By Price: $5,000
Type: E-cargo
Weight: 67.4 lb.
Max cargo deck weight: 200 pounds
Wheel size: 26 in
Tire clearance: 3 in (26-inch tires) 2.8 in (27-inch tires)
Motor: Bosch Performance Line CX
Drivetrain: SRAM GX 11-speed
The right bike for: Serious cargo bike commuters who want a heavy duty platform for personalization
The Surly Big Easy is the Cadillac of the bike lane. The company’s new longtail e-cargo bike exudes a “they don’t make ’em like this anymore” stature, thanks to a beefed-up chromoly steel frame rolling on tough 26x2.5-inch tires. And because it’s a class 1 e-bike, you can actually ride it in the bike lane, too. The 7-foot-long, 67-pound bike won’t play well with your third-floor walk-up, so it’s best to think of it as a car supplement or replacement—that’s what Surly intended, anyway, as evidenced by the $5,000 price tag. However, if you’re ready to commit to the cargo bike life, you’ll struggle to find a stronger platform for achieving bike commuter nirvana.
A 500 watt-hour Bosch PowerPack feeds a Performance Line CX motor, and the e-assist is coupled with a SRAM GX 11-speed drivetrain with an e-bike-specific KMC chain and SRAM NX trigger shifters. Bosch rates the motor at 250 watts but we’d estimate it’s twice as powerful: In Turbo mode, the Big Easy will bury a Cat 1 rider up a long climb—we nearly nabbed a KOM on a popular hill without trying to. And it’s not just good in a straight line, it’s good in the twisties, too, thanks to bump-swallowing 26-inch wheels and a slackened head tube angle (as compared to the company’s non-electric Big Dummy). Competitors like the Tern GSD S00 and Yuba Spicy Curry Bosch offer more accessories at the price and likely more wieldy slow-speed handling—you’ve got to treat the Big Easy with respect in tight traffic situations—but the Big Easy presents a different approach. Like other Surly bikes, it’s a lovingly constructed, highly modifiable base onto which you add the accessories of your next adventure, wherever that cargo takes you.
26-Inch Tires
The Big Easy accommodates 3-inch-wide tires without fenders and 2.5-inch tires with fenders.
Bosch Drivetrain
The Performance Line CX system has four e-assist modes.
Chromoly Steel
A double-butted 4130 chromoly frame handles a total cargo weight of 400 pounds.
Removable Deck
The deck has cutouts for tying down your load with cargo straps.
Dummy Bags
Two included panniers mount to the rails on the tail of the bike.
E-Cargo-Minded from the Ground Up
At first glance, the Big Easy looks like an electrified Big Dummy. It’s not, because the bikes serve different purposes. “I’ve actually ridden with 200 pounds on the [Big Dummy] and 300 pounds on the trailer; it’s almost impossible with regular legs,” says Surly product manager Adam Scholtes. The longtail platform allows for epic payloads, certainly, but those efforts become impractical day-to-day. Doing an e-cargo bike therefore makes the cargo bike more usable for the lay-cyclist, but doing so changes how you ride the bike. “With the Big Dummy, we surveyed an assortment of riders hauling different things. They were going 12 mph or less,” Scholtes says. Big Easy riders will tend to ride at 18 or 19 mph, Scholtes says, so the head tube angle has been slackened to 69 degrees for high-speed stability. The head tube itself is also longer, which delivers a more upright riding position for surveying your surroundings in traffic. The double-butted 4130 chromoly frame is stiffer than the Big Dummy’s to accommodate the weight of the battery and drive unit, and instead of four frame sizes, the Big Easy comes in small, medium, and large.
Heavy-Duty Componentry
Like the frame, the Big Easy’s componentry is designed with road-worthy hauling in mind. Surly selected Tektro four-piston hydraulic disc brakes, Scholtes says, because Tektro was the only brake company Surly found who did e-cargo bike testing. On wet and dry roads, the brakes are forceful, although they’re not sledgehammers and offer adequate modulation for controlling a loaded-down bike. Shifting from the SRAM GX drivetrain is crisp and immediate, and the KMC chain is meant to withstand the additional torque from the Bosch Performance Line CX motor. The motor is rated at 250 watts and has four settings that begin with Eco mode, at a 50 percent support level, and Turbo mode, which is 300 percent support. In other words, it’s a lot of power. The bike comes with a 500 watt-hour battery, and there’s a mount for a second battery, if you’d like to double the range. Per Bosch, it’s $675 for an extra 400 watt-hour battery and $866 for a 500 watt-hour battery.
Our size medium test bike came with about two inches of spacers above the Cane Creek headset on the steerer tube, and the WTB Volt 135 saddle is firm but feels right in the bike’s upright riding position. The wheels are WTB ST i29, a tubeless-compatible mountain bike rim. Surly’s ExtraTerrestrial 26x2.5-inch, 60 tpi tires felt sticky and contributed to a forgiving ride (we rode ours at 30 psi). The included components are quality, but included accessories are sparse. You do get two Dummy bags, a $275 value, but you don’t get any lights or fenders—standard components on some competing e-cargo bikes. And it’s a minor gripe, but a double kickstand would feel better on a contraption that can feel more motorcycle than bicycle.
A Long Deck and Included Bags
If you’ve seen a Big Dummy at your local co-op, the rails and deck on the Big Easy will look familiar. Above the frame itself, the longtail is composed of rails that fit into collars. The rails support a deck that’s drilled with holes for accessories and includes cutouts for cargo straps (sold separately). We removed the deck to fit a child seat and found the system easy to assemble and disassemble. The included Dummy bags are nylon with a tough, waterproof tarp liner. They can swallow a seemingly infinite amount of stuff; the straps and buckles are complicated to sort out at first, but Surly includes helpful instructions on its website. And the company sells a hitch to attach a trailer, if you’ve run out of room in the cavernous panniers and long deck.
Ride Impressions
The Big Easy is a big, heavy bike, and you treat it accordingly. Its center of gravity is about six inches behind the seat tube, meaning you’ve got to pick it up from the seatstays to move it anywhere. Lifting with my legs, I carried it out of my narrow front doorway and down three steps to the sidewalk by myself without incident. You still feel the weight of the bike when you take up the kickstand and swing a leg over the top tube, and when you start riding, and when you take turns and apply the brakes. But none of it is unmanageable; the heft isn’t intimidating like it is on lesser e-bikes that don’t support their weight with steadfast double-butted chromoly construction. It’s solid as an oxen. The 1,512mm wheelbase takes some getting used to, but despite the widened turning circle, I felt comfortable making slow turns on the long bike almost immediately. The steering feel is appropriate for the speed at which the e-assist cuts out—nimble enough to dodge a pedestrian in the bike lane but easily controllable on a descent. True to its namesake, it’s easy to ride.
The one instance during which the Big Easy disguises its weight is acceleration. Eco mode will yield the best range and makes the bike feel like riding a (much lighter) Big Dummy with respect to pedaling effort. I averaged about 30 miles per charge, hanging in e-assist levels 1–3, although I couldn’t help but activate Turbo mode for a long climb. If 250 watts sounds underpowered for a bike of this magnitude, that’s because it’s hardly the motor’s maximum power. When I input my weight, the bike’s weight, the climb’s vertical, and the time it took me to do it, an online power calculator I used estimated that I needed 750 watts to make it happen. I did it pedaling moderately on Turbo mode, so I figure I got around 500 watts of help. Note that such shenanigans will deplete the battery faster: Bosch estimates the Big Easy can do up to 75 miles if you’re pedaling easy on Eco mode, but I got around 30 miles riding the bike over hills on Touring, Sport, and Turbo modes (our tester came with a PowerPack 400 battery; the bike will be sold with a PowerPack 500, so you’ll get closer to 40 miles in the same conditions).
The Dummy Bags fit two fully loaded backpacks, plus some assorted gear, and still had room for more. Bicycling Test Editor Matt Jacobs rode the Big Easy with two kids on the back. “When the bike is up to speed, it feels much the same as being childless,” Jacobs says. “It feels solid and stable at speed and it’s easy to account for the weight when leaning into corners. Tight corners require slowing significantly, but the weight feels stable in the back as long as the kids aren’t moshing.” However, Jacobs says he wished the bike came with pegs for smaller children, whose legs tend to hang off the side of the child seat.
Where the Big Easy differs from other e-cargo bikes in the $4,000 and $5,000 range is that whereas bikes like the Tern GSD S00 are a complete package, the Big Easy is more of a starting point. You don’t get features like lights, fenders, or a front rack but you do get mounts for them and a lot of soon-to-be-released options for the bike’s tail. That means spending a bit more to get the bike where you want it, but if the ubiquity of Big Dummy is any indication, the Big Easy could be a lasting, evolving companion.
A former Division 1 runner, Dan grew up riding fixies and mountain bikes and now reviews everything from performance running shoes to road and cross bikes, to the latest tech for runners and cyclists at Bicycling and Runner’s World.
