6 of the best cheap hybrid bikes 2020

Hybrid bikes are Britain’s most popular style of bike because they’re cheap, practical, comfortable urban transportation that’s also ideal for pootling round the lanes or exploring forest roads at the weekend. If you live in a city a hybrid bike is often the cheapest way of getting about: you’ll save much more on fuel or bus/train fares than the bike costs.

• With (usually) 700C wheels, wide-range gears, flat bars and cantilever or disc brakes, hybrid bikes are midway between road and mountain bikes. They’re the UK’s most common and best-selling bike type.

• The upright riding position makes them great for traffic, and for leisurely rides in the country — slow down and sniff the flowers.

• Oddly few hybrid bikes come with practicalities like mudguards and rack. Budget £50-100 for them and get them fitted when you buy the bike. You’ll be glad you did.

• These bikes are inexpensive transport par excellence, paying for themselves in just a few months if you live in a major city.

7 of the best cheap hybrid bikes 2020

The name hybrid comes from a design style that bridges mountain bikes and road bikes. A hybrid bike typically has the upright riding position and flat bars of a mountain bike, but the skinny tyres and 700C wheels of a road bike.

Within that description there’s a lot of variation. At one end of the scale are flat-bar road bikes, which as the description suggests have the very skinny tyres and lightweight, close-coupled frames of a road bike, but with a flat bar. Just the thing for zooming through sun-drenched Tuscan lanes, if not so great for rainy, potholed British city streets.

Fatter tyres with deeper treads are more common though, and usually provide grip and cushioning that make these bikes really versatile. You can easily take a hybrid bike to places where you’d hesitate to ride a road bike, or where very skinny tyres need a high level of skill and care. Canal towpaths, forest roads and easier singletrack trails are all accessible.

As transport, hybrid bikes often come with accessories that other bikes lack — even relatively practical ones like cyclocross-styled urban bikes. It’s common to get mudguards, a rack and even dynamo lighting in the package, which can save you a big chunk over buying them separately.

Hybrids are great budget transport. You can pick one up for less than £150, and by the time you get up the price range to around £300 there are some really quite nice bikes.

Bung even a £300 bike on Cycle To Work Scheme and you’ll barely notice the payments disappearing from your pay packet. In fact, in many cities, you’ll be better off. Compared to a London Zone 1-3 Travelcard at £153.60 per month, a £192.00 Bristol Plus travelpass or a Cambridge Megarider Plus bus ticket for £96, the repayments for a hybrid are trivial.

An earlier version of this article included Tesco’s Vertigo Tambora as a bike that was okay if just over £100 was really all you could afford. However, that bike is no longer available, and when it was last listed it was £220, which is an extraordinary price for a low-spec bike you have to assemble yourself. If your budget is that limited, you’re far better off buying second hand. After making a big hoo-ha a few years ago about offering cheap bikes, Tesco seems to have abandoned the sector and I don’t think anyone misses them.

Seven of the best budget hybrids

Let’s take a look at some of your best budget choices in flat-bar bikes.

Falcon Explorer — £199.99

Okay, so the Explorer isn’t truly typical in that it’s got 26in wheels rather than 700c ones, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing – those smaller wheels are stronger and the fatter tyres should give plenty of comfort and grip. It also comes with a rack as well as mudguards. If you want something similar but with 700c wheels (and more gears) the Apollo Belmont (below) is worth checking out.

Find a Falcon dealer.

Apollo Belmont — £200

The Belmont and women’s equivalent the Elyse both have aluminium frames, mudguards, chainguard and rack, making them very practical urban and picnic transport. Halfords provides a free service after six weeks, and will put the bike together for you.

Like virtually all bikes under the £300 mark, both have Shimano gears. In this case they’re operated by twist-grip shifters, which control a 21-speed transmission for a wide range of gears.

Carrera Subway 1 — £300

Unlike most hybrids, this pothole-basher has mountain bike size 650B/27.5in wheels, with lightly treaded tyres for round-town speed.

The aluminium frame is hung with a Shimano gear set, combining a triple up front with seven out back for a big range of gears.​ It’s a decent deal at this price, but we’ve seen it as low as £240 so it might be worth waiting for one of Halfords’ inevitable sales.

B’Twin Hoprider 100 — £299.99

Because French-based sport superstore chain Decathlon sells bikes all over the Continent, its town bikes are tailored for European tastes, which means the Hoprider 100 has a feature that’s rare on UK-specced bikes: dynamo lighting.

The lights are powered by a generator in the front hub so they’re always ready when you need them.

You also get a gel saddle, mudguards and rack and the Shimano Altus mechs are a notch up in quality over the gears found on cheaper bikes.

There’s even a kickstand for convenient parking. It’s all very Euro, and that’s a good thing.​

There’s a low-frame version too.

Dawes Discovery 201 2020 — £369.99

Don’t judge a bike by its marketplace – this might be an affordable hybrid from family cycling expert Dawes, but the Discovery 201 combines a lively compact aluminium frame with excellent 1x Shimano drivetrain to create a bike that will inspire a smile on your commute or weekend potter.

Even in wet weather and headwinds, this is a fun and ‘enthusiastic’ bike to pedal. Power transfer isn’t compromised and while overall weight at 12.5kg is good enough at this point in the market, the Disco actually rides as sprightly as a lighter hybrid. Acceleration from a standstill is easy and there’s a definite satisfaction to be had as you spin up to higher speeds.

Read our review of the Dawes Discovery 201
Find a Dawes dealer

B’Twin Hoprider 500 — £399.99

The B’Twin Hoprider 500 comes with everything you need to pootle round town, to the office or the shops or just round the park for exercise. It’s not the lightest hybrid ever, but it’s very well specced for the money.

Off the peg, the Hoprider 500 comes with hub-powered lighting front and rear, mudguards, rack and kickstand. That’s a great set of accessories for a hybrid (too often they’re just a bare bike) and really makes this bike an excellent choice for commuting and other practical riding.

The model up from the Hoprider 100, it has a suspension fork to improve comfort over rough ground, and the transmission takes a step up in quality to eight-speed Acera.

Less obvious, but very welcome, it also comes with Kenda puncture-resistant tyres and trigger shifters rather than the twist-grips of the cheaper model. You even get a fairly decent set of metal-bodied pedals, a significant step up from the resin-bodied jobs found on most budget bikes.

There’s also a low-frame version.

Read our review of the very similar B’Twin Hoprider 520.

Ridgeback Speed — £449.00

From UK brand Ridgeback, the Speed comes with a rack and mudguards so you don’t have to buy them separately. There’s a wide-gear range too, so you should find hills a doddle, and the very upright riding position will give a commanding view of the traffic

Find a Ridgeback dealer

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