Appropriately enough, the Giant Anytour E+ 3 has some big things to offer, with a thick single tube and fairly wide tyres. It’s got a big range too, but is at heart a city bike, with some nice high-tech additions such as phone charging and a screen with sat-nav to further improve the quality of life of its riders.
It’s also almost 30kg. That’s quite a lot when you’re hoisting it into a car, or even flipping it upside down to fix a puncture, and compared with urban runarounds like the 20kg of the Honbike Uni 4 or the svelte 18.1kg of the carbon-fibre Engwe Mapfour N1 Air it feels like a lot – though it’s not as heavy as the mid-motor Tenways AGO T with which it perhaps has more in common.
You’ll perhaps notice it most when you’re pushing it. The lack of a crossbar on the AnyTour’s universal frame means you won’t be pressing your hip against it as you struggle up an unexpectedly steep hill (though that’s not really the point of e-bikes, and while the Crosstour is hardly a hill-climbing specialist, its motor has the guts to get you up most city slopes).
Instead, a single, thick, sturdy metal tube contains the 625Wh battery and surprisingly large charging port. No mere barrel connector here – the AnyTour comes equipped with a five-pin charging port that’s halfway between a microphone’s XLR socket and CCS Combo Type 2 EV charger. It’s in a convenient place too, high up near the handlebars, so you don’t need to bend down too far.
This is not a complaint: the charger is easy to attach, and slides home with a reassuring clunk. Giant’s smart charging brick comes with a simple figure-of-eight power lead, and the battery is removable too, with a key to prevent theft – though the plastic cover that snaps into place above it never looks quite like it’s home properly, as the edges overhang and deny you the satisfaction of a perfect fit.
This is a complaint: the front axle is very tricky to remove despite the quick release catch that suggests things should be simple. It took three people to do it in the end – one of them of considerably less use than the others. It turns out you have to press the retractable collar of the thru-axle shaft in while you’re pulling it out, which we couldn’t achieve without the aid of a tool. Pressing the centre of the pin does nothing, despite being much easier to do.
(Update: It turns out removal can be achieved without a tool. If you push the adjuster on the non-drive side and rotate it slightly, it will lock in place – not too intuitive, but straightforward enough once you know how.)
Once you’ve worked it out – and made a note to carry a screwdriver or something with you wherever you go – it turns out to be a good decision. If you have to take the wheel off for any reason – say to put the bike in the back of a car (it has no crossbar so doesn’t play well with all carrier racks) or fix a flat – it really does go back on very easily. The wheel itself lines up with the disc brake calipers then slots into the fork, which supports it enough (with the frame upside down) that you don’t need to hold it while you fiddle with the axle. Remembering which side it went in is the hardest part, as once you get it in place it slides straight through, and the quick release catch means you can attach it again easily enough and saves your fingers from getting greasy.
Accidentally pop out the wedge that holds the seat post in place, however, and you will get messy. It’s one of those that tightens with an allen key. The seat post itself is a dropper operated by a lever on the handlebars that looks like it might be a bell and which is the only remotely clunky thing about the bike.
The bike is well engineered, and while it has something of the air of a rental bike about it, it’s much, much nicer than something you’d find abandoned in the middle of the pavement. Its cables are routed through the headset, and the integrated lights look like they belong there rather than being an afterthought.
There’s suspension on the front fork, which can be turned off if you’re worried about losing energy. This irons out the bumps if you take it somewhere away from the smooth tarmac – which is no issue for the AnyTour, despite looking rather like a city bike. The Royal Gel saddle (not made by bees, but which still treats you like a queen) offers a comfortable place to perch.
The range, thanks to that big battery, is enormous, with Giant predicting an absurd-sounding 130 miles from a single charge under what it calls ‘ideal’ conditions, which we can only assume means a flat Earth populated by cloud people. Still, the ‘extreme’ projection of 43 miles doesn’t sound too bad either. We got more than that out of it, which only made us vow to be more extreme in future.
And then there’s the motor. It’s a mid-mounted Giant SyncDrive Core with a carbon belt drive, offering 50Nm of torque and subject to the usual UK legal requirements, with Smart Assist mode to telepathically (or using the six sensors buried near the pedals) determine how much help you need, and provide it. It’s at home on the flats and gentle rises you’ll find in cities and parks, and while it will send you up a steeper hill it can feel like its heart isn’t really in it.
The handlebar controller allows you to move between five levels of power, and there’s a handy USB-C port on it too. This offers 10W of charging for your phone, which can connect wirelessly to the bike through Giant’s RideControl app. Within that you can customise things like the launch setting, which can provide quite a powerful send-off that’s perfect for hill starts but which might catch you by surprise anywhere else.
The screen, which is neatly integrated into the centre of the handlebars, offers on-board navigation, so you might not even need your phone if you’re going a long way. There’s probably a reason smartphones have settled on screens around six inches across the diagonal, however, and the display here is a little small for sat-nav, bringing back memories of the first generation of car-mounted devices, though this has better software.
As mentioned earlier, the Giant AnyTour E+ 3 moves in similar circles to the recently-reviewed Tenways AGO T (£2,699). Other belt-drive, mid-motor step-throughs you could look at include the Mako Shark (£2,600), the Gazelle Grenoble C5 (£3,569) and the Moustache Lundi 27 (£3,999).
From the Shimano disc brakes to the Selle Royal saddle there’s no denying that the AnyTour E+ 3 is a class act. Of course you will pay for this, and a small second-hand car isn’t out of the question for the amount of money you’ll part with to ride an e-bike so sturdy and refined. A gently used Fiat or Renault won’t give the same sense of satisfaction as riding an e-bike does, however, so we’d take the AnyTour anytime.
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