Tern's turn to the off-road crowd
Will the Orox be a success or a testosterone-fueled outlier?
One of the best purchases I've ever made would be my Tern HSD cargo bike. Technically it was bought as a fun electric bike for my wife that also had the ability to carry our kid and lots of cargo all over town. While my wife has gotten plenty of use out of it, it's usually me who is putting it through the paces for school drop-offs and pickups every day.
And the bike has been excellent. Tern makes such quality e-bikes for families, that I hesitate to recommend any other brand for most people in the market who can afford one. I won't go into a deep dive into the history of the Tern brand but they've mostly been known for creating innovative bikes that fold. Our Tern HSD doesn't fold completely in half, but the handlebars do fold down for easier storage. The compact design and ingenuity rely are at the heart of all Tern bikes.
So I was very intrigued by the big product announcement from the folks at Tern this week. They have a new bike called the Orox that is branching out from the safe, suburban mom and dad-mobile style of their HSD and GSD cargo models.
The Orox has regular-sized wheels that look like they can go anywhere compared to the 20-in wheels of my HSD that put an emphasis on stability over adrenaline. This is a bike that is meant to get way off your typical suburban street. Maybe it's the coolest way to take your kid to a summer camp that is nestled deep in a forest?
Don't get me wrong, I can appreciate some of the features of this bike. It has a huge rear rack that can hold two kids or tons of gear. There are families who are looking to go on off-road adventures with their kids, and this is going to be the absolute perfect way to do it. It has handling capabilities of a mountain bike along with a Bosch electric powertrain. You should have no trouble getting up hills and covering rough trails even when you're fully packed up.
But something just doesn't feel right about this product launch to me. Maybe I feel that the new addition just strays too far from the Tern bikes that I know and love? Maybe it just feels a bit too masculine for the world of family cargo bikes? Or maybe it's just a really expensive toy that feels like overkill for 99% of families? I think that most people will just use it for standard cargo bike things and that’s ok. I suppose it could also be a lot more fun for the rider than some of the smaller 20-inch wheel options.
It seems really well-designed. For all of the capabilities that is has, it's not really much longer than a standard bike. I also think it's a great touch that the battery lives inside a zippered storage compartment so it stays warm, dry, and concealed from potential security threats. And it can natively support a dual-battery setup that can give you up to 200 miles of reported range. That's huge. This really is a bike that can cover huge distances even if you have no extra gear or passengers.
So if I look at this bike as a contemporary of the GSD or HSD, it just feels out of place. It feels like it was created by a different brand, and maybe that's what Tern is going for. Maybe if I look at it as a electric mountain bike alternative that can easily haul your kids around, I can more clearly see the appeal.
And did I mention the price? These bikes are clearly on the premium end of the cargo market. While the base model starts at $6,499, the higher-end model with the Gates Belt Drive and Rohloff internally geared hub can be had for $8,999. Those are prices that you don't often see unless you're buying a large, front-loading cargo bike or maybe a high-end model from a European brand like Riese & Mueller. It's a leap for Tern as the Orox comes in at nearly double the cost of their entry-level family cargo bikes.
I love to see more competition in the cargo bike market. I honestly hope that there is a market for a bike like this, but we shall see. You can make jokes about the testosterone-heavy vibes for a bike like this, and I know that fat tire bikes have been a huge trend the past few years. But the most popular of those bikes come from brands like Lectric and Rad Power and they're competing on ultra-aggressive pricing that sometimes even comes in under $1,000.
Will American consumers have an appetite for a fat-tire bike that isn't quite a mountain bike and doesn't have the same utility of a front-loading cargo bike? I love Tern's commitment to quality and I'm sure this bike will not cut any corners. I just think it's a big ask for the average family to pick an Orox over competitive bikes made by more affordable brands. Hell, even Tern's lower-end models can still do 90% of the things the Orox claims and their $5K price tag now looks downright affordable.
Thanks for reading, I’ll see you next week!
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