Marathon bikes around 4000 euros: 12 endurance road bikes on test

Do you enjoy riding 200 kilometres or more at a stretch? Or do you prefer leisurely, short after-work laps? Or are you flirting with the idea of taking up road cycling and dreaming of your first Alpine pass? In any case, you should read this test. Because the bikes we are comparing here are aimed at all of these scenarios.

So-called endurance or marathon bikes are built with the aim of being reliable and comfortable even on extremely long tours. What is comfortable for long distances also suits leisure cyclists and beginners. This is why endurance bikes are considered the ideal vehicle for making the fascination of cycling accessible to less trained and less experienced amateur athletes.

Endurance racing bikes are the first choice for an uncomplicated and relatively inexpensive introduction to road cycling.

What characterises marathon bikes?

A more comfortable riding position, slightly wider tyres, smaller gear ratios and less complicated technology are the main differences to the more prominent, but in many respects more demanding racing bikes of professional cyclists. These details, tailored to the needs of leisure cyclists, made this type of bike increasingly popular from the early 2000s. Although some models had a somewhat staid image, they established themselves as the first choice for an uncomplicated and relatively inexpensive introduction to road cycling. However, the comfortably tuned road racers have recently fallen somewhat out of favour.

In just a few years, they have been overtaken by gravel bikes in terms of sales figures. As a result, many manufacturers now hardly offer any affordable road racing bikes and are concentrating their range on versatile gravel bikes. There is no longer any tailwind for this type of bike from professional cycling either: races such as Paris-Roubaix, which for a long time were a test laboratory and showcase for comfortable endurance racers, are now often contested by aero bikes, which are also ridden in all other races because they have become more comfortable in the course of further development and allow sufficiently wide tyres even for rough tracks.

View of the centre

However, this does not mean that the further development of long-distance specialists has come to a standstill, as "sensible" road racers are still popular in the medium price range, as shown by the latest TOUR reader survey, for example: 40 per cent of respondents would next buy a marathon road bike, which is significantly more than those interested in racing or gravel bikes.

Manufacturers are therefore working with undiminished ambition to reorient the endurance category. However, just like the very inexpensive ones, even the more luxuriously equipped variants have become rare, but the range between 3000 and 5000 euros is all the greater. The marathon road bike also benefits from the technical development of other road bike categories, as our current test shows. We have included bikes that cost around 4000 euros, which corresponds to the plans of the vast majority of readers who want to invest in a bike with electronic shifting in the near future.

The test field

Twelve manufacturers accepted our invitation, including global pacesetters such as Giant, Merida and Scottthe large German postage stamps Canyon and Rose and the specialised trade brand Cubewhich have recently attracted attention time and again with their spectacular price-performance ratio. In this price range, you will find the cheapest electric ensembles from Shimano (105 Di2) and Sram (Rival AXS), and in rare cases a higher-quality counterpart. Modern carbon frames are standard, lightweight carbon rims are not yet, but are possible with good offers.

Even at first glance, it is clear how attractive the offers in this price range are. There seems to be little correlation between price and equipment level, and this also applies to the weight of the bikes. Once again, Cube stands out, because with the Sram Force and lightweight carbon rims, the Cube Agree C:62 SLX well above average and, at less than 7.5 kilos, by far the lightest bike in the test. For comparison: the Focus Paralane 8.8 with Sram Rival, aluminium rims and cheap tyres weighs a good 1.5 kilograms more and is 300 euros more expensive.

If you can cope with the atypically sporty orientation of the Cube - more on this later - you really have to go for it. Also attractive are the Veto B983 as the only Ultegra wheel in the test and the Rose Reveal due to the favourable price. A central advertising promise for marathon bikes is a high level of riding comfort, which is not only achieved with wide tyres, but also with suspension frames, forks and seat posts.

On our comfort test bench, we can test the Canyon Endurace CF SLX 7 Di2 The competition is still nowhere near the level of the leaf spring support, even more than ten years after its introduction. The majority of the candidates offer acceptable suspension, but the Cervélo Caledonia 105 Di2that Stevens Izoard Pro and the Veto B983 accept.

Our marathon bikes set new trends

A test field with such prominent brands naturally also reveals new trends. One of them does not stop at this category either, namely the trend towards ever wider tyres. The overwhelming consensus among manufacturers is that the typical tyre width for long-distance riding will be 30 to 32 millimetres in the future. Most models even have room for 35 mm tyres. This makes the bikes somewhat heavier, but also more robust and comfortable and extends the range of use to unpaved roads.

As 28 millimetre wide tyres are now standard on competition bikes, the marathon bikes are once again setting themselves apart and pushing into the small niche of so-called all-road bikes. Exceptions are Cube - the decidedly sporty reinterpretation of the Agree rolls on 28-millimetre tyres - as well as Storck and Stevens, whose frames were developed several years ago.

Giant and Koga go even further. The Koga Roqa allows 42 millimetre wide knobbly tyres, while the Giant allows 38 mm tyres - if this is fully utilised, they can compete with gravel bikes. When it comes to geometry, most manufacturers rely on the tried and tested; the riding position on a typical marathon racing bike is certainly sporty, but significantly less aggressive than classic race geometries. The fact that there are exceptions and extremes is a good thing, as the riding position and behaviour are ultimately a question of body size and individual preferences. If you are looking for an emphatically upright position, you should take a look at Canyon, Merida and Rose.

More variety and exciting experiments

The comfortable models generally also impress with good directional stability. Cube, Storck and Veto are very sporty, comparable to competition racers. They also tend to steer a little more nervously. The integration of components, which has characterised the development of competition bikes in recent years, is also increasing in this category, even if this is not always conducive to easy handling. With the exception of Cervélo and Storck, the cables run in or along the handlebars and stem into the head tube. This looks modern, but usually causes problems when adjusting the position.

Cube and Storck come with one-piece carbon cockpits that are reminiscent of top racing bikes, but are extremely expensive to replace. For many prospective customers, mounting eyelets for bags or fixed mudguards are likely to make more sense. At least half of the test bikes have the latter.

The fact that a once firmly established bike category has to reinvent itself to a certain extent also has good sides: More variety and exciting experiments enrich the genre. There is likely to be a suitable concept for almost every requirement - sooner or later. Detailed test results can be found in the overview; we have summarised the characters, strengths and weaknesses of the individual candidates in the test letters linked below.

The individual ratings of the marathon bikes at a glance

At a glance: The sub-scores from 4.0 are in red, so you can see which bikes are out of the question for you due to weaker individual scores.

* LL = for life, CR = crash replacement, RA = racing exclusion

All 12 marathon bikes in the comparison test

• Canyon Endurace CF SLX 7 Di2
• Cervélo Caledonia 105 Di2
• Cube Agree C:62 SLX >> available here
• Focus Paralane 8.8 >> available here
• Giant Defy Advanced 0 >> available here
• Koga Roqa Premium >> available here
• Merida Scultura Endurance Rival Edition
• Rose Reveal 04 105 Di2 >> available here
• Scott Addict 30 >> available here
• Stevens Izoard Pro
• Storck Fascenario.3 Comp
• Veto B983

>> We have compiled all the information about our test here.