The Tern GSD is still a benchmark longtail cargo bike, and the Tern Quick Haul Long is, to all intents and purposes, a cheaper GSD. There are a few compromises to hit a lower price point, sure, but they’re sensible ones, and the bike as a whole is incredibly useful and well-put-together.

OK, so it’s not a GSD: there are a bunch of differences between this bike and its big brother, which we’ll go into. But a lot of the learning has come from that bike.

“Since our first GSD, we’ve learned a lot about how to make cargo bikes even better, and more efficient,” Josh Hon, Tern Team Captain, says. “The new Quick Haul Long maintains the GSD's core features but brings it to market at a more accessible price point without compromising safety or reliability."

Tern Quick Haul Long, by dave atkinson

What are the core features? Well, it’s a longtail, low-step-through, 20in-wheeled cargo bike, with a Bosch Motor system. It’s designed to carry two children (or one grown up) on the back, or swallow a whole load of cargo. It’s compatible with Tern’s enormous range of accessories and designed to be compact and easy to store.

The D9 spec that we’re testing here, the only one at launch, is £3,500 for the bare bike, which is a full £1,600 cheaper than the GSD S10, with the same Cargo Line motor system and the same 400Wh battery. That's a big old saving. And you’re not missing out on space: the Quick Haul Long takes the same cavernous Cargo Hold 52 panniers as the GSD – I used them during testing – and all the same seating options are available at the rear.

You can fit two child seats for smaller kids. I’ve got the Captain’s chair fitted in the pics, which is versatile enough even to drop my 16-year-old son - who at 1.98m is basically a giant - down into town with no problem.

The Atlas rack at the rear isn’t an integral part of the frame like it is on the GSD, which presumably saves some build cost, but it’s still rated to 90kg and the whole bike has a maximum gross weight of 190kg - just 10kg less than the GSD. The bike is independently tested to meet the new German cargo bike standard.

As well as the rear carrier there are mounts for a rack af the front: I had the Transporteur Rack fitted for testing and you can put 20kg of shopping up front. There’s a mounting point for a trailer hitch on the rear too, if all that isn’t enough. It works with most trailer systems.

Inside the frame there’s room for a small zipped storage pod (the Glove Box) available, and further down the frame another, lockable, pod (the Cache Box L). I had both on the bike during testing and they’re useful for shoving bits and bobs in, and also a larger chain lock to augment the wheel lock that the bike comes with. That’s ok for quickly nipping into a shop but not especially secure.

Whatever you want to carry, you’re pretty sure to find it in the huge range of accessories that Tern offers for its bikes. There are options for luggage, kids, bigger passengers… even pets are covered. It’s worth noting that on top of the cost of the base price of the bike you’ll need to factor in several hundred pounds to spec it up for your needs. That’s true of most longtails though.

Even with that carrying capacity, thanks to its small wheels the Quick Haul Long is no longer than a standard city bike, so it’ll fit in a garage or a shed pretty easily - or even inside, thanks to the fact that you can stand it on its end.

The bike uses a Speedlifter stem arrangement like the standard Quick Haul, which allows you to drop the bars and turn them to save space when the bike is stored. It’s easy to drop the saddle too. You don’t get the double-telescopic seatpost or the folding stem from the GSD but the bike’s no worse for it for the majority of use cases. Unless you genuinely have to fold it down to its minimum size when you’re not using it, you’ll not notice the difference.

So, a lot of things are the same here. What’s different? Well, I’ve already touched on the fact that the rack isn’t integrated into the frame and there are other differences: it’s a less beefy-looking frame than its bigger brother, and more of the cables run externally so it’s not quite as neat - although on the flip side it’ll probably be a lot easier to work on: I had to replace the speed sensor on my GSD and I ended up zip-tieing it to the outside of the frame as the internal run was a bit tortuous for home fettling.

One cost saving that will make a significant difference to some users is the battery options. There is only one battery mount on the Quick Haul Long, a key differentiator between the two bikes, so you’re limited to just the one PowerPack battery. The Quick Haul Long D9 comes as standard with a 400Wh PowerPack and, realistically, this will give you plenty of range for general about-town stuff, even carrying kids or loading up with the weekly shop.

Tern says that the range of the bike is 42-85km. You’ll probably not trouble that higher figure unless you’re doing a lot of flat, unloaded riding in the summer. The Quick Haul Long managed four laps of my commute in warm weather before needing a charge. That’s only 36km but includes about 500m of climbing, so not bad for what’s a reasonably small battery these days, especially on a bike at this price. What you can’t do is slap two bigger batteries on the Quick Haul Long and run about town all day making deliveries on one charge, for example.

The Bosch Cargo Line motor is a favourite at ebiketips for bikes like this: it’s powerful and reliable. With up to 400% assistance and 85Nm of torque, it’s more than a match for the hills round here, and we have plenty of them.

Even loaded up with a week’s worth of supermarket shop it was barely an effort to get home, even on the steepest 12% section of the route back from Lidl. That weekly shop will easily fit in the two Cargo Hold 52 panniers, which aren’t included in the price, but you should definitely invest in them if you’re buying this bike. They’re excellent: they have huge capacity, they can be folded open so things can poke out of the top or rolled closed to keep out even the worst weather. The Fidlock straps keep everything tidy, and the panniers fold flat against the frame so your passengers can access the (optional) footrails even with them fitted.

With the panniers at the back and the also-excellent Weathertop shopping bag on the rack at the front my budget was always the limiting factor in how much food I brought home, not storage space.

The Quick Haul Long doesn’t get Tern’s excellent locking stand – another cost saving – but you do get a decent double-sided stand that you can extend for better stability.

Back on the subject of the footrails, they’re really good: lockable in a number of positions, including fully stowed to keep the bike’s footprint as small as possible. They’re a must for bigger passengers, and there are mesh side panels too to stop anything getting caught in the wheel.

The Quick Haul Long is an easy bike to ride. It feels like a normal city bike for the most part, and although it’s not the most agile thanks to its length and weight, it’s nippy enough. The original GSD didn’t have a suspension fork at the front; it was added on the Gen2 bike. Going back to a rigid fork after riding the suspended GSD is a noticeable change for the worse in terms of ride quality up front, but having said that, there’s a fair amount of give in the big Schwalbe tyres and you don’t have to have the front tyre pumped up super-hard if you’re not carrying a lot of weight there. The sprung kickstand tends to bounce about a bit on badly-surfaced roads (ie, all of them) too - a bit irritating rather than any major issue.

Gearing is Tektro’s ED-9 system which is a 9-speed transmission developed specifically for e-bikes. You get an 11-46T cassette which gives a great range of gears, and the bar-mounted shifter has a nice positive action.

I wasn’t that impressed with the quality of the shifting: it’s okay, but it feels a bit agricultural compared to a Shimano system. Given that it’s designed for the rigours of e-bikes it should last well though, and Tern has done away with the rubber roller chain tensioner on the GSD – which isn’t a highlight of the bike as it gets stuck and wears out easily – in favour of a jockey wheel. I do wonder if that’s affecting the quality of the rear shifts though, as it holds the chain in a single position quite close to the cassette, whereas the chain can move a bit more on the rubber roller.

I haven’t ridden any other ED-9-equipped bikes to compare it with; it might just be how it always feels. Tektro also supply the brakes, which aren’t as heavy-duty as the Magura ones you get on the more expensive GSD but are really none the worse for it: they’re powerful and well-modulated.

With Tern’s longtail platform with all its related accessories, the best-in-class Bosch Cargo Line motor system and good quality finishing kit, the Quick Haul Long is a strong performer and for most people it’ll be enough cargo bike, even for two kids or big loads.

It’s a significant saving over the Tern GSD. That bike is undoubtedly better but day to day, and riding the two bikes back to back, I didn’t really feel like I was missing much with this cheaper model.

There are plenty of cheaper hub-motor longtail bikes out there; The Mycle Cargo is our pick of them, and if you live somewhere flatter, it’ll do the job just fine - but it won’t have the grunt of a mid motor bike.

Estarli’s eCargo Longtail is a strong competitor with a powerful Ananda mid motor, a belt drive and an Enviolo hub gear, for less than the Quick Haul Long will cost you. That bike just goes to show how much competition Tern has these days in a segment of the market it had to itself when the GSD first came out.

But the Quick Haul long is a sensible response to that, and it’s easy to recommend if you’re on a tighter budget than GSD money.

ternbicycles.com