In the last few months, I've made tech videos about fancy touring bikes, belt
drive components, gearbox systems and all the incredible features you can find on
custom bikes. During this period, Tout Terrain released a bike called the Silkroad,
which incorporates many of the things I've recently discussed, plus some
never-seen-before features that will give us a good indication for where
touring bike design is going in the future. I contacted this German bike
company because I liked their forward-thinking,
I wanted to find out more information than was publicly available, and I wanted
to share with you the design considerations that go into a top-tier
bike because if you don't know bikes the Silkroad kind of just looks like a bike!
Okay, let's start with the frameset. Tout Terrain has specialized in steel bikes
for about 15 years. The biggest advantage of a steel touring bike in my mind is
that you can easily repair and modify the frames. Let's say you drop your bike
and a rock damages the top tube. That individual steel tube can be replaced by
an experienced frame builder. The steel tubes of this frame are manufactured
from raw materials in Taiwan and it's welded together there as well. This is
actually quite unusual as raw materials, tube processing, manufacturing and
painting often end up happening all over the world, resulting in a higher carbon
footprint for a bike. The Silkroad frames are some of the first to pass the
highest safety testing a bike can undergo, which is 180 kilograms. It helps
that the Silkroad uses oversized thick wall tubing to build a strong structure
that can resist the twisting forces between the front and rear luggage. I can
only think of a handful of brands with the equivalent tubing specification.
While steel normally has a different ride feel to say aluminium - when it comes
to super stiff touring bikes with a bunch of luggage attached, it's actually
pretty hard to discern between materials. There is heaps of storage space on the
frame for water bottles, folding locks or two bolt cargo cage bags.
One of the nicest features on the Silkroad is the steering limiter - to prevent
your cables from getting crushed - and the integrated steering lock. If your bike
falls over when it's parked, it's usually because the front wheel has moved. With
the push of a button, the steering can be locked in place on the Silkroad making
bike parking, mounting your panniers, and general bike maintenance a bit easier. A
steering lock is particularly important if you use a double-legged kickstand, as
any front wheel movement can easily tip the balance of the bike. That said, after
experimenting with many kickstand types over the years, I think a rear-mounted
model is the most stable across all surfaces. It's cool that this bike has
mounts for both kickstand options and I really like the small brace from the
kickstand to the rear brake mount. Up the back is an integrated stainless steel
rack. As racks are one of the most likely components to fail on a bike trip Tout
Terrain wanted to make something indestructible that has no bolts to work
themselves loose on rough dirt roads. New for 2021 is an extra rail system which
allows you to lower the center of mass of your luggage, resulting in better bike
handling. The rails are made from corrosion-resistant stainless steel and
have a sandblasted finish so that they don't scuff over time. This is the neat
bit though: Tout Terrain is producing their own heavy-duty pannier system in
partnership with Ortlieb. Usually you need to adjust the pannier hooks and anchors to
match the geometry of different racks, but this is not the case with the QL3
system. QL3 is no compromise as the bag and rack
have a perfect fit, making it more secure on rough roads and quicker and easier to
fit. It's worth noting that regular panniers can still fit on either the
built-in rack or the EX rails. The Silkroad is using 12mm thru-axles
front and rear to maximize stiffness, and ensure your wheels are
always perfectly aligned in the dropouts. The fork not only has all the mounts you
need for touring and backpacking, but it has the fancy SL Dynamo wiring built-in.
If you haven't seen this system, it essentially eliminates the need to
manually connect your dynamo cables to your hub. To send power to your system,
the side of the dynamo hub just needs to touch
the fork drop out. The power then runs up the inside of your fork leg, splitting
between the dynamo lights and USB charger. And the rear light cable is
fully guided through the top tube and rack, so it doesn't rattle inside the
frame. Tout Terrain has chosen a sealed oil bath, 14-speed Rohloff hub for this
build. This rear hub offers the same gear range as many derailleur drivetrains,
but instead of the components being exposed to mud, grit and water - they
operate entirely inside the rear wheel! Are they reliable? Absolutely. I've been
using Rohloff hubs for most of my journeys all over the world, and there is
actually a Rohloff hub owner who has documented more than 380,000km
on his! The drive efficiency of a Rohloff hub is as good as it gets for a sealed
gearbox system, but if you want the highest performance drivetrain, you can
still spec the bike with derailers, which work out to be about 2% more
efficient on average. But this assumes you fastidiously clean your chain and
apply an efficient chain lube. When the conditions are bad, I suspect a Rohloff
works out to be the most efficient drivetrain option. The chain isn't a
chain at all, this bike is driven by a belt. Belts are my personal preference
for touring as they require no lubrication and very little maintenance.
Usually, just some water and a toothbrush is enough to keep you going. I've tested
belts in the worst off-road conditions, and even still, I tour for about 30,000km
before needing to replace anything, whereas my chain drivetrains
usually don't reach 10,000km in the equivalent conditions. Despite what
you may have heard, hydraulic disc brakes are often very reliable. I've personally
been using XT brakes for the last decade, and have never experienced any leaks or
damaged cables on my trips. I don't do any maintenance on my brakes other than
a yearly refresh of the fluid and occasional pad changes. The Silkroad
uses post mount calipers as they will allow downhill mountain bike rotors
right up to 203mm, which is great news for heavier riders with
bigger loads. The stock rotors are perfect for most riders in most
conditions - it's 180mm on the front and 160mm on the rear.
This bike is using Schmidt lights and a matching dynamo hub. The Schmidt hubs are
undoubtedly the most reliable and efficient option that money can buy.
Failures are rare, and the level of drag you experience for the amount of power
generated is a class above the rest. The lights tapered beam shape is one of the
best for touring. It's very well layered to give an even overall brightness,
meaning the farthest away part of the beam is the brightest and the closest is
the dimmest. Additionally, the beam has been designed so that it will not dazzle
road users coming in the opposite direction. You'd think both of these
characteristics are commonplace on bikes, but most bike lights are really just
hand torches that connect to your handlebar.
This bike uses a Cinq Plug5 Plus USB charger, which integrates very neatly
into your steerer tube and is actually the most powerful charger at low speeds.
A small ratcheting door above your stem reveals the USB plug, where you can
connect a phone, GPS or GoPro. It's worth noting that a smartphone requires a
minimum speed of about 12KPH to create a good charge, but other
devices like a GPS will charge at about 7KPH. And when your
speed drops below the minimum for your device, for example when stopping at
traffic lights, a battery inside the steerer will provide backup power to
make sure you don't lose your charge. It will then fill itself back up again when
you're moving. Along with your racks, the rims and spokes are the most likely
components to fail on a loaded bike. Ideally, we want super stiff rims
because rims that flex a lot under load put additional strain on your spokes,
causing them to eventually break. The Ryde Andra rims may be heavy, but they are
the gold standard for stiffness, which allows people like me to ride bikes on
very rough terrain carrying huge amounts of gear with practically no spoke
failures. Rims often fail from cracks at the spoke holes - you just need to see
the cross-section of an Andra rim next to a typical rim to understand why they
rarely suffer this fate. On the Silk Road you can choose between 26" and 27.5"
I recommend 27.5" as some tyre manufacturers
have already dropped the 26" versions of their touring tires, and in
bigger cities you'll always find higher-quality 27.5" mountain bike
tires to keep you going. The maximum tyre size is limited to 2.1",
which is narrower than the 2.5" clearance offered by modern expedition
touring bikes. Wide slicks are a very fast-growing tyre category,
driven mostly by electric bike sales. I think this would have made the bike a
little bit more versatile but Tout Terrain offers other bike models with more tyre
clearance for off-road if that's what you want.
Elsewhere, the bike is fitted with Tout Terrain's
in-house Black Label components - that's the handlebar, stem seatpost, pedals and
grips. The saddle of choice is a Selle Royal model from the popular Scientia
range. This is a gel saddle with a shape that is derived from pressure
mapping the backsides of different riders. And it has extra flex built into
the rails to provide the smoothest possible ride.
Usually, a frameset of this calibre is simply not available to purchase by
itself, and forks with SL dropouts feature almost exclusively on custom
bikes. But if you want to spec your own Silkroad you can buy the frameset
alone for 1700 euros. Pricing for a complete Silkroad starts at 2900 euros
for a Shimano Deore 30 speed bike, and it jumps up to 3500 euros for the Shimano XT
version. It's 4400 euros for the base model Rohloff and belt drive bike, or
4200 euros if you like the idea of a 12-speed Pinion gearbox. The bike as you've
seen it today with all of the optional extras fitted will set you back 5500
euros. If you need help choosing a gear box for your Silkroad, you'll want to
watch this video here, and there's a chance I can collaborate with other
manufacturers to analyse their bikes design, so let me know what you think
would be an interesting watch and I'll see what I can tee up!