Backwards engineered gravel eBike

[open roader]

For over a year I was keen to be riding an electric gravel bike. Gravel riding is my immediate future and I have a few medical issues that lead me to migraine if I exert myself to hard for too long so I was keen to try electric pedal assist in an attempt to ride for more than 90 mins at a time.

I purchased an electric road bike and fitted some gravel tyres and a flared drop bar which worked well on smoother gravel roads but not well on bush tracks, logging tracks and even some of the closest farm tracks to me - road bike just too stiff and jittery over the rougher terrain - asking too much of the bike and me, the rider.

The type of drop bar electric gravel bike I wanted was not being imported into Australia any time soon (if ever) so I decided to purchase a lighter weight eMTB and backwards 'engineer' it into a suitable gravel bike.

Enter 'Hermes' - the backward engineered electric gravel bike.

A 2023 Giant Trance X Advanced E+ Elite MTB. I purchased the base model as i did not require much of the higher spec gear of the upper price range models.

Simple modifications have been made :-

Replaced MTB tyres with some tubeless running small knob Maxxis gravel tyres
Replaced the dropper post with a Canyon S14 suspension post that I had from a previous bike
Replaced the 36t chain ring with a Wolf Tooth 38t chain ring
Replaced the wide Giant Contact handlebar with a cut down carbon bar Ii had from a previous bike
Replaced the Giant grips with a cushy pair of cheap comfort grips
Replaced the Giant saddle with my all time favorite el cheapo Ali Express cushy saddle which I've used on 3 bikes before this one
Fitted some dual sided platform/SPD pedals from a previous bike
Fitted molded mud guards front and rear from a previous bike
Fitted brackets under the saddle and under/inside the fork steerer tube for daytime flasher lights
Fitted a 2nd bottle cage onto the seatpost facing forward (does not rub on my legs/knees)
Fitted a Topeak saddle bag and Topeak bar bag.

A very expensive bike for a base model at nearly $8.5k but pretty much the same price range I would gladly have paid for an electric drop bar gravel bike had a suitable option been available.

The result for me has been very pleasing. 2+ hours in the saddle not only is an armchair ride esp. with the seatpost that really can go to work being close to max extension out of the frame but the 5 levels of pedal assist mean I can ride with no assist and it still fells like a bike and is quite do-able for me on all but the long steeper gradients and I can quickly and easily dial up any of the 5 pedal assist settings which really take the sting out of it for me. ( Bonus :- custom adjustable motor settings via an app. mean you can have battery saving assist levels and power boost levels to suit)

Aside from a handlebar with more backsweep than the current bars with just 9 degrees of backsweep, this bike is ideal for me at my stage of life right now. I look forward to wearing out several sets of tyres on this one!

[warthog1]

Good to see.
Hope you get some good riding on that goer. Looks comfy as!

[Calvin27]

Nice bike. I've always thought that gravel ebike were a bit of a nonsense concept. With a motor and power, there is not much reason for a gravel ebike when you have hardtails or even a dually ebike.

[bychosis]

Wondering if you considered an e-hardtail and why you ultimately went with a dually then added a suspension seatpost?

Good to see you can get a bike to suit you getting out and about.

[open roader]

Wondering if you considered an e-hardtail and why you ultimately went with a dually then added a suspension seatpost?

Yes.

Once I gave up on finding a pedal assist dedicated gravel bike like the Topstone Neo / Niner RLT E9 RDO I began looking at hardtail eMTB's to make a backward build gravelly. I really didn't want the extra weight of a dual suspension bike if was not necessary.

Initially I started looking at 2nd hand bikes. Over a period of 3 months I found 3 hardtail eMTBs that were my size (size M - 80% of avail. bikes seemed to be size L or XL) and within a couple of hours drive from me.

One vendor refused me to a battery charge cycle status check via an app - so that was a trip saved. The other two vendors would not haggle the overly inflated price down for a cassette/chainring/chain replacement as both units were clapped out, slipping chain on small cassette cogs etc and both were frankly overpriced for the beating they had taken. These bikes had asking prices circa $4,800 and 6,500 and with no wiggle room and $200 -300 bucks required on either to get them running properly i figured a new purchase for a couple of grand more with warranty was a much better option.

I procrastinated whilst researching a lot of new hardtail MTBs prob 3 months twiddling my thumbs. I read up plenty on Bosch vs Yamaha vs Brose vs Shimano vs Specialized etc and the more models I looked at the more I realised I had way too many choices at around my $8000 price range - where to start, none of them grabbed me as something I wanted to sink $6,500+ into. Then I really just stumbled on the newly released Giant Trance X Advanced E+ Elite and figured a lighter weight dually with 85Nm but only 400Wh battery was sufficient to backward engineer a gravel bike for myself.

'Hermes' weighs in at 17.1kg without pedals, cages, bags and light fittings etc. This is lighter than both bikes I looked at. Of course the tyres are considerably lighter and the dropper post is gone replaced with a feather weight carbon seatpost. I'm a huge fan of the SL14 suspension seatpost - inserted at close to min insertion as per this frame the saddle shift over corrugations etc is clearly perceptible and frankly serves me much better than a dropper for the kind of riding I do with Hermes. The colour of the base model was also a colour that attracted me, Giant had one in Size M ready to ship so I purchased it online, picked it up at local Giant dealer and now the rest is ahead of me!

[open roader]

Nice bike. I've always thought that gravel ebike were a bit of a nonsense concept. With a motor and power, there is not much reason for a gravel ebike when you have hardtails or even a dually ebike.

The niceset ride on gravel I've had was with the Cannondale Topstone Carbon 2 I owned for a few years. That bike was not simply a road bike with wide clearances for gravel tyres. It was a great frameset and for a drop bar bike it felt as stable on loose, uneven surfaces as any MTB I've ridden before. I was hoping to find a Topstone Neo (either the lefty fork or the solid fork model) to get me further away from home and back but availability was a constantly unanswered question.

I can only guess the Topstone Neo rides as well as the non powered model but if it did I would have gladly paid the ridiculous retail asking price for one.

However, 'Hermes' fills the job description very well. It's not too heavy to pedal with the pedal assist off, it handles like a bike (the Giant Trance E+ that I test rode on actual gravel made me feel more like a passenger than a rider, (esp. downhill)

[warthog1]

There is a bloke who lives here with a Revolt e.
Older and slower than I so not particularly fast.
He was on the Mt Alex bunch ride a while back with 40c gravel tyres on.
Swapping off happily at 45kmh on the bunchie on the way back in.
One of the blokes here has derestricted it. Fairly impressive results from what I saw.

[bychosis]

A well thought out process with an end result of a bike to ride. Perfect.

[open roader]

There is a bloke who lives here with a Revolt e.
Older and slower than I so not particularly fast.
He was on the Mt Alex bunch ride a while back with 40c gravel tyres on.
Swapping off happily at 45kmh on the bunchie on the way back in.
One of the blokes here has derestricted it. Fairly impressive results from what I saw.

I plan to de-restrict Hermes to the tune of a 35km/hr cut off.

25km/hr limit for the type of riding I’m doing is very annoying as the sweet spot with the 40t chain ring is 28-32km per hour.
Unless I put a 42t on the cranks, anything faster than 35km is more cadence and frankly more speed than I care to carry.