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Aug 25, 2023

Best electric gravel bikes in 2023: 9 gravel ebikes rated and reviewed

How to choose an electric gravel bike This competition is now closed

How to choose an electric gravel bike

This competition is now closed

By Paul Norman

Published: November 3, 2022 at 9:00 am

The best electric gravel bikes combine two of cycling's hottest trends. The mix of gravel riding with electric bikes gives you the off-road capability of the former and the extra power of the latter to up your gravel enjoyment while getting the benefits of riding an electric bike.

Like the best electric mountain bikes, electric gravel bikes make a lot of sense for climbing off-road, particularly if your gravel riding regularly takes you onto steep, sketchy surfaces.

Having a motor to help on the climbs makes them a lot easier to tackle, while, on the way back down, there's little downside to the extra weight of the motor and battery.

As with any electric bike, electric bike laws dictate an ebike motor's assistance will be limited to speeds below 15mph / 25kph in the UK, EU and Australia, and 20mph in the US.

For more advice on what to look for in an electric gravel bike, including the different types of motors available, our full buyer's guide is at the bottom of this article.

But if you’d rather stick to paved surfaces, check out our guide to the best electric road bikes.

Otherwise, here are the best electric gravel bikes, as reviewed by BikeRadar's expert testers.

You can also head to our pick of the best gravel bikes for our top-rated, non-assisted options, and our guide to the best women's road and gravel bikes. If you’re on a budget, we’ve got a round-up of the best cheap gravel bikes under £1,500.

An aluminium frame powered by the Mahle ebikemotion rear-hub motor system forms the basis for the GT Grade Amp.

The geometry is carried over from the non-powered GT Grade Carbon, so the Grade Amp feels responsive despite its 14.8kg weight, even when ridden with the motor off.

We really like the shape of the Grade's slightly flared bars, but they’re stiff, which in combination with a firm fork and the alloy frame, makes for a sapping ride over bumpy terrain.

The 42mm WTB Resolute gravel tyres help, though; they roll fast on the road, handle confidently on dry ground and cope okay in mud, making them good all-rounders.

Like the GT Grade Power Amp, the 3T Exploro RaceMax Boost features the Mahle ebikemotion rear-hub motor.

3T has even found room to fit the battery into the Exploro's frame without any mods to the pedal-powered bike, which means not only does it look smart, but the geometry is carried over, too.

The motor, in combination with the generously low gears (thanks to the 40t chainring and 11-42t cassette) and 12.5kg weight, makes even 20 per cent off-road gradients rideable.

The RaceMax Boost is kitted out with wide, aero 3T carbon wheels, with differential front and rear depths, and 35mm Pirelli Cinturato Gravel M tyres that roll fast on-road, but hang on well off-road, too.

This is an expensive option, though, and the forward-facing charging port on the bottom bracket is prone to collecting dirt.

The Cairn BRAVe is an electric gravel bike that borders on electric mountain bike territory, thanks to its powerful Shimano Steps E7000 mid-mounted motor and massive 2.35in tyres.

Whereas Cairn's E-Adventure uses the subtler Fazua motor, the Shimano motor here jacks things up, with up to 70Nm of torque.

It's a genre-defying bike – and while the weight and chunky tyres may hold you back on the road, if you want a drop-bar bike for seriously rugged off-road riding, the Cairn BRAVe fits the mould.

This latest iteration of the Cairn E-Adventure, updated from the original 2018 bike, gets shortened seatstays and a sloping top tube to make it easier to manoeuvre on tight or technical trails.

The E-Adventure is powered by a Fazua motor, with a top-tube controller instead of a bar-mounted unit.

With Cairn coming from the same stable as Hunt wheels, there's naturally a good set of hoops for the job. We’d have preferred grippier tyres, though, because the Vittoria Terreno Dry tyres are inadequate when things aren't, well, dry.

There's a version of the Cairn with 650b wheels and a dropper post if you’re after more off-road grunt.

With 30mm of suspension front and rear, thanks to its single-leg Lefty Oliver fork and Kingpin rear linkage, the Topstone Neo offers bags of comfort when you hit the rough stuff.

It has serious grunt too, with an 85Nm Bosch motor paired to a 500Wh battery, which should get you up anything you might encounter.

There's top-drawer kit on the bike as well, with a SRAM eTap AXS electronic groupset in a mullet configuration, combining SRAM Force road components and SRAM Eagle mountain bike parts.

That gives a massive range of gearing, thanks to the 42-tooth road chainring and 10-50t MTB cassette.

It's an expensive proposition though, and given the Topstone's full-suspension intentions, it wouldn't be a stretch to expect a dropper post and better handlebars at this price.

The Topstone Neo has now been joined by the Topstone Neo SL, with a lower-powered Mahle ebikemotion motor, alloy frame and cheaper price.

The Canyon Grail:ON CF 7 is brilliant fun to ride on technical terrain. Its 50mm-wide Schwalbe G-One Bite tyres are grippy and fast. The compliance from the VCLS seatpost boosts the comfort the tyres provide.

In addition, the Bosch motor is potent enough to help you up sheer, gravel-strewn inclines at higher levels of assistance, such as its Turbo mode. In more economical modes, the 500Wh PowerTube battery managed 140 off-road kilometres in testing.

However, the double-decker Hover bar is difficult to fit bags, bike computers and bike lights to.

Despite the similar name, the Giant Revolt E+ is not quite an electrified version of our 2022 Bike of the Year winner, the Giant Revolt Advanced Pro 0.

Geometry is slacker and longer, but remains relatively racy, which keeps the Revolt E+'s handling agile. Cushioning from seatpost, saddle and handlebars makes the Revolt E+ comfortable on bumpy stuff.

The Shimano EP8 mountain bike motor delivers a massive 85Nm of torque and compensates for the bike's bulk, propelling you up vertiginous slopes regardless of the surface.

Range is also impressive for a bike of this weight. Our tester eked out nearly 120km and 2,000m of elevation.

Okay, so it's not technically a gravel bike, rather an electric road bike, but the Trek Domane LT+ has the space for 38mm-wide rubber, so there's the potential to kit it out to head off-road, although you’ll want to swap out the 32mm tyres fitted, as we found out.

The front and rear IsoSpeed system makes for a comfortable ride over lighter gravel. The Fazua motor system means the bike has shed weight from the original electrified Domane too and is removable, so you can also ride the bike unassisted.

With a road-going 50/34t chainset and 11-34t cassette, you don't have the great range of an all-in gravel bike, but that's where the motor comes in to help you out, while Shimano Ultegra Di2 gives you consistent shifting in tricky conditions.

The E-Substance is built to ride fast whatever the terrain, with the same snappy handling as its pedal-powered sibling and 47mm tyres on 650b wheels.

Since it uses the mid-mounted Fazua motor system, you can swap out easily to run a standard 700c gravel wheelset as well. There's a big range of gears to tackle a wide variety of terrain.

Other finishing kit is well specced and the E-Substance handles a good mix of off-road conditions well, without being overpowered by the assistance. However, as you’d expect, the wide tyres and 650b wheels do roll a bit more slowly than 700c wheels and tyres on the road.

The following bikes scored fewer than four out of five stars in our testing, but are still worth considering.

Another bike that isn't a gravel bike, but we’ve included it here because the Bianchi Impulso E-Allroad TRK has plenty of multi-terrain potential.

In this build, the Impulso is designed as an electric hybrid bike for cycling to work, but the E-Allroad chassis at its heart is designed with gravel riding in mind.

The bike has a slightly more upright riding position than the drop-bar gravel version, thanks to a tweaked cockpit design, while spec choices include SKS full-length mudguards, a rear rack and rear Lezyne lights powered by the Mahle X35 hub-based motor.

Should you wish to venture onto light off-road terrain, such as the towpath pictured above, there are Kenda Flintridge Sport 35c tyres.

We rated the Kinesis Range's handling and comfortable ride position, although the rear is a little firm on rough terrain.

It's well equipped, but we would have preferred wider wheel rims and more compliant tyres with less squirm when we dropped the pressure.

The Range is another electric gravel bike powered along by the popular Fazua Evation motor. It's a bit on the heavy side at 16.8kg though, so we had to run the motor on its highest output, which ate through the battery and limited range.

Almost all electric gravel bikes are powered by either a rear-hub motor design or a ‘mid-drive’ motor.

The rear-hub motor systems tend to be the lighter option in terms of both the weight and the assistance they offer, making them a great option for road-based sports bikes. Rear hub motors are also often used on the best electric hybrid bikes and some electric folding bikes.

The mid-drive system positions the motor unit in the bottom-bracket area, and it's connected directly to the cranks.

Having the weight of the electric bike motor lower and more centrally located in the bike delivers better handling, and provides greater torque and smoother traction – all useful off-road.

With that in mind, gravel bike motors tend to come in one of two flavours.

On the one hand, like electric road bikes, you’ll find smaller, low-profile units from brands such as Mahle ebikemotion (rear-hub) and Fazua (mid-mounted).

Although they put out 250 watts, they have quite low torque figures of 40Nm and 60Nm respectively. That results in a subtler, more progressive level of assistance, though they may lack a little grunt for tougher off-road endeavours.

Other electric gravel bikes come with a higher torque figure – up to 90Nm – and use units from the likes of Bosch, which you’ll also often see on electric mountain bikes.

That really helps you crest steep, technical inclines, particularly if you’re loaded up for bikepacking, but the motor will be larger, heavier and more intrusive, and it will be a lot more obvious that you’re riding an electric bike.

Which type of setup works for you will depend on where you’re riding, what you’re carrying and how much help you want.

Lower speeds, and more ups and downs, are likely to drain your battery more quickly on an electric gravel bike, compared to an electric road bike, so plenty of battery capacity is a must.

Whereas road ebikes favour lower weight over all-out range, the opposite is likely to be true for a gravel ebike.

As a result, on electric gravel bikes with more powerful motors you’re likely to see beefier batteries with capacities nearer to 500Wh, rather than the 250Wh or so of a road ebike.

For many riders, that might be overkill. So, as with their motors, other gravel ebikes will come with a smaller in-built battery and may have the option to add an external range-extender battery. This sits on the frame, often in a bottle cage, and may almost double the available range.

For most electric gravel bikes, it's an optional accessory though. Also, it won't be a cheap upgrade and it will block up one of your bottle cages, so load-carrying capacity is reduced.

Electric bike motors offer a range of modes, with power output to match – from ‘eco’ for maximum mileage to ‘turbo’ for ultimate power and torque.

Most ebikes have controls on the handlebar or top tube, and some have LCD screens, which makes it easier to switch between modes, monitor battery life and see your speed and mileage. You’ll up your range if you switch to lower-output modes on flatter terrain, saving the highest outputs for steeper climbs, so easy access to the controller is useful and a bar-mounted switch is a better bet here.

If you want to ride an electric bike for fitness, you will get more of a workout in lower-powered modes while also extending range.

Some systems also now offer Bluetooth connectivity and phone apps to track your heart rate and other data, so think about getting a quality bike phone mount to make the most of the data.

Having a well-built set of gravel bike wheels and grippy gravel bike tyres with plenty of volume is vital on an electric gravel bike, given the rough terrain a bike like this is designed for, along with the torque produced by the motor.

With the extra weight of the motor and battery, you’ll be adding several kilos to the bike's weight, so you need the tyre grip for handling and the wheel strength to deal with the extra torque coming from the motor.

As with any gravel bike, the frame clearance for wide tyres (with additional mud clearance) will be important.

Be prepared to swap out tyres for something more aggressive if the going is particularly bad, or for a lighter tread if you’re doing more road riding and taking on lighter trails.

While most gravel bikes have 700c wheels, smaller-diameter 650b wheels are an option if you want to increase your tyre volume.

That can help add grip and smooth out the terrain, which can be particularly useful with the extra weight and power of an ebike.

As with all gravel bikes, tubeless tyres have huge benefits too, helping to stave off punctures and allowing you to run lower tyre pressures for improved off-road grip and comfort.

If you’re riding off-road, you need the all-terrain features that have made gravel bikes so popular. That starts with low enough gearing to deal with steeper climbs.

Most non-assisted bikes now have drivetrains that go below 1:1 in terms of gravel bike gearing, with a super-compact 48/32t (or similar) crankset paired with a wide-ranging cassette.

A 1x drivetrain is also a popular option, keeping things simple by using a single chainring (with no front derailleur) and, once again, a wide-ranging cassette to provide a big spread of gears suitable for a variety of terrain.

Even if you’ve got a motor to help, you’ll want plenty of low-gear options. Most motors work better if you’re climbing seated than if you’re riding out of the saddle too, because your power delivery is smoother and it's easier for the electronics to match. You may find the power delivery from the motor is jerky if you’re standing to climb.

Single-ring drivetrains are very popular on gravel bikes, for their simplicity and lower weight, paired with ample range. It's something you’re likely to find on many electric gravel bikes too.

On higher-spec bikes, you may get electronic shifting, either from SRAM's 12-speed eTap AXS or from Shimano GRX 815 Di2. Their slick gear changes work well with a motorised system and you’re less likely to experience a mis-shift than with cable-operated derailleurs. They also usually require less maintenance than a cable operated groupset.

A mullet build with a SRAM eTap AXS Eagle rear derailleur borrowed from its MTB range will come with a really wide-range cassette, while the SRAM Force eTap AXS Wide option is designed to give space for wider tyre clearance up front, while still giving the option to run a double chainset. You can read more on gravel bike setup in our in-depth guide.

As with any gravel bike, the versatility to take on a range of adventures will be important.

Expect to see features such as rack and mudguard mounting points, and bolts to fit a top-tube bag.

Mounts for a third bottle cage under the down tube are also the norm. They’ll be particularly important if you decide you need a range-extender battery, because you’ll lose one of the two in-frame mounts.

Paul has been writing about bike tech and reviewing all things cycling for almost a decade. He had a five-year stint at Cycling Weekly and has also written for titles including CyclingNews, Cyclist and BikePerfect, as well as being a regular contributor to BikeRadar. Tech-wise, he's covered everything from rim width to the latest cycling computers. He reviewed some of the first electric bikes for Cycling Weekly and has covered their development into the sophisticated machines they are today, on the way becoming an expert on all things electric. Paul was into gravel before it was even invented, riding a cyclocross bike across the South Downs and along muddy paths through the Chilterns. He dabbled in cross-country mountain biking too. He's most proud of having covered the length of the South Downs Way on a crosser and fulfilling his long-time ambition to climb Monte Grappa on a road bike

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