Electra Townie 7D

The Electra Townie 7D will appeal if you're looking for something a bit different for flattish cruising around town. At £375 you don't need a second mortgage to own one and it's good fun around town, but compromised climbing position and a tendency to ship its long chain mark it down a bit.

The frame

Firstly: don't buy this if you'll have to store it in a studio apartment, because it's huge. It's a good foot longer than a standard town bike and bulky with it. The idea of the Townie is to get an upright position with an efficient pedalling stroke, whilst still being able to put your feet flat on the floor when you're at a standstill. Electra call it Flat Foot Technology, and basically it equates to a clockwise rotation of the ride position, by 23. So, pedals move forward and up a bit in relation to the saddle, which is lower in relation to the ground. You get full leg extension when you're pedalling, and you can put your feet down at the lights.

The frame is based around this premise and fashioned from 6061 alloy, with a steel unicrown fork. It's a big old beast but not super-heavy, at 28lb. Cables are routed internally for clean lines and you get a half chain case for the extra-long chain. Mudguard and rack mounts are provided.

The components

It's not sexy, but Shimano's Tourney TX derailleur does the business at the rear, controlled by a Revo twist shifter. There's seven speeds, with a Megarange cassette with a massive 34T bailout sprocket next to the spokes, a big leap from 2nd but useful in a hilly crisis. You need to ease off on that shift! A galvanised KMC chain and 44T steel chainset make up the rest of the drivetrain. Stopping is handled by linear-pull brakes and you get a big elastomer-suspended saddle and wide risers with decent grips.

The ride

It's a bit odd at first, the Flat Foot position. It's somewhere in between normal city riding and recumbent. You're too far back to ever stand up on the pedals, so it's sitting down all the way which is fine for about five miles, when the big saddle starts to make its presence felt. But for ambling through town and lolloping along canal paths it's a lovely relaxed bike, slow on the turn but very comfortable and not over-heavy.

Point the bike uphill and it's not such good news. With standing up denied to you, the only option is to sit down and sweat it out. I found myself alternating between upright climbing (hunched over the front of the bike) and recumbent climbing (arms locked out leaning backwards), with the latter generally winning out as it felt a touch more efficient. Neither is that much fun though, and remember to get into the big sprocket early if you think you'll need it, because making that shift under load makes sounds you don't want to hear from your transmission.

Going back down the other side of a hill is fun though with the bike lovely and stable, although the steering is a bit vague when the scenery is rushing by. The V-style brakes were faultless throughout, stopping the considerable rotating weight of the double wall rims and 2" slick tyres without undue fuss.

This is a bike aimed at people who aren't going to do a huge amount of riding, and as such it's fairly low maintenance. But those same people are going to be cursing into their flat whites if they have to stop on nearly every cafe ride and put the chain back on, like I did. That long chain and single chainring means it's much too easy to drop the chain on bumpy surfaces. The bike needs a chain guide at the top of the chainring to keep things in place; since there's a chain case there already it shouldn't be hard to fit one.

Climbing position and chain-shipping niggles aside, this is a fun bike to cruise around on. If you live somewhere with flattish topography and good road surfaces, you shouldn't have any problems at all. Sadly at least one of those two is missing in most parts of the UK...

Verdict

Fun cruiser for easy riding on good surfaces, but struggles with the hills