The Raleigh Modum is billed as a compact e-bike – but with a powerful Bosch Performance Line mid-motor driving things, this is a peculiarly burly brand of compactness. From striking looks to low maintenance hub gears, there’s much to admire here – although possibly not everyone will feel its combination of features adds up to an entirely coherent package.

The Modum frame probably only qualifies as mid-step with that small chunk of crossbar – but bear in mind that with the bike only having 20in wheels, it’s still actually pretty low.

Raleigh may lose a few people with the look, but I rather like it myself – including the colour options, which benefit from refreshingly-perfunctory naming. (You can choose either ‘blue’ or ‘green’.)

And in terms of options, that’s pretty much your lot. The Modum comes in one spec and one frame size, which is said to be suitable for anyone from 5ft 2in (1.57m) to 6ft 2in (1.88m). I’m pretty near the top of that range and didn’t feel it was at all undersized. My colleague Rebecca is much nearer the lower end, but she too said it fit her fine.
 

The bike

Raleigh Modum, by Alex Bowden

Raleigh says the Modum is, “built to take on the city – from narrow streets and sharp corners to hopping on and off buses.”

That makes it sound more like a lightweight folder, but at 26.5kg, I’m not sure you’ll be ‘hopping’ on and off public transport exactly. It’s a funny thing to say about someting billed as a compact, but this is really quite a sizeable bike.

One concession to that comes in the form of the Speedlifter Twist handlebar, which allows you to easily rotate the bars independently to the wheel. If you’re blessed with ample storage space, this may seem a trivial detail, but the efficiently narrow package you end up with will appeal to everyone else.

The handlebar can only be twisted when a long safety switch is pulled upwards and this is secured through a hole in the quick release lever when that is closed. The safety switch and hole didn’t align when I first received the bike meaning I couldn’t close the quick release to secure the handlebars.

I naturally assumed some braindead oversight on my part, but a bike mechanic was similarly defeated. After some toing and froing, Raleigh concluded something somewhere must have got bent and sent me a replacement bike.

Beyond the handlebars, other practical features include lights, decently-long and decently-solid mudguards, a 150mm travel dropper post and an MIK-compatible rear rack.

I’d like to have seen some kind of front rack as standard on a utility-focused bike such as this, but there’s a removable front plate where you can fit one.

The rear rack is rated to carry up to 27kg, which is useful without being remarkable. It feels good and solid, but it would be remiss of me not to point out that you’ll find any number of other e-bikes with similarly rated racks, so it isn't a USP.
 

The ride

As mentioned above, where many city e-bikes are powered by lightweight hub motors, Raleigh have seen fit to give the Modum the Bosch Performance Line mid-motor.

There are pros and cons to this. While a relatively sizeable mid-motor means the bike’s a little heftier, it does mean you’re unlikely to be defeated by any hills.

Because make no mistake, the Performance Line is a great motor. While the brand’s Active Line can at times feel a little insipid, unless you’re doing serious off-road riding (which you won’t be) or hauling a great load of cargo (which you also won’t be) then the Performance Line will realistically provide all the grunt you’ll need.

It’s a smooth motor, decently quiet and offers up to 65Nm of torque. Plus it’s from one of the best-known and best-supported manufacturers, which provides reassurance in itself.

Here it’s teamed with a reasonably sized but not colossal 500Wh battery and sits as part of Bosch’s networked Smart System, which will keep all your components up to date, as well as providing access to new software functionality via the eBike Flow app.

Amongst other things, that app will allow you to select which four motor assistance options you want to have available to you when you’re riding. If that sounds like an unnecessary faff, rest assured you’ll get along just fine with the standard Eco, Tour, Sport and Turbo selection (although even non-faffers might be tempted to replace one of those with Auto).

The Kiox display is clear and as informative as you choose to make it with no shortage of different options on offer for the data-hungry. Alternatively, you can pare it all back to whatever you deem the essentials to be, if you find the multitude of screens overkill.

The other significant element that shapes the riding experience is the Shimano Nexus 5-speed hub gearing.

The last Raleigh I tested, the Centros, had Nexus 8-speed hub gears and while 5-speed sounds like a step down, I’d argue it’s actually the opposite.

The Centros didn’t shift at all well under load. However, the 5-speed system was designed specifically for use with e-bikes and I found it worked way more reliably. Even while riding uphill and putting force through the pedals, it clicked up and down quite merrily.

The gearing did bring one major niggle though – for me, at least. It is the nature of e-bikes that you’ll most likely spend an awful lot of your time riding very close to the 15.5mph (25km/h) assistance limit, simply because the motor helps you up to that speed but not beyond. This speed was almost exactly between two gears in terms of how fast I would naturally want to pedal, which meant I constantly had to choose slightly too large a gear or slightly too small.

Cadence is an entirely personal thing, but this can happen with only five gears. I’d advise you to seek a test ride because if the same thing applies to you, it’s not something that can easily be overcome.
 

Value

At £3,399, the Raleigh Modum seems just a touch steep to me. It has quite a lot in common with the Cube Compact Hybrid, for example, versions of which start from £2,299.

Similarly, if you wanted a bit more cargo capability, you could get a Tern Quick Haul for this sort of money (less actually - £3,100). The Quick Haul comes with a rear rack rated for up to 50kg and you can also store the bike on its end, so it really needn’t take up much space.

You don’t get hub gears with the Quick Haul though, so the Tern NBD is perhaps a more relevant comparison. It too has 20in wheels, a Performance Line motor, Shimano Nexus 5-speed gearing and a 27kg rack and is currently priced at £4,000.

All of the above of course assumes you want a mid-motor because cheaper options are available if you’re after a functional compact e-bike and don’t require mid-motor torque.

The Eovolt Evening is now £1,700 with a rear hub motor and seven gears. The MiRiDER 24 has slightly larger wheels and costs £1,995. While the basic model of the latter is a single-speed, there’s also a three-speed GB3 version for £2,995.
 

Conclusion

There is, on the face of it, very little to take issue with here. I don’t envisage anyone being unhappy with the Raleigh Modum.

At the same time, it’s a slightly peculiar pitch. It’s the little urban runaround that weighs three times as much as my road bike. It can be “transformed into a cargo bike in minutes” – provided you don’t want to carry more than 27kg.

But maybe that’s enough for you. After all, 27kg isn’t nothing and everything else works well. Other than my gripe with the gearing – which might not be relevant to you – the Modum is hard to fault.

raleigh.co.uk