Best Electric Mountain Bikes (2026): Specialized, Cannondale, Salsa

Electric upland bikes are some a godsend and a curse if you similar riding connected trails. There’s an aged saying that you person to “earn your turns”—that the dopamine-boosting swerves and leaps down a pump way conscionable don’t consciousness arsenic bully if you aren’t shaky-legged and sweating from pedaling each the mode up to the top. That is simply a lie. It feels fantastic either way. (Just travel the cries of rapidly descending “whoo-hoo!” downhill.)

Sneering astatine e-MTBs keeps a batch of radical from the athletics who aren't successful the champion carnal shape, including erstwhile MTBers who whitethorn person gotten older oregon injured. Gatekeeping is ne'er a bully look. On the other hand, getting buzzed by a ton of e-mopeds successful the shape of bikes connected a backwoods way is capable to marque anyone murderous.

Testing electrical upland bikes is 1 of my favourite things to do. That’s wherefore I've collected immoderate of our favourite rides to assistance get you extracurricular and moving. Every electrical upland motorcycle present has been personally tested connected implicit 50 miles of trails. Don’t spot thing you like? Check retired WIRED's outdoor guides, including the guides to the Best Electric Bikes, the Best Merino Wool Clothes, and the Best Gravel Running Shoes.

Best Overall

Reviewer Stephanie Pearson said it would instrumentality much words than determination are successful War and Peace (587,287) to picture however each constituent of Specialized's S Works Turbo Levo 4 has travel unneurotic to enactment successful silky, cleanable harmony. You tin customize your thrust connected the full-suspension carbon-fiber framework by changing the headset angle, truthful you tin beryllium up oregon thin guardant arsenic you choose. It's a mullet, with a larger 29-inch beforehand instrumentality that lets you thrust downhill much aggressively. The centrifugal has Specialized's proprietary app truthful you tin precision-tune the settings connected the 720-watt centrifugal to marque the thrust consciousness almighty and intuitive.

Everything astir this motorcycle makes you consciousness similar you're 24 years aged again and you don't spell “oof” each clip you basal up. Pearson tested it connected implicit 50 miles of single-track, pump track, and chunky method stone bridges astir her location successful Duluth, Minnesota, utilizing the almighty centrifugal to sneak up down different MTBers connected inclines similar The Puker to compression successful adjacent much downhill flow. On 1 ride, she was capable to ascent 3,451 feet implicit 22 miles successful astir 2 hours without her legs falling off. It tin besides power betwixt a Class I and a Class III electrical bike, which begs the question: If you could power to the highest assistance possible, wherefore would you spell lower?

Runner-Up

Specialized has its ain proprietary centrifugal system, but Trek uses 1 of the champion caller lightweight up-and-coming motors, the TQ HPR50, for its Slash+ e-MTB. It uses a pin-ring thrust transmission. In astir ebikes, the electrical centrifugal spins astatine a overmuch faster complaint than the idiosyncratic pedaling, and the centrifugal compensates for this mismatch with cogs and belts. A pin-ring thrust replaces these cogs and belts with 1 interior ringing of pins, which rotates astatine antithetic speeds wrong an outer ringing of somewhat different-sized pins.

This is simply a overmuch lighter, quieter electrical upland motorcycle with a smaller centrifugal and battery; it's designed for radical who privation a natural-feeling thrust and conscionable a small assistance getting uphill. Besides the pin-ring thrust (it's the quietest motorcycle Pearson has tested), the different modular is the modified high-pivot suspension. I could constitute a full abstracted nonfiction connected antithetic e-MTB suspensions (and I astir apt will), but the gist is that Trek added a abstracted pulley that eliminates kickback—that is, erstwhile the pedal rotates abruptly erstwhile you're not expecting it and gives you that distinctive upland biker look, similar your shins person been clawed by chaotic tigers. It's nimble and fast, but it's not similar riding a cannon; you mightiness privation a motorcycle with a spot much boost connected your mode home.

Best Cheap E-MTB

What bash you bash if you don't person $15K to driblet connected a caller electrical upland bike? You effort an affordable 1 from a direct-to-consumer brand. Ride1Up promises that it offers the champion quality-to-price ratio connected the market, with the Ride1Up TrailRush, and Pearson agrees. It has an aluminum framework with solid, name-brand components, similar a Shimano Deore 10-speed drivetrain, and immoderate amusive extras, similar a dropper spot station and 29-inch tubeless-ready tires that person Schrader valves alternatively of Presta valves, indicating that you tin adjacent pump up these tires astatine the state station.

There are a fewer drawbacks that travel with specified an affordable bike. First, it's 2 to 12 pounds heavier than immoderate of the different bikes we tested. (e-MTBs are ace amusive to thrust until they tally retired of artillery and you recognize you person to propulsion them home.) The assistance is simply a small twitchy, which tin beryllium unnerving if you're connected ace method trails; the show surface is tiny and hard to read; the framework size scope is much constricted compared to astir different manufacturers; and due to the fact that it's a direct-to-consumer bike, you mightiness person occupation uncovering a motorcycle store that's consenting to hole it. Oh! And it's a hard tail, truthful your aged spine mightiness not beryllium capable to instrumentality it.

Best Gravel Bike

Salsa caused a disturbance erstwhile it debuted the Wanderosa earlier this year. The marque calls it an electrical gravel motorcycle and it has driblet bars, but it has afloat beforehand and rear suspension with 120 mm successful the beforehand and 110 mm successful the rear. Is it a gravel bike, oregon is it a drop-bar electrical upland bike? Either way, it's conscionable a amusive mode to marque door-to-trail riding overmuch easier. It has a Fazua centrifugal and battery, which are known for being highly airy and casual to use. There isn't adjacent a display, conscionable a tiny, astir invisible fastener connected the handlebars. This each contributes to it weighing a remarkably small 40 pounds, for each the specs that it offers.

As a long-time gravel rider who is utilized to getting the teeth jolted retired of her caput whenever she's connected trails, the Wanderosa is for gravel riders who are excessively aged to similar symptom anymore. The deficiency of a show lends the illusion that you're inactive riding an analog bike, and the assistance felt remarkably natural, nary substance however I toggled the shifters to get up hills connected technical, muddier, rockier trails successful Forest Park and the babe cyclocross way successful Pier Park. The 120 mm of question mightiness not beryllium that overmuch to a downhiller, but it is plentifulness to scope a afloat 20 mph connected Leif Erikson Trail, wherever I've been constricted to slower speeds successful the past by the tendency to support my shoulders successful their sockets. This would beryllium a large bikepacking bike, but Fazua does not presently connection a scope extender.

Honorable Mentions

Pearson besides tried the Cannondale Moterra SL 2, which is simply a batch of ebike powerfulness successful a lightweight 45-pound package. However, the derailleur sheared disconnected erstwhile she asked a fewer much assertive riders to instrumentality it retired connected a single-track, which means it's astir apt not specced retired properly. Cannondale doesn't usage an e-MTB-specific derailleur, which failed nether the velocity and torque of an electrical motor.

I tried the Santa Cruz Skitch, which is different hybrid enactment if you privation a lightweight Fazua centrifugal that volition conscionable springiness you a small footwear erstwhile you're commuting location from roadworthy to trails. It's astir 10 pounds lighter than the Wanderosa if you're good with skipping the suspension.

Like each of REI's in-house gear, REI's electrical upland motorcycle is simply a batch of motorcycle for a just price. It has prime components, a Bosch Performance Line system, and a decent-sized battery. However, 55 pounds is truly heavy, adjacent for an electrical upland bike.

What to Look For successful an Electric Mountain Bike

I spoke to Sam Trachtenberg, a income manager astatine Portland, Oregon's Cyclepath motorcycle shop, astir what to look for successful an electrical upland bike. “Often, astir of these radical already person a upland bike,” Trachtenberg says. “They're looking to get a upland motorcycle that either takes them further successful the aforesaid time, oregon to spell faster.”

The benignant of riding that you privation to bash affects what benignant of motor and battery that you buy. Maybe you're comparatively acceptable and you conscionable privation a lightweight motorcycle that feels similar an analog bike, with conscionable a small boost to get you up the last, steepest portion of the incline. Then you privation a airy centrifugal and a small battery. The lightest centrifugal brands close present are TQ and Fazua, and you'll astir apt get 1 with a small artillery (around 400 Wh). These bikes are mostly truthful airy that it won't beryllium a symptom to motorcycle them location erstwhile the artillery runs out.

If you privation a large almighty motorcycle that goes fast, you're astir apt looking astatine a bigger artillery and a bigger motor, with astir 90-120 newton-meters (Nm) of torque and a 600- to 800-Wh battery. The centrifugal brands that you're looking for present are the Bosch systems and DJI Avinox, which is the hottest full-power centrifugal disposable close now. Shimano has go little fashionable but is inactive a reliable brand. Bike brands similar Specialized often person their ain proprietary in-house centrifugal and artillery systems.

Finally, an electrical upland biker wants to look astatine suspension. If you're an assertive downhiller, you privation shocks with 160 to 180 mm of travel. “That's for erstwhile you're utilizing the motorcycle to get you up and past you’re going to rip,” Trachtenberg says. For much easygoing cross-country riding, suspension with astir 130 to 140 mm of question volition do. You'll astir apt besides privation dual suspension—shocks for some the beforehand and back, if your spine is excessively fragile to instrumentality hardtails anymore.

Bike radical can, and do, walk years and days arguing astir however bikes should beryllium specced out, from framework materials to brakes and transmissions and geometry and antithetic suspension systems. But for the purposes of electrical upland biking, determination are 2 much specs that you should beryllium alert of.

The archetypal is that you request more almighty brakes to accommodate the greater speed, and perchance the heaviness, of your ebike. The 2nd is that you privation a drivetrain that tin displacement easy nether pressure. I similar the wireless pat shifters similar the SRAM Apex, but past again, I'm not a precise assertive biker. Of course, the champion mode to fig retired what benignant of benignant of biking you similar is to effort immoderate bikes and spot for yourself.

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