We reported last week about the Aerobike X-Ride, a new £799 e-bike. And now we’ve got one to have a go on, thanks to the chaps at Aerobike who’ve dispatched us a review bike. It turned up today, so let’s have a look around it!

Under a grand is pretty cheap for an electric bike, so what you’re looking for is solid and dependable kit rather than anything flashy. The X-Ride uses a simple diamond-construction alloy frame – there’s a low-step version too – and a matching rigid alloy fork. The battery bolts to the down tube and the motor’s in the front hub.

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Aerobike X-Ride -16 (Image Credit: Farrelly Atkinson)

Tektro V-brakes front and rear haul you to a stop, and you get two gears courtesy of a two-speed SRAM Automatix hub. And really, that’s about it. There’s no display, just a simple on/off button on the battery. All the finishing kit – bars, stem, seatpost – is alloy, and there’s a decent saddle, rubber bar grips and basic caged pedals.

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Aerobike X-Ride -15 (Image Credit: Farrelly Atkinson)

If you’re going to save money on an e-bike then one of the easiest things to do is reduce the capacity of the battery. Batteries are expensive, and fitting a smaller one is a significant saving. That’s what Aerobike have done here: the battery is a 208Wh unit, and that’s small in the spectrum of e-bike batteries. It’s light, though, and that helps the bike to a very respectable 18.4kg all-in weight.

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Aerobike X-Ride -14 (Image Credit: Farrelly Atkinson)

The motor is a fairly beefy hub affair; hub motors have been getting more compact and that likely means that you can get a slightly older-spec one, which the motor on the X-Ride presumably is, for a bit less money.

SRAM’s Automatix featured on the £999 Momentum Electric Upstart we tested recently. It’s a simple two-speed hub gear that automatically changes from low to high ratio at a certain speed. There’s no controls to worry about and it generally does a pretty good job, although obviously it’s more limited in terms of range than a derailleur or multi-speed gear setup.

We’ll put the X-Ride through its paces over the next few weeks, and we’ll let you know what we think.