The rise of electric mountain bikes is making choosing which one is best for your riding more confusing all the time. Take the three bikes featured below. All have between 150mm and 160mm travel, and are standout bikes from a year full of eMTB releases. But all three have a significantly different feel on trail.
From geometry to parts selection, suspension set-up and motor/battery selection, the list of variables that impact how eMTB’s ride is longer than their standard bike siblings. Here’s three of our favourites, why they stand out and what kind of riding they rule the roost for.
Forbidden Druid E
The second generation of eMTB from the Vancouver Island boutique brand steps things up. What a balanced bike looks like changes when you change how you approach the climbs. And sliding Avinox’s 150Nm M2S motor and a 600Wh battery into the frame changes how you think about climbing. This bike is meant to get up any hill, fast, and revel in the route back down. To that end, Forbidden’s made the bike taller and shorter, emphasising what it calls “effective reach” over reach measured on flat ground. It’s like they took the geo chart and asked what it would look like tilted to the right, or pointed downhill, and designed the Druid E around that.
Add Forbidden’s high-pivot suspension design, mixed 27.5″/29″ wheels and high-end kit from Fox and SRAM, and the Druid E is ready to transform the wildest terrain into your playground.
Land wherever you want, the Ethos HD remain unbothered
The vibe: High tech gravity specialist
This bike is an absolute monster the minute it points downhill. The geometry tailored to eMTB it feels more alive the steeper and faster trails get. I’ve rarely felt more in control or had more fun on steep trails than on the Druid E. And, with Avinox flattening every hill, whether access road or tech trail, the Forbidden spends more of your time chomping up sweet descents than spinning up climbs.
Full Review: Forbidden Druid E Tier 2
Kona Remote 160
An eMTB for mountain bikers, Kona does everything it can to make the Remote 160 feel like the best version of a mountain bike, without denying it is electric. That means smart parts selection that balance durability and performance. Shimano Cues with wireless Di2 shifting is durable as heck, shifts effortlessly under load and works with the Bosch system to allow smart shifting, auto-shifting and gear shifts while coasting. At the same time, Ultimate-level forks and shocks from RockShox, high-tech radial casing tires from Schwalbe and long-travel dropper posts make sure the Remote 160 feels on trail like a mountain bike you really want to ride.
That approach extends to the lightweight Bosch SX motor. Kona includes a 250Wh range extender with the Remote 160, in effect allowing the bike to quickly go from 400Wh or 650Wh. While these are available for other bikes, they’re not cheap, so including one with purchase is quite different than saying it can be purchased later. This approach also allows the Remote 160 to be as light as possible on rides when you don’t need the extra weight.
Most importantly, the Remote 160 stays as close to the pedigree that made the brand’s Process line so very fun to ride.
The vibe: So light it feels like a real bike. A really good bike.
Kona’s Remote 160 is one of the more fun eMTB’s around. It’s light weight makes it easy to move around and feels incredibly balanced with ether floating through the air or carving corners. The Druid has it beat in the extreme tech, but the Remote holds its own quite comfortably and has a wider range of trails, extending well into blue flow, where it’s a blast to ride.
Cannondale Moterra 2
Cannondale Moterra 2
Cannondale’s burly Moterra is unabashedly electric. The iconic U.S. brand packs as much power and battery into the frame as it can. Cannondale does make a longer-travel Moterra LT, which frees this Moterra 2 to focus on being at home on as wide a range of trails as possible. Smooth power, balanced geometry and all the traction you could want, slowed reliably by Magura’s Louise four-piston brakes, make the Moterra as comfortable on rolling trails as it is on extended downward plunges.
Like the Kona, it taps Shimano’s Cues/XT Di2 combo to ensure durability and unlock smart shifting features. Cues is underrated for eMTB, especially since dropping to 11 speeds on the cassette is barely noticeable behind the power of Bosch’s 120Nm Performance Line CX motor. That powerhouse drive unit makes it easy to coax the Moterra 2 up the biggest climbs you can find or countless laps of your local trails.
The Vibe: Endless miles on tap
The Moterra 2 will go forever, get there fast, and have a good time along the way. With a hefty battery, it definitely feels like an eMTB. But it’s an electric mountain bike that loves to carver corners, will hold a line to deal with chunky terrain and if you work with it, is comfortable in the air. The Moterra’s strength, though, is that it will be as at home on the wide range of trails you can cover with the endless range that 800Wh battery provides.