Not a detailed test, but a brief first impression: In this series, we show you interesting new e-bikes of the season in a compact format.
With its BTWIN LD 920E, outdoor and sports equipment giant Decathlon offers an innovative e-bike that is comparatively inexpensive and also has a stylish design. At the heart of the electric urban bike is the Owuru motor-gearbox unit, which has not yet been found on any other bike. What makes it so special is that it combines a powerful mid-motor and a stepless and fully automatic gear shift in one housing. All you have to do is set the desired cadence and the drive will do the rest — manual gear changes are a thing of the past thanks to this automatic shifting system!
Our test ride showed that this also works as promised in real life. There is no gearshift on the cockpit of the bike and the handlebar, which is only 62 cm wide, looks very tidy: there is only one compact button for operating the drive system, a color display is integrated in the center of the stem and Decathlon has placed the headlight at the front.
The desired cadence can be adjusted in advance using the aforementioned button on the handlebars; the bike then saves the last set value for subsequent rides. During the ride, the electric drive always tries to adjust the gear ratio so that the defined cadence is maintained. Of course, this is only possible within the maximum bandwidth of the gearbox, which in this case is 265 percent — roughly equivalent to a 5-speed hub gear. This means that on particularly steep climbs or at high speeds, the automatic transmission reaches its limits and you either have to pedal harder and slower or faster. Then the pedal resistance of the drive and the weight of the bike, which is a good 26 kg, become more noticeable.
In the range in between, however, the drivetrain shows its advantages convincingly: here the bike rides very harmoniously and smoothly, and you quickly forget about the gear shifting itself. This is also due to the infinitely variable adjustment of the gear ratio, which eliminates the typical gear jumps. It is also an advantage at the numerous traffic light stops in the city, where the otherwise tiresome upshifting and downshifting is done automatically in the background. The level of assistance provided by the motor with its 65 Nm of torque can be adjusted using three modes (Eco, Standard, Boost), each of which is noticeably different from the other.
The noise level of the motor is also impressive with its quiet operation, often even drowned out by the running noise of the chain. With a belt drive instead of the classic bicycle chain, the bike would certainly be significantly quieter. But this would also be reflected in the price — and it’s a good one: at just € 2,499, the BTWIN LD 920E can be described as truly affordable, especially as the bike’s equipment is also very extensive.
A removable battery is located in the down tube, which offers a high capacity of around 700 Wh. The catch is that you have to remove the battery to charge it, as there is no charging socket on the bike itself. The lighting system with the aforementioned headlight at the front is complemented by a rear light in the mudguard, where there is also a pannier rack with a maximum load capacity of 27 kg.
At the front, on the other hand, the aluminum fork offers suspension with 30 mm travel. However, this only showed moderate performance in terms of responsiveness and Decathlon also wasted some potential with the tires, which were chosen rather narrow at 38 mm. Wider tires would certainly have provided more riding comfort and also harmonized better visually with the rather voluminous frame tubes.
One positive surprise, however, is not visible from the outside: the LD 920E even has a GPS transmitter and 4G/WLAN/Bluetooth, which allows the position of the bike to be located directly on the smartphone — and not just in the event of theft. The service is free for the first year and is then available for a fair €2 per month on a subscription basis.
In addition to the high-frame version presented here with a diamond frame and high top tube, the bike is also available as a low-frame with a comfort frame in a trapezoidal shape in a range of sizes from S to XL. The bikes can be ordered directly via the Decathlon website and then delivered conveniently to your home or free of charge to your nearest Decathlon store.
