Riese & Müller Delite5

Keep riding, even on the days your body says it has had enough. The Delite5 has suspension at both wheels, so the jolt from the road is taken out before it reaches you, and a Bosch drive unit that climbs the hill you had written off.

Three builds: touring on a chain, vario and rohloff on a belt. Sized to you, and serviced by us, at our Ivanhoe showroom seven days a week.

How far will it go? It is the question we get asked more than any other, and the answer is not one number. What decides the distance is the assist mode you ride in, your weight and the load, the hills and the surface, and Bosch publish a Range Assistant that takes every one of those and returns a figure for your ride.

Those things are:

• The assist mode. The biggest single lever on the list, and it is entirely yours.
• Your weight, plus the bicycle, plus whatever is on the rack.
• The hills. A climb draws hard and a long descent gives some of it back.
• The surface. Sealed road, crushed gravel and soft ground are three different answers.
• Wind, temperature, tyre pressure and how fast you like to go.
• Whether the 250 Wh range extender is on the bicycle or in the shed.

The battery is a Bosch PowerTube 800 Wh in the down tube, and it lifts out by hand to charge indoors. A Bosch PowerMore 250 Wh range extender rides in a cage on the seat tube if the rides you have in mind are longer again. Bring us the ride that is already in your head and we will put your weight, your hills and the assist mode you actually use into Bosch's own calculator at the counter.

The suspension is why people who have stopped enjoying the road come and look at this bicycle. A Fox AWL 34 air fork gives 120 mm of travel at the front and a Fox Float Rhythm shock inside the frame gives 110 mm at the rear, so the kerb, the join in the path and the corrugated gravel stop arriving at your wrists and your spine. The luggage carrier is sprung on the swing arm with you, so loaded panniers ride with you rather than bouncing behind you; the rack is rated to 27 kg. One reviewer put it in a line: "you'll feel less knee strain with a full suspension ebike."

Three builds, one frame:

• touring: a Shimano XT Linkglide 11-speed derailleur with a KMC X11 chain, a 46-tooth chainring and an 11-50 cassette. The gear lever everyone knows and the lightest of the three at 31.6 kg in M.
• vario: an Enviolo Utility V1 stepless hub with a twist-grip shifter on a Gates Carbon Drive CDX belt. No gear steps, and it changes ratio while you are stopped at the lights. No chain to oil, ever.
• rohloff: a Rohloff E-14 Speedhub 500/14 with electronic shifting on the same Gates belt. Fourteen sealed gears with the widest spread of the three, for mountains and long loaded weekends. About a kilogram lighter than the vario at 32.0 kg in M.

What wears out? On the vario and rohloff the belt does not need oil, does not rust and does not stretch; the belt and its sprockets are replaced together as a wear item in time and we put the interval in your logbook. An owner of the same Enviolo hub and belt on another Riese & Müller wrote after 19,000 km that he would "never go back to an e-bike with a chain and conventional gears after the totally trouble free experience." On the touring build the chain and cassette are ordinary wear parts. The Bosch drive unit is the same system on every bicycle we sell, so our own workshop diagnoses it here. The battery comes out and can be replaced on its own later. An owner of a Riese & Müller with the Rohloff hub and belt wrote: "Unless this thing actually ends me, my grandkids could get it."

Can you leave it locked up outside? Yes, and the lock is already on it. An ABUS Granit Xplus frame lock is built into the rear stay and its 130 cm ABUS chain comes in the box. Riese & Müller fit an RX Chip, and Bosch GPS tracking runs through the Bosch Flow app on Bosch's own terms. The Kiox display comes off in your pocket too.

What does it weigh? The touring build is 31.6 kg in M, 31.8 kg in L and 31.9 kg in XL. The rohloff is 32.0, 32.2 and 32.3 kg. The vario is 32.9, 33.1 and 33.2 kg. Riese & Müller measure with the battery in, without pedals, without the lock chain and with a pannier rack fitted, and they say so.

Maximum rider weight is 120 kg and the bicycle plus rider plus luggage is rated to 160 kg. The luggage rack takes 27 kg, panniers 2 x 7.5 kg, a handlebar bag or basket 5 kg and a front carrier 5 kg. A child seat is permitted on the carrier and a two-wheel trailer with a single attachment point; Riese & Müller add their own note and we carry it as written, please check national legislation.

Will it fit you? Sizes M, L and XL, with reach 40, 44 and 48 cm, stack 65.5, 67.5 and 69.5 cm and stand-over 84, 84 and 83.1 cm. The stem angle adjusts at handover and the X-Fusion Manic dropper post gives 125 mm of saddle travel, or 100 mm on the smallest frame, so both feet reach the road at the lights. The size is chosen with you standing over the bicycle at Ivanhoe.

Every configuration is open to you:

• Three sizes: M, L and XL.
• Two colours: amber, a bronze-gold, and stone grey, a matt charcoal.
• Three builds: touring, vario and rohloff.
• The options: Bosch eBike ABS with Magura MT C brakes, the Bosch PowerMore 250 Wh range extender, the X-Fusion Manic 125 dropper post, the Offroad kit with knobbly Schwalbe Johnny Watts 365 tyres and VP-538 pedals, a pannier rack in place of the co-sprung carrier, and Bosch's Performance Upgrade for the drive unit.
• Or specify it yourself. Any specification on the Riese & Müller site can be ordered from the factory. These bicycles are built to order, so tell us the combination you want and we will tell you what happens next.

Who fixes it in five years? We do, at 1075-1087 Heidelberg Road, Ivanhoe, seven days a week. The shop that sold it is the shop that services it, and we are your point of contact if something is wrong. You ring us, not Germany.

Riese & Müller is a German e-bike maker whose bicycles are designed in Germany and whose Delite5 frame is made in Portugal from 30 per cent recycled aluminium. Every bicycle is built to the order it was placed on. The specialist e-bike title CyclingElectric rated the Delite5 4.8 out of 5.

The best way to know is to ride it. An hour on the bicycle settles the hill, the seat height and the build. There is no pressure to buy on the day.