I was not brought up considering the origin of things.

None of food, none of clothes, none of the appliances that are ticking in the background of a kitchen. Things just existed. You purchased them, wore them, got new ones when they were worn out. It was the agreement, and no one I knew challenged it at all.

It was not an immediate process – and indeed, some early embarrassing late-night research into the topic of sustainable living – before I began to draw the lines between the things I selected and the values I purported to espouse. And when you begin to see such connections you cannot take your eyes off them. The e-bike was not the first move in that direction. The most obvious one perhaps, it can be.  If you’re already curious, you can explore the latest Grundig e-bikes — but let me tell you why I ended up there in the first place.

A Brand With More History Than You’d Expect

This is one of the things I was not aware of until I went down a research rabbit hole at 11pm on a Tuesday: Grundig has been in existence since 1945.

It is no typing mistake, 1945 – the year that the Second World War had come to an end and a majority of Europe was picking up the trash. Another man by the name Max Grundig began a small radio and transformer business in Fürth, Bavaria, and within the next few decades, he developed it to one of the most well-known consumer electronics recognitions in Europe. Radios, televisions, tape recorders – the type of solid, sure technology that had been incorporated into the very fabric of the European homes throughout generations.

Then, in 1988, something was happening that was not to be expected. Grundig was made the first ever sponsor of the Mountain Bike world cup series. It was not an action that a consumer electronics firm would have tended to take, but it did so, and it showed something that was true about the character of the brand: the conviction in motion, in engineering that is useful to people, in quality that can be put to the test in practice.

Such a bond with cycling never entirely dissipated. It just waited.

Grundig E-Bike introduced its first fully in-house designed electric bicycle in 2023 as a spin-off of the Grundig Automotive Group, which has decades of experience in the field of engineering. No hurried change of direction, no rebranding of a third-party manufacturing. It was a carefully thought out and calculated move into a category that the brand had been softly neighboring more than three decades long.

To my mind that continuity is truly touching. It is almost retro in a way because it has its own way of doing things, it develops the previous one, it does not run headlong at whatever the market is doing this quarter.

What It Actually Feels Like to Ride One

I would like to tell the truth in this case, as there are too many product articles which melt into spec sheets and lose their sight of the fact that experience of a thing is the entire purpose.

I had to have the GCB-1, in the sort of deep, slightly serious blue of which I instantly took a liking and where my partner saw the color of a rain cloud about to perform some sort of great drama. Fair enough.

My initial morning ride to work on it, 6.5km, two not too challenging hills, one really irritating run of cobblestones over a bridge to the old market I arrived with the slight, contented fatigue of having exercised my body, instead of the low-level frustration of having spent twenty minutes stuck in traffic. That difference comes out as petite. It isn’t.

How the mid-drive motor works, technically, is to provide, up to 80Nm of torque, via a Bafang M410 system to measure the degree of pedaling effort and react to it accordingly. What that is like in practice is that the bike does not carry you, it just enhances you. There is no point of staggering aid. It merely causes you to feel a little more competent, a little more streamlined, like a slightly more effectively organized version of yourself.

The battery is an LG 540Wh that fits into the frame in a very neat manner, not attached by means of bolts, but as an element of the design of the bike. In the real world, with real mountains and real weather, it will range somewhere between 70 and 100km depending on the intensity of work. To commute every day, I charge it approximately twice a week.

The Shimano 9-speed changing has a smooth changeover. You need to stop with a slide of the TEKTRO hydraulic disc brakes. The SR Suntour suspension fork removes the sharpness of the cobblestones without rendering the bike squashy in other places. These are not extraordinary elements, they are selected due to their effectiveness, throughout, over a period, under circumstances that are not always friendly.

All its details are Made in Europe, certified by TUV, and have a three-year warranty in Germany. Three year warranty by a company is a statement by the company: we have constructed this, and we guarantee it.

The Bag Question (Which Is More Important Than It Sounds)

At the time that I began to ride a bike regularly, I did not realize how much equipment surrounding the bike would be important. The bike was the most evident one – of course you think about the bike. But the bag? I plucked a dirty bagpack over my shoulder and said good enough.

This was fine, until it wasn’t. Until my shoulders started getting cut up by the straps in my backpack on longer rides. Until I learned that I was not going to be able to use my phone without making a stop regularly. The contents of the bag were a little inside swimming pool until the first serious rain of the season caused them to be such.

The right bag, it turns out, is part of the ride. And you can explore stylish and durable bike bags from Grundig — but here’s what actually made me choose them.

Why the Bags Matter as Much as the Bike

What appeared to me to be most attractive about the Grundig bag range in particular was the fact that they are made of recycled materials. To have something that will be attached to my bike and move with me throughout the day being made of something that has been reused instead of extracted felt correct – in line with the reasons why I decided to ride a bike in the first place, instead of sitting in a vehicle.

The one I use the most is the 3-in-1: this one rides like a rear rack pannier on the bike, then transforms to a backpack with the appropriate shoulder straps, but is used as a shoulder bag when I am not on the bicycle at all. I have virtually stopped carrying other bags. The best tube bag is one that can accommodate the items I require at any given time urgently such as phone, keys, a cereal bar which I will most certainly consume before I get into the office. The waterproofed structure already proved by a number of autumn mornings in Europe and all the contents have been absolutely dry.

The line includes all types of riding requirements: the handlebar bag on short closed route trips, the rear rack pannier on the longer way with more stuff to transport, the frame bag with the built-in phone holder to find the way without making stops. Everything of it put together with the same thought of weatherproofing and material integrity that pervades the e-bike itself.

On Choosing Slowly

The sustainable living is available in a form that poses as urgent and frantic – a mad dash to save everything at once, to streamline every nook and cranny of your life, to experience the guilt of where you are and where you believe you ought to be.

I do not consider that version very handy. Or very sustainable, ironical.

The more helpful thing to me is to make a decision, gradually and carefully. Question, prior to purchasing a product: is it construct to last? Does the company that owns it possess values which I can follow, not merely words which I can admire? Will this thing pay its price or will it one day be the bane it was meant to be cured of?

The Grundig e-bike has won that test in my case not because it is flawless, but because it is sincere. It is a company that has a real history going back to 1945, creating a product that is taken seriously by real engineering, in a country whose manufacturing standards are real, a warranty that says real confidence. And it makes my mornings actually good, which is not nothing.

The bike does not want me to be some other person. It only inquires, every morning: is it doing this?

Most mornings, yes. The answer is yes.