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Tout Terrain drops in on Pinion with Cinq Shift:R dropbar gearbox gravel bike & more!

Tout Terrain Cinq-Shift:R, Pinion gearbox powered touring commuter gravel road bikes
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Pinion’s gearbox gets more dropbar road & adventure tour capabilities thanks to component maker Cinq’s Shift:R setup on a few new Tout Terrain gravel & touring bikes. We’ve seen the Shift:R before in several iterations from prototype to Rohloff shifting to a gearbox crowdfunding campaign, but the new Tout Terrain Scrambler is the first to put it on a proper adventure gravel bike, with a 5th Ave tourer and City commuter available too…

Tout Terrain Scrambler, Pinion gearbox gravel bike

What started off as an in-house gravel touring project prototype for one of Tout Terrain’s team has now developed into the Scrambler Xplore GT, a Cinq Shift:R drop bar gravel bike setup ready for your next mixed-surface adventure.

Tout Terrain Cinq-Shift:R, Pinion gearbox powered touring commuter gravel road bikes
all photos courtesy Tout Terrain

Cinq is actually the component wing of Tout Terrain, making a number of alt-drivetrain shifter solutions and the ever popular but rare ‘The Plug’ USB charging port that hides in your steerer tube. We first saw a prototype of the Shift:R a couple years back at NAHBS, and this March it came back with the announcement of a Kickstarter campaign. But you don’t need to crowdfund the shifter or wait til September to get one if you hop on a Tout Terrain bike.

Tout Terrain Cinq-Shift:R, Pinion gearbox powered touring commuter gravel road bikes

The Shift:R setup works by using a set of TRP Hylex disc brake levers to the Cinq Pinion shifting mechanism. Push the right shifter to shift to a harder gear, then the left shifter to go back (or to be fair, you could set it up the other way.)

Tout Terrain Cinq-Shift:R, Pinion gearbox powered touring commuter gravel road bikes

The gravel bike itself is the Scrambler, Tout Terrain’s 4130 steel 650b all-terrain bike with space for up to 650b x 2.25″ tires. It gets quick mixed-surface geometry and includes plenty of proper adventure touring details, like fully external routing, tons of braze-ons for racks, fenders, anything cages, plus an integrated steerer stop.

Tout Terrain Cinq-Shift:R, Pinion gearbox powered touring commuter gravel road bikes

In this Scrambler Xplore GT setup it gets a Gates belt drive and a Pinion gearbox with Tout Terrain’s tensioner setup at the BB for use with regular 12mm thru-axle dropouts.

Tout Terrain Cinq-Shift:R, Pinion gearbox powered touring commuter gravel road bikes

The double butted, TIG welded bike comes in just two sizes M or L, but each Scrambler is built up to order so there is plenty of fit & fitout customization possible. A complete Scrambler Xplore GT starts at 3590€ with a carbon bikepacking ready fork, a Gates Carbon Drive CDX-SL setup, flared Black Label Longhorn dropbar, and 2.1″ Thunder Burt tires. Plenty of optional accessories are also available to outfit your customized off-road touring rig.

Pinion + Cinq Shift:R drop bar city & touring bikes

Tout Terrain Cinq-Shift:R, Pinion gearbox powered touring commuter gravel road bikes

Besides the gravel Scrambler Xplore GT, Tout Terrain also offers a traditional loaded tourer – the 5th Avenue Xplore GT – and an urban commuter – the City Xpress GT, both of which also take advantage of the low-maintenance durability of the Pinion gear box.

The 5th Avenue is a more classic steel disc brake touring bike, updated to the Pinion gearbox now that drop bar shifting is sorted out. Fully expedition rated, it is a bike truly ready for adventure at 3990€ outfitted with full racks, fenders & lights and 700c tires up to 35mm wide.

Tout Terrain Cinq-Shift:R, Pinion gearbox powered touring commuter gravel road bikes

The City Xpress GT is meant as more of a premium urban commuter bike that won’t ever really need much maintenance. The 2890€ townie gets built up with the Gates+Pinion drivetrain and configured with full coverage fenders, a rear rack & a kickstand.

Tout Terrain Pinion + Cinq Shift:R availability

Tout Terrain Cinq-Shift:R, Pinion gearbox powered touring commuter gravel road bikes

Tout Terrain’s first three dropbar pinion models are available to order now with the new, second generation Cinq Shift:R, pairing a TRP hydraulic disc brake setup with Cinq’s own shift mechanism that bolts up directly to the Pinion C-Line gearboxes. All three of the new bikes can be now configured through their online customization tool, and are available in the Tout Terrain dealer network. Availability of the early pre-production runs of the new Cinq Shift:R dropbar shifter are still limited, so act fast if you don’t want to wait until the full production run is ready next autumn.

Tout-Terrain.de

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Bmx
Bmx
4 years ago

These are the most exciting bikes that I’ve seen here for a long time. Love the shift design, great stuff all round.

mudmudmud
mudmudmud
4 years ago

It’s cool to have the drivetrain hidden from mud and damage, but it looks incredibly heavy. A Rohloff adds around two pounds compared to a derailleur set up. How much heavier is this?

Brad J Sedola
Brad J Sedola
4 years ago
Reply to  mudmudmud

About 200g heavier than a Rohloff setup.

TheKaiser
4 years ago

Gearbox shifters seem to finally be getting to where they need to be, if they want to compete with derailleur setups. It would be good if they had more info on the shifters themselves in their PR stuff. I see this is collab with TRP, and I am familiar with the Hylex, but this seems like a big change to have converted them just brakes to brifters. Who’s making the shifter internals, how many gears can they shift at a time, how does the indexing feel, etc….? Inquiring minds want to know, as the rest of it is kind of old hat by now.

Damian Bradley
Damian Bradley
4 years ago
Reply to  TheKaiser

Hey TheKaiser, Damian here from Cinq/Tout Terrain! I am happy to answer your questions. We engineered the shift-lever blade specifically for the TRP Hylex, and afterward approached TRP to take on manufacturing. The levers are “relatively” simple, while the ratcheting shift mechanism is actually attached to the Pinion gearbox. These parts are also engineered in house and the component parts manufactured from suppliers in Germany. You can shift up to three gears in a single stroke (either direction), and indexing is handled by the internals of the Pinion – shifting is fast, direct, confident. Keep an eye out for other’s impressions as these get a little further into the wild and into the hands of reviewers and riders.

Rich Lytle
Rich Lytle
4 years ago
Reply to  Damian Bradley

Three gears at a time, that’s excellent news!

Brad J Sedola
Brad J Sedola
4 years ago

Tout Terrain has really grabbed my attention over the last few months. I’ve been running a belt drive single speed 29er since 2009. Love the low maintenance. 2nd gen centertrack belts are far superior to the originals. No issues with the newer style. I’d love to get that reliability with the bomb-proof Pinion. The TT Outback is almost perfect. Only thing my Googling doesn’t produce is a 29+ version (for 3″ tires). Basically a Surly Krampus with a Pinion.

satanas
satanas
4 years ago

The stumbling block for me with Pinion is the cranks, and the Q factor. Last time I looked, 172.5mm cranks didn’t exist and Q was 174mm, and not reducible due to the width of the gearbox. This is all fine if you have wide hips, or like high Q, otherwise not so much.

With a Rohloff hub, Q under 160mm is fairly easy to achieve, and ~150mm is possible with suitable chainstays. The idea of Pinion is attractive, but unfortunately the ergonomics aren’t going to work for everyone. 🙁

Jugroop Dylan
3 years ago
Reply to  satanas

Hello, the C range of Pinion gearboxes have a Q factor of 166mm.

John Williams
John Williams
2 years ago

Have you dealer / agents in UK, as i intend to buy the “Cinq Tout Terran.
Looking forward to your reply.
Thanking You
John Williams

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