Gazelle Eclipse C380+ E-bike Review: A Smart, Smooth Ride at an Amazing Price

Let me get three negative points about gazelle eclipse First, it’s a 62-pound e-bike, so it’s hard to move without its battery. Second, its rack is thick and non-standard-sized, so you might need new bags for it. Third—and this is the biggest problem—at a suggested retail price of $6,000, it’s expensive, and you might be nervous about locking it up somewhere you don’t fully trust.

Aside from these issues, this e-bike is a lot of fun. When I rode the Eclipse (the C380+ HMB version), I felt like Batman on a day off, or maybe Bruce Wayne doing some reconnaissance as a bike enthusiast. The matte gray color, black gear, and simple yet impressively advanced technology certainly helped. But I felt ready to handle anything thrown at me without having to think about it too much. Steep hills, poorly maintained gravel paths, sidewalks, stop signs, or friends trying to outpace me on their light road bikes—the Eclipse was ready.

It assists up to 28mph (i.e. Class 3) and offers up to 85Nm of torque, and the front suspension absorbs bumps without shaking your confidence in the grip. It has built-in lights, the screen can show you navigation while your phone is hidden, and an automatic assist change option balances your mechanical and battery levels, leaving you to just pedal and look.

What kind of bike is this? Fun bike.

The Eclipse comes in two main versions, the T11+ HMB with an 11-speed chain, shifter, Enviolo stepless hub and Gates Carbon C380+ HMB belt. Both come in Three sizes (45, 50 and 55 cm), in one of two colours (anthracite grey and thyme green for the T11+, and metallic orange for the C380+), and using either Low step or high step versionThe latter with a sloping top bar. Most e-bikes come in two sizes if you’re lucky, usually “medium” and “large,” and their suggested height range is pretty wide. The T11+ starts at $5,500 and the C380+ starts at $6,000.

The Eclipse’s stance is “active,” halfway between a Dutch upright bike and a traditional road or flat-bar bike. It’s perfect for this type of riding. The front shock’s maximum travel is 75mm, which won’t impress your friends who ride on real trails but will make gravel, dirt, wooden bridges and forest trails a possibility. Everything about the Eclipse tells you to stop worrying about whether you have the right kind of bike to ride and start pedaling.

“But I really love cycling, and I need a lot of metrics and data during and after a ride,” I hear from some of you straw people. That’s why the Eclipse has a Bosch Kiox 300, a central display that, for an e-bike, is easy to read, navigable, and remarkably useful. You can see your maximum and average speed, distance, assist levels you’ve been on, power output, cadence, and more. You can push navigation directions from Komoot or standard mapping apps from your phone to the display, using the Bosch Flow app. And of course, you can connect to Strava.

Halfway between extreme efficiency and reckless driving, the Eclipse offers a feature I can only hope trickles down to cheaper e-bikes over time: automatic shift assist. Bikes with both gears and motor-assist levels can sometimes leave you guessing which one to shift into when approaching a hill or starting from a standstill. Set the Eclipse to automatic assist and you won’t have to worry about which gear to shift to. There are no gear numbers; there’s just a little guy on a bike, and as you upshift or downshift, the road you’re approaching becomes steeper or flatter.