8 of the best 2021 new-generation hybrids — and why your next bike should be one of them

Orbea Car-Pe bought a few weeks ago.
   Gave away my metal bikes in second lockdown after I'd had massive heart attack with 3 resusitations on front garden paving in April-2020. Neither the first-generation with V-brakes Specialized Tricross nor my beloved red steel Langster were suitable for hilly south east London post heart attack.
   Kept looking for used bikes I could work on but nothing available that wouldn't cost over £200 on cables, housings, tyres, tubes, rimtape, cassette, bottom bracket, saddle, etc. No new bikes at bomb up and down Shooters Hill and lock to metal posts prices felt right for me.
   Popped into a new shop on industrial estate behind laminate flooring supplier that was why I was on the spot in North Wales when visiting family and just because can't pass a bike shop. Mumbled something about what I'd been looking for without expecting anything in a mountain bike region. Assistant suggested the above mentioned Orbea. Rode 5 metres on it and bang! Perfect!. £579.
   700C * 38mm wheels and tyres. 7-speed Tourney (single chainring, disk brakes) except for cranks. Later added Bontrager mudguards and Boardman flat pedals. Gearing perfect for around here (OK, my base strength and fitness is much higher than most people). Wheels with fat tyres ideal for our potholed roads and bridlepaths.
   Frame is stunning - taut, lively, probably not for a cycling newbie - wheel & tyre mix puts the saddle at tiptoe height off the ground. Could happily buy another with Shimano 105 hydraulic as gravel and fast tourer. Cheapest bike I've ridden in nearly 50 years and I love it! Brakes were too soft and Shimano manual says this is deliberate to prevent rub. Tightened them up, no rub, excellent responsive brakes. Whole package is best of everything I've tried including Boardman. Glad I waited instead of getting something that 'would do' 

Would make more sense to start afresh and leave all these old comments on the old article about old hybrids, and have this article as a new 2021 article about 2021 hybrid model bikes. After all that's what its about. Might also not appear to be a recyled piece.

Although I can see this was recently updated, it seems to follow a very narrow understanding of 'hybrid'. Not one of these bikes has a suspension fork. And why limit them all to a double-chainring when there are some exciting single setups?

Regularly travelling miles on towpaths -- think roots, compacted earth embedded with flint, grassy stretches, patches of gravel -- I consider good suspension a necessity, but a mountain bike simply over the top.

So, nothing here for me!

"Hybrids have been around since the 1980s...."

This article has been around since the 1980s (nearly), and most of the bikes referenced in the comments section are long gone from the original  (and updated) article. 

Are hybrid bikes not worthy of a  'fresh' acrticle at some point?

I've got a Pinncacle Lithium which is awesome.  I was thinking seriously about a gravel bike but, with some WTB Riddlers, the Lithium does the job just as well and for a fraction of the price.  The only other modification I've made is to add "inner" bar ends which are more comfortable for road riding.

I still have several other bikes, but the Lithium is a great all rounder and very easy to live with for day to day riding.

I am half thinking about swapping to a 1x set up but I suspect I'm overthinking it and I should just stick with the bog standard triple which gives me a huge range, albeit not quite enough at the top end.

I found V brakes to be incredibly easy to work on.   Cantilevers can be a proper nightmare, and require a lot more finesing and adjustment.  Some people are not that mechanically competent, and if they cannot even hook up their V brakes, think what happens when their disks go iffy.

And cheap disks will go wrong wrong very quickly.

Yes, discs especially hydro are good for hybrids. Whereas v-brakes are the absolute worst, as mentioned in the article. My kids were messing around with two neighbouring kids the other day, and those kids asked me to look at their bikes. Both bikes had one completely unhooked v-brake.

V-brakes only work well with frequent maintenance with the end result that on unloved bikes they very soon competely cease to work.

Hybrids!

Huh, yeah!

Good God y'all!

What are they good for?

Well, urban riding, mostly. Short commutes and carrying a bit of shopping, if you fit a rack.

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Hello. I like my moto!

All these hybrids still with double chainsets, what's that about. I'm not massively into the 1-x thing but a commuting hybrid is really the ideal vehicle for the simplicity of a single chainring drivetrain. As obliquely alluded to in the article, no-one can be bothered doing much maintenance on a bike for office/shops/pub so anything that keeps it simple is to be welcomed.

And still worse than 10 years ago for same money, latest crop are low specced fat bloaters, specialized have done the full carbon hybrid long before.

A Globe Pro 2007, rrp £799, 2kg lighter than the Cube SL and the Cannondale 'quick' which was given only 3.5 stars and weighed a ridiculous 23lb according to Steve Worland

The 2007 spec shames that of the so called hybrid 2.0 

Specialized A1 Premium Aluminium trekking design frame, fully manipulated tubing, FACT carbon seat stays w/ Zertz inserts, fender and rack braze-ons
Specialized FACT carbon fork, Zertz inserts
Specialized OS carbon XC rise bar
Shimano M-761 Deore XT rear derailleur

Shimano SL-780 XT
Specialized Globe rims, double wall w/ machine sidewalls and eyelets
Specialized Pavé seatpost, FACT carbon w/ Zertz inserts

Brakes Avid SD-7R

I had a Boardman Hybrid Comp for several years but had to replace the drivetrain twice because of wear. This wasn't the fault of the bike or the components, but a combination of a rather crappy commute and myself perhaps not being as attentive as I could be .

However, when I replaced the Boardman a couple of years back I got a Genesis Day One with an 8 speed Alfine hub which has proven far more suited to the rigours of my back-roads commute. Granted, getting the rear wheel out to fix a flat isn't straightforward, so I converted to tubeless last Autumn and now run Clement Strada USH's. So far so good.

When the time comes I would definitely look for another hub-geared commuter. Yes there's a weight penaly compared to rigs with derailleur gears, but in my experience the pro's (ease of use, less maintenance, lower running costs) far outweigh the cons.

I have a Specialized Crosstrail Elite for my short daily commute and it has been perfect for urban cycling.  As the article says, upright riding position gives superb visibility, flat bars give great comtrol, especially at low speed, good gear range to get moving quickly and keep up with the traffic, disc brakes stop me on a sixpence etc.

I'm fairly new to cycling (as an adult, anyway) and although I now have two other bikes (a Vitus Zenium and a Dawes Galaxy) there's something about the Spesh that just feels 'ride-able'.  It may be because I simply use it more often than the other two and am more familiar with it but a hybrid is a great 'go to' bike and I love its versatility.

Ha! I have a Specialise Globe with Nexus gears for communting and hauling around the kids (used to have one seat in front and another in the back). These days I just have a dutch seat for kids up to 32kg in the back. The bike weighs now 20 kgs. That is a real training bike at my commute every day!

With mudguards, full chain guard, big bag in front, 42 mm tyres and this 5kg seat in the back feels like a truck. On weekends I then feel like flying on my 10 kg Gravel bike...

Few months past I was confused when I started for my office. I saw some of my colleagues came to office riding bicycle. It looked like fashion. When I got a motivational mail from one of our colleagues, it became clear to me. It was a part of an exercise and a comfort journey to the nearby places.

I decided to buy a bicycle, but a question arose where could I buy my bike and what type it would be.

One of my colleagues suggested for hybrid bikes. I didn't have direct knowledge about bikes. Finally, I got a hybrid bike "Schwinn Discover Hybrid Bike" for me. At first, I was amused that I have a bike at all. But afterward, I was very much pleased riding the bike. It has SR Suntour suspension fork with spring system which always supports me from heavy stress.

Not only that it has Promax alloy linear pull brakes, a strong braking system that enables to stop the bike instantly.

So I'm so happy for the hybrid bikes.

I managed to kill my first set of brake pads (in 15 years of using disc brakes) just a couple of weekends back. It was sunny so I decided to do my post winter strip down on my mtb / commuter. I have always taken a somewhat cavalier attitude to the brake pads themselves, just throw them in the degreaser with everything else, wash them off in soapy water and refit. Occasionaly I have had to work them over with a scouring pad or a bit of rough wet and dry, same for the discs to remove any glazing.

This time however they refused to work properly and started to howl like Justin Bieber with his testicles in a vice and when I took them out the surface had glazed after only a few rides. I guess I must have really contaminated them in the dirty degreaser. But as they were pretty much worn out I replaced them with these cheapo Clarks pads from Amazon.

Clarks Organic Disc Brake Pads for Shimano Deore Br-M515/M475/M525/M465/M495, Tektro Auriga Comp./Dracom Moto Aquila/HDC-300/Mota 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B005PVLIJQ/ref=pe_1909131_77697001_tnp_email...

I figured at this price I could afford to give them a go and chuck them if they were no good.

Have to say that so far they bedded in very quickly, are utterly silent and they even came with their own retainer / spring which appears to be a little bit more powerful than the original at pushing them back from the disc.

I'm no expert, but my understanding was that brakes only howl when something in the system is able to resonate. Assuming that the problem is not a contaminated disc / pad interface, a bit of copper slip grease between the piston and the back of the disc pad is supposed to be very effective, though obviously use sparingly to prevent contamination of the braking surface.

Discs are perfect for urban commuting, I like to think that I can pretty much keep up with the flow of traffic, and as a result if all the other vehicles are able to stop on a dime, then I need to be able to do so as well, in all weathers.

Quote:

Disc brakes are the development that really ushered in hybrid 2.0. Since hybrids get used around town a lot, they need brakes that are affected as little as possible by the weather, and immune to the effects of a wheel getting dented or knocked out of true.

I'm beginning to suspect that for a lot of people, disc brakes are fundamentally UN-suited to town and commute use, especially when it's wet.

I've just spent £20 on one set of SRAM sintered pads to see if they offer any improvement on the stock pads that came with my mountainbike (a Trek Superfly, which converted into a fantastic long low and fast commuter incidentally). Currently the braking in the wet is screechy, howly and juddery. The mechanics in the local shop tried all the usual excuses (contaminated? nope. Glazed? nope. out of adjustment? nope) before shrugging their shoulders and admitting that 50% of their working day now seems to be devoted to trying to de-squeek disc brakes.

I think someone needs to develop a system that still works in cold, wet conditions with infrequent stops from slow speed, as I think most disc brakes still hark back to the downhill mountainbike days and are developed for scrubbing off lots of speed in short bursts.

Perhaps these new pads will prove me wrong, fingers crossed!