Tout Terrain Outback Xplore II Review: Confidence is Key

With additional photos and input from Josh Meissner

Eager to maximize my time back in Europe last October, after documenting the Bespoked show in Dresden, Josh Meissner and I borrowed a couple of Tout Terrain bikes and took them out for a weeklong spin to cap off my visit. We picked up a pair of Tout Terrain Outback Xplore II builds from the friendly folks at Velophil in Berlin and hopped on a train down to the French border. From there, our improvised track took us through the picturesque Vosges Mountains as we picked up bits and pieces of the 250-mile Traversée du Massif Vosgien (TMV) bikepacking route on our way to Tout Terrain’s headquarters further south, situated just back across the German border near Freiburg.

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Having lived in France for a year and visited maybe 15 times throughout my life, I like to think I know the country reasonably well. However, our time pedaling through the Vosges showed me in no uncertain terms that I’ve been hugely missing out by overlooking that corner of the Hexagon. Northeastern France may not be spectacular in an obvious way—like the Alps or the French Riviera—but it’s home to quietly intense beauty in its endless hills and low mountains that beckon bikepackers to see what’s around the next bend and over the next crest. Josh and I certainly felt the allure, and even as the trip unfolded, we were already discussing plans for a return trip.

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Our time with the bikes was brief, but the TMV and the countless tracks paralleling and intersecting it are an ideal proving ground for just about any style of bike. All the better, at least for testing purposes, the trails were muddy, and rain was inevitable. Each segment’s level of adventure was ours for the choosing, with an abundance of two-track, singletrails, quiet paved roads, and gravel byways at our disposal. Often picking turns on the fly, our route comprised a healthy mix of terrain types and trail conditions. The Outbacks handled everything we encountered admirably. Frankly, it’s hard to find any real objective faults with them based on our week together.

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Beyond the brilliant track, our trip on the Outbacks was marked by overloaded pastry stops in charming small towns, dry nights in an array of simple but ideally situated mountain huts, a few years’ worth of catching up, glorious camp breakfasts every morning, the occasional castle, wildly successful chanterelle mushroom foraging, many chats with friendly locals, and one impossibly good (and hard-earned) tarte flambée after an entire day of riding through thick fog and cold.

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When the time came to descend out of the hills and veer east back into Germany, wrapping up our trip, I could easily have seen myself pedaling south until I hit the azure blue waters of the Mediterranean. I have no doubts that the Outback would have breezed through thousands more worry-free miles and tamed every trail in its path. Alas, newly married, I wisely decided to make that left turn back into Germany and return the bike to Tout Terrain so I could catch my flight home to Colorado. If you missed it, be sure to check out our Field Trip in the Further Reading grid at the bottom of this post for a deeper dive into the company’s ethos and story. They’re the real deal, as we discovered.

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Outback Xplore II Overview

The Pinion-equipped Outback is one of the longstanding flagship models in Tout Terrain’s X.Over range, which includes a handful of bikes for everything from gravel riding to full-on expedition touring. It’s been in the German company’s lineup for many years, and our own Cass Gilbert reviewed the original version back in 2019. It has undergone a few updates in that time, most notably coming into its current form just last spring.

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Like the versions that came before it, at the heart of the refreshed Tout Terrain Outback Xplore II is a burly steel frame with a Pinion C1.12 gearbox and a Gates Carbon Drive. In addition to standard bottle, full-frame bag, and rear rack mounts, the frame now features an interior ED coating to help safeguard against rust, and Tout Terrain also added top tube bosses, three-pack mounts under the downtube, and a revised rear dropout design to facilitate easy wheel installation. Its clearance has been increased slightly to fit 29 x 2.6″ or 27.5 x 3.0″ tires, and it sports updated geometry that lends more control over techy terrain.

The Xplore II is available in sizes small, medium, large, and extra large, which should suit a reasonably broad range of riders outside of the extremes. At 6’3″ tall, I rode an extra large, and 5’10” Josh rode a large. The Outback Xplore II’s angles add up to an archetypal modern ATB that prioritizes comfort and stability. They call it a mountain bike, but not to be confused with today’s long, low, and slack MTBs built for shredding and the occasional loaded ride. The Outback’s shorter reach, relaxed pedaling position, and long chainstays all deliver a planted and confident feel that’s well-suited to long days of upright riding and savoring the views. Find the full geometry chart below:

Outback Xplore II Geometry

By default, the Outback Xplore II comes specced with Tout Terrain’s in-house-designed Carbon Adventure Fork II, which boasts internal dynamo and brake routing, three-pack mounts on both blades, and a post mount with room for 180mm rotors. Like the frame, it’s exceptionally well-engineered and will clear 29 x 2.6″ or 27.5 x 3.0″ tires with room to spare. Tout Terrain offers a handful of suspension forks as optional “upgrades.” Bikes come standard with a rigid post but are dropper-compatible. Josh and I both wondered why a rigid steel fork isn’t an option, as one would seem to be perfectly in line with Tout Terrain’s vision for how their bikes will be used.

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Tout Terrain offers the Outback Xplore II as a frame with the Pinion gearbox or in one of a few complete builds. The ordering process for a frames and complete varies by region, and I’ll cover the difference in more detail in the Pricing and Availability section below.

First-Ride Review

Long-term, in-depth tests are a hallmark of our reviews here at BIKEPACKING.com, and if you’re reading this and thinking it’s impossible to adequately review a bike after only a week of riding, you’re right. As such, this abridged first-ride review will only touch on initial impressions. You can learn a lot about a bike in a week’s time, but not enough to make detailed assessments or any claims about long-term durability. I’m not comfortable doing so, at least. Still, there’s much to discuss.

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When Cass reviewed the earlier version of the Outback almost exactly six years ago, he wrote, “Everything about this bike exudes quality.” I would echo that same sentiment today. When I picked up the Outback Xplore II in Berlin, the attention to detail the company prides itself on was evident at first glance. The full day we spent watching bikes get painted, built, and prepped for customers only confirmed Tout Terrain’s commitment to quality. They claim to obsess over every detail, and it’s actually true! Tout Terrain demands tighter-than-average tolerances from their frame suppliers, and they independently re-test their products in Germany before approving them for sale. Engineering-forward designs and quality construction are part and parcel of all things Tout Terrain.

It’s impossible to approach a discussion of the Outback Xplore II and Tout Terrain without some remarks on the Pinion gearbox; nearly all of their bikes are built around the system. They’ve been all-in for a long time. Our one-week trip accounted for the longest consecutive time I’ve spent riding a Pinion, and I can conclude that it’s perhaps the best and worst thing about the bike from my perspective. On the one hand, there’s the exceptional longevity and dependability of the system, which has proven itself as a serious and viable option by this point in its roughly 15-year development. On the other, the necessary compromises to make the Pinion system work its magic are some of my least favorite aspects of the bike. Let me explain.

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In short, if you go into an Outback Xplore II purchase as a Pinion believer, you’ll almost certainly love the bike, especially if you have grand plans for a loaded adventure—ambitiously, let’s say Cape Town to Cairo or Alaska to Argentina. As more of a Pinion skeptic myself, I’m still not fully convinced by its merits, even if I appreciated the generous 600% range (32/30), mud-shedding abilities (thoroughly tested first-hand!), fully sealed nature, and reliably crisp shifting with well-though-out stops between gears. Part of my skepticism comes from the Pinion being a black box that you must trust to work while you’re out on tour. If something goes wrong, improbable as it may be, you’re probably going to have a hard time finding someone to fix it. In reality, based on everything I’ve seen and heard from riders with much more time on theirs, you’re likely to get many tens of thousands of carefree miles out of any Pinion. Still, I’ve never once struggled to fix or get help with a derailleur when issues have popped up while riding, no matter how far off the grid I found myself.

More concretely, my main complaints about the Pinion are the system’s somewhat mushy feel, the added weight of the gearbox (and the beefed-up frame to accompany it), and the fact that you can’t shift under load. These are not insignificant gripes, but again, they come with a lot of upside if you favor reliability. Between the gearbox, hub, and belt, I found the engagement a little long and unpredictable. It ends up feeling like there’s a lot of play in the system, and I especially didn’t enjoy this on rough climbs, where I missed the snappier feeling of a high-engagement hub and external gears. To account for the Pinion gearbox, the frame is inherently very stiff and burly, which I found dulled the ride quality. The inability to shift under load is a classic beginner’s gripe that admittedly doesn’t take long to adapt to, but it’s an idiosyncrasy that can be a little jarring when switching between bikes with and without a Pinion.

Complaints aside, over the course of the week, both Josh and I warmed to the Pinion system as we grew more comfortable with it. I’ll never like grip shifters, but comparing the Pinion to a Rohloff, I find a few compelling reasons to choose the former. Having the gearbox in the center of the frame instead of hanging off the back is a big plus, and the Pinion feels more refined than the more (charmingly) industrial Rohloff. I’d still take a derailleur over either for my next trip, but the Pinion is technically outstanding and ideally suited to the Outback Xplore II.

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Loaded up with a Gramm Handlebar Roll stolen off a Bespoked show bike, a hodgepodge of other bags I had lying around the closet of my old apartment in Berlin, and a beautiful custom full-frame bag from Wit Slingers in Leipzig, my Outback Xplore II proved to be supremely capable all over the Vosges’ abundantly mixed terrain. Rolling on 27.5 x 2.8″ WTB Ranger tires and with more than enough range, I never questioned whether I could ride up or down anything. Josh was happy on his 29 x 2.35″ Vittoria Mezcals, too. In the case of the Outback, both wheel sizes seem right at home.

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Knowing we could count on the bikes, we had a lot of fun out there, charging through puddles and riding trails well into the night on several occasions. I found the Outback to be more in its element once packed with bags, rather than on our handful of unloaded rides, where I’d have preferred a faster or more lively bike. As I see it, the Outback Xplore II is a purpose-built tool for the job, and that job is hauling loaded riders anywhere.

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Though our testing period was short, it was a crash course in the varied conditions, terrain types, and diverse surfaces one might expect to encounter on a much longer trip. Arriving safely at Tout Terrain HQ without a single issue to report, the only logical conclusion I can make is that they designed a damn good bike for riders who want to pedal off into unknown territory without the slightest concern about whether their equipment is up to the task. I don’t doubt that most all the Outbacks sold today will still be out eating up trails around the world in 10 or 20 years and beyond.

The Builds

Tout Terrain specs their bikes with sensible, understated compoents befitting of their intended use. I appreciate this eye toward practicality and budget-mindedness when considering the already high cost of a high-quality steel frame, carbon fork, and Pinion system. Tout Terrain’s bikes aren’t cheap, to be sure, but I think they offer a plenty reasonable and competent buid kit for buyers who want a readymade bike.

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The company offers a complete chain or belt options in the European market and a single belt-drive build in North America. Beyond the obvious belts, Pinions, and carbon forks, our no-nonsense builds featured Tout Terrain-branded bars, hubs, stems, seaposts, and grips; Magura brakes, WTB KOM tough i30 rims; and Cane Creek 40 headsets. We both swapped out saddles and pedals from stock. Josh added his Fabric Line Elite saddle and Shimano XT SPD pedals, and I installed my Brooks Cambium C17 and a pair of SQlab 511 SPD pedals I had lying around.

While I wouldn’t call them dream builds, a no-frills parts spec of reliable but unfancy components makes a great deal of sense for a real expedition bike. Never once did I miss a hand-machined stem or anodized brake levers on my ride, and Tout Terrain offers some optional upgrades where they matter most.

Packing Lists

Anticipating a lot of climbing and knowing the weather was still reasonably warm, we’d be sleeping in shelters every night, and would have regular resupply opportunities, Josh and I both packed fairly light for the trip.

Josh’s Packing List

Josh’s gear highlight was his new Tailfin Bar Bag, which swallowed his minimal cook kit, too much food, and extra clothes. It also easily squeezed in an armful of pastries in the useful stretch pockets when needed. He was looking to running a custom Merit full-frame bag in the sizable main triangle, but sadly, it got lost in the mail in the lead-up to our departure. Luckily, his large Outer Shell Half Frame Bag fit almost perfectly. And, thanks to the Hulsroy side-loading bottle cages in the low mounts, he was still able to fit large water bottles. The waterproof Ortlieb Seat-Pack QR in the rear was set-and-forget like the front and kept his sleep kit dry in the damp conditions.

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Wearing

Tailfin Bar Bag (Flat Bar, Large)

Tailfin Top Tube Bag (Large)

Outer Shell Stem Caddies

Outer Shell Half Frame Bag (Large)

Ortlieb Seat-Pack QR

My Packing List

For my part, I tried to pack as light as possible when flying over from the United States, and I gambled on still having a handful of items still in my old place in Berlin. This inevitably led to some last-minute scrambling to get bags and gear together, but thanks to a little resourcefulness and some friends who were willing to loan out gear, I’m quite happy with how my bike came together for the ride. I had more than enough space in my bags for fresh produce and shameful amounts of French pastries, and I never wore a couple of the cold-weather layers I packed just in case. Traveling with Josh is always easy, and we were able to share gear and divide up who’d carry what with barely a word spoken.

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Gramm Handlebar Roll

Revelate Top Tube Bag

Outer Shell Stem Bag (left)

• Water bottle (other under downtube)

Porcelain Rocket Mini Slinger (right)

• Fuji X-T3 with XF 27mm f/2.8 lens

Ortlieb Fork-Packs

Wit Slingers Frame Bag

Revelate Designs Seat Pack

Outback Pricing and Availability

In the European market, pricing for a complete Outback Xplore II starts at €4,490 for a chain-driven X.Over Pure build and €4,690 for a belt-driven X.Over Plus build. There’s a single build available on the North American site, which costs $5,500 and is only available in orange (as pictured here) with 29-inch wheels. However, buyers in North America can use the configurator on the international site to choose their desired build specs and color, then send send their configuration number to sales@tout-terrain.bike.

In Europe, buyers can choose from a few stock colors or choose any RAL color for an added fee. The German site also lets buyers choose between the 29-inch and 27.5-inch versions. Frames (with Pinion gearboxes) are also available in both markets, including the option to upgrade to a C1.18 via the German site. The price for a frame and C1.12 gearbox (but no fork) is $2,960 in the US and €2,490 in Europe. In essence, you can purchase the same products on both sites, but there’s an additional step for buyers in North America, at least for the time being.

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• Model/Size Tested: 27.5″ XL / 29″ Large
• Weight: 12.5 kilograms+ (27.5 pounds+)
• Place of Manufacture: Taiwan
• Price: €4,490+ (EU) / $5,500+ (North America)
• Manufacturer’s Details: Tout-Terrain.bike and Tout-Terrain.de

Further Reading

Make sure to dig into these related articles for more info...