400 would’ say about 40 45 but it can vary uh now with the new 750 W hours that they do I would still say in about 70 M like 70 miles you know that that would give you your your Rough Guide if you get more fantastic but it’s just to give you an an idea of what it could be I know Bosch and a lot of other manufacturers say oh you’ll get so many hundreds of kilometers and it but actually justest reality not using it in the real world yeah in SC and in the real world you’re going to get something completely different so not almost undershooting it but saying like be realistic you might get this and how do people react like cuz I I get the impression that people want a a finite number they want to know exactly how much it will do yeah so it’s it’s almost like oh some people think oh that’s a lot and other people will say well I thought I’d get more and and then I have to say them you might get more but I just have to say if I say to you oh you’re going to get 100 miles and you only got 70 you’re going to be like well this batter defect I also find it really strange so um the car that I’d love to replace we’ve got a little petrol Volkswagen Polo it’s getting quite old I’d love to replace it with the Honda E I love that we car it’s got about 100 mile range it’s quoted I think okay um and it came in for so much criticism about that the number of times I go more than 100 miles in one journey is basically it’s like maybe twice a year yeah and even then going to see my parents for example which point there’s a stop off for a PE break and a bite of food rapid charger Happy Days it always strikes me as baffling especially with bikes as well that folks want these like 100 mile 200 mile ranges yeah it it’s a it’s a mindset I just don’t understand because for me if I was doing my commute in and out to dunde that’s like four miles each way yeah and I know this sounds like you’re never going to be it’s not like a car where if you do run out of charge you’re stuck yeah you can still pedal like I mean it’ll be a bit heavier but you can still pedal you know that’s the that’s the thing but yeah the range is a funny is a funny it’s a funny topic to speak about and you can we’re try and get it as right as possible but I think there’ll always be there’ll be some Skeptics there’s always going to be some Skeptics like I can get so far on my bike and I’ve done that and that’s fantastic yeah but it’s we give let’s make a set expect low so if they go higher excellent but if you the hit around about that Mark you’re like okay I was expecting that under promis no deliver exactly all right so it’s a great bike as I say I think on the recent M website it starts about 3,800 uh you can add and add and add to that it’s it’s a chunky amount of money to spend yes how do you talk to folk about that so with re Muer just as a brand in general we we see them as you’re maybe getting rid of that second car you you have so like that you said it’s 3,800 that’s roughly about a starting price for most of their ebikes and then we are working up from there so it is a big investment but that’s really at the end of the day what it is it’s an investment you’re getting rid of that second car you’re conscious about making better Journeys to go to the shops go like yourself maybe go like the the Skip and stuff like that to drop off things you’re you’re not seeing it as oh well £ 3,800 and I’m only going to use it like two three times you know a year sort of thing you’re going to try and use this every day and you’re disappointed when you don’t get to use it you know yeah that’s the that’s the thing we find there is obviously different manufacturers cheaper manufacturers that we do that like that could be used for just recreational use but something like this and the other models and some of the other ones as well you’re want to use that every day it’s like I said replacing the car it’s you’re taking the kids to school or Nursery you’re going to the shops you’re trying to do as much things on your bike and leaving the car at home so when you’re using the car you’re like oh okay I’m here but when you’re on the bike you’re like oh this is great and I don’t mind about the wind or the almost the rain you know but when it’s Sunshine you’re excellent you’re away but getting folk over that hump is tricky right it was the same for me my first bike was £2,000 M uh and it that that was like seven years ago now and it’s still going great thanks to your servicing um but it’s like and and like looking back now I I would I it’s always really tricky when you’re making big decisions like this it’s like do you sort of like slightly cheap out but still a lot of money yeah but or do you get buy the right one you buy the good one that you really want yeah um and looking back now I absolutely could and should have treated myself a little bit more because I use it almost every day if not every single day um but how getting FK over that hump to go no you you do want this it’s great you it is tricky like you said it’s changing their mindset and framing sort of their questions in a way of how more are you going to use this like and one thing I always tell customers when they’re buying a bike is you’re you’re only going to say you’re going to do this and that on it but I’ll guarantee when you come back either your six week check or your year service you’re going to tell me I’m actually out on it more we we have a customer coming in on Monday who when she bought her bike said to me I’m just going to use it to maybe go around like maniki and that sort of area and now she’s a way to go and do a big long journey I think I believe she said she was going to do JN G to Land’s End W yeah so she’s lit can’t get a longer Journey no so she’s like she’s pushed herself so much to go and do this uh from like that small couple mile Journeys if even that to one end of the country to the next you’ll see it as well when you bring the BS in for service you you’ll see the odometer you’ll see the read you’ll go yeah yeah there is some customers that only do a couple of Miles here and there but nine times out of 10 they get the the bug and they just go I’m going to run with that you know this is this is me now I’m on it and they’re on the phone you know I’ve brought it in for a service and they’re like oh can we get it back now you know it’s been an hour and I’m ready to go back on it you know it’s it’s they want to be out on it especially when the weather’s hopefully going to get better soon that’s where it’s going to be 100% all right so let’s wrap up then on the recenter culture mixed as you know I’m going to ask you for your three reasons why somebody should buy this bike and three reasons why someip it for a different model so me through those first three so for me for for buying this bike again as I mentioned the light weight and that’s one thing if you can if you’re needing to something you can lift up into certain places and you’re able to definitely go for that it’s like I said the lightweight is 21.8 kg fantastic um other things I would say the belt driv inhub gearing system again simple easy to use and and just you know what really D is is just the look of the bike I know it’s I know it’s that’s such an eye catch maybe we basket on the front double paner bags like you said you can go shopping you can go places I think these are the things and it’s just beautifully designed beautifully designed I’m I I’m such a for Muer like their industrial design language is so beautiful it it feels so a bunch of ebikes as you’ll know they try to look not like ebikes and that’s okay that’s fine some people will like that um and a bunch of ebikes look really eiky really techy and like aggressive and that’s also fine but recently manag to this this lovely balance between it where it just feels inevitable the design feels like yeah that’s what it should look like definitely um and as you see eye-catching beautiful gorgeous um and chunky yeah lovely we thing yeah love it all right your three reasons in why somebody should skip it for something else uh built-in battery that’s if you can’t if you don’t have the facilities to take like store the some place like a garage or a shed and you want to bring the battery in that can be a bit of a bit of a nightmare and even if you do have a garage it could get cold yeah so and you don’t want to be charging your back in subzero no you don’t want to be doing that and just even then if if you do there might not be a power outlet in there and it just makes a little bit more hassle for yourself on that one with the rigid ride you me you mentioning your thing it’s quite if you’re used to it excellent but I think as well that if you’re not used to go for the go for the upgrade go for the it wasn’t that much either 95 quid or something to take the suspension fork and uh seat post as well for yeah um they probably if you’re only just doing Urban stuff excellent but you do get a certain people who are maybe a little bit adventurous and want to go a little bit more at the end of the day is just an urban bike but if you want to go for something a bit more how like like a tour go for a tour don’t settle for this and then try to do it you know that’s probably that sort of way but overall I could give you two good one like the two ones but the third one I was struggling a little bit on on the on the why you shouldn’t because why not it’s lovely yeah amazing look Daniel thanks so much for Lo loing to me for a few days the next one you’re going to give me is a model from gazelle so the ultimate C5 over there over there you can’t see on film over there uh so I’m not going to talk about that in this video you’ll see it soon coming up but um if like this bike go check it out obviously I’ve said this on the channel before if you’re interested in eat bikes especially if you’re not especially knowledgeable about them go and make friends with your local bike shop they really do want to help it’s by my experience in the three or four bike shops I’ve worked with they are lovely people they’re not trying to fleece you they want you to make the best choices for you so if you’re curious whether or not you’re buying this bike or something else go make friends with the folks at your local bike shop get yourself knowledgeable get yourself in new bike and have an amazing ride we will see you next time in E bik nugs thanks for watching [Music] [Music] am