Giant Reign E+ 1
NUKEPROOF MEGAWATT 297 FACTORY
The Reign E+ 1 has 160mm of twinlink ‘Maestro’ suspension, a ‘mullet’ wheel set-up and long, low and slack geometry. It’s fitted with a Giant/ Yamaha co-developed SyncDrive Pro motor touting 85Nm of max torque. We struggled to get more than 1,700m of ascending from the 625Wh battery on a single charge, even in the lowest support mode. But it feels like it has more power than Shimano’s EP8, sitting close to Bosch’s Performance Line CX drive unit in terms of grunt.
This is amplified when setting off; the Yamaha motor is keen to get going, causing wheelspin if you’re not careful. You can feel the motor surging and engaging as it senses rider inputs. This sensitivity means it’s quick to react, but makes its assistance very binary (on/off), detracting from the ride and making controlling the bike tricky.
The Giant’s steep 77-degree seat tube angle dominates its uphill feel, positioning your hips over the BB and distributing your weight evenly between the wheels, which helps with generating traction. Over small bumps, the suspension is fluttery, but doesn’t have the ‘bottomless’ feel of some bikes. With 100 per cent or lower antisquat at sag in all gear ratios, there’s no perceptible kickback when pedalling, but the rear wheel can get hung up on bumps, especially as the bike gets deeper into its travel.
On the downs, the Reign E+ is a rocket ship, and feels incredibly direct and taut. Hard, quick rider inputs translate to decisive changes in direction. Its stiffness and weight help it hold lines well, too, although it requires a confident, powerful rider, as one wrong weight shift can cause it to shoot off-line just as quickly. In bumpy terrain, it feels overly harsh, the wheels’ spokes twanging and pinging on every hit. The deep-profile rims and wheel build clearly accentuate its direct ride.
We hoped the Giant would be a top performer on the type of fast downhill terrain its slack 63.7-degree head angle and low 329mm BB height are designed for, but muscling it down the trail proved tricky, especially when cruising, and it was unforgiving and fatiguing to ride hard all the time. At full speed it’s devilishly quick and super-responsive to deliberate inputs, but the commitment required to get it to ride well isn’t equal to the reward, with softer-feeling, more forgiving bikes achieving the same speeds with less rider involvement.
If you’re a heavier, faster or more committed rider, we’re sure you’ll get a lot from the Reign E+, but for lighter or less experienced folk it’s just too much bike to manhandle around.
Exhilarating to ride at full chat, but its stiffness, weight and long chassis otherwise make it tricky to tame
Saracen’s only e-MTB, the Ariel 50E is aimed squarely at all-mountain and enduro riding. Its straight 6013 alloy tubes give it a more slender look than other e-bikes. Our large test bike has 29in wheels front and back, while the small and medium sizes get the ‘mullet’ treatment. A convertible suspension linkage means either wheel combo can be run on any size.
It’s fitted with Shimano’s EP8 motor, with 85Nm of max torque, and powered by a 504Wh-capacity Shimano battery – the smallest in this year’s test. While it’s possible to crack 1,000m of elevation gain on a single charge in ‘eco’ mode, if you use the higher settings, you need to take care to not prematurely run dry.
The rear suspension is progressive through its travel, making it well-suited to a coil shock – here, a Fox DHX2 Factory. This helps the back end flutter over small and mid-sized bumps with a super-responsive feeling, improving climbing and descending traction, and seated comfort, too. It’s a fun bike to blast around worn-out trail centre loops, with the rear suspension doing a large portion of the heavy lifting, in terms of smoothing out the trail.
While the dual-compound Maxxis tyres dig into soft mud well and roll quickly on hardpack surfaces, they struggle to find grip on slick rocks or roots. The relatively lightweight EXO casings also mean you have to run higher pressures to achieve decent carcass stability, which contributes to some pinginess on rough trails – a trait easily solved with heavier-duty rubber. We punctured the rear tyre multiple times, eventually replacing it with a 3C MaxxGrip-compound, DoubleDown-casing version.
At 24.03kg, the Ariel 50E Elite’s relatively light weight (for a full-fat e-bike) helps make it easier to change direction quickly than its 1,304mm wheelbase and long 465mm chainstays would suggest. This is aided by the 65-degree head angle – although this causes issues downhill, where the front end is surprisingly easy to overload in sharp, steep, on-the-brakes turns or when heading off large, slow drops to flat. Despite the long reach figure encouraging a forward-biased riding position and the Fox 38 Factory fork providing plenty of support, we ended up compensating for the relatively steep head angle by leaning off the back of the bike.
As much fun as the Saracen is to ride on flatter tracks, its steep head angle, unsuitable tyre casings and compounds, and limited range are a compromise too far for us.
Smooth and enjoyable on less steep trails, but let down by its head angle, tyres and battery capacity
The Core 4 MX tops out YT’s Decoy enduro e-bike range. Like the Saracen, it uses Shimano’s EP8 motor, with 85Nm of max torque. But here it’s powered by a custom-made battery with a slightly higher 540Wh capacity. The frame is designed around a ‘mullet’ wheel set-up and a four-bar back end that delivers 165mm of rearwheel travel. It’s made from carbon fibre, with neat details including inbuilt chain-slap protection, full-length internal cable routing and an integrated headset with steering angle limiters to prevent damage to the fork crown or down tube. A custom 600ml bottle fits under the rear shock.
You get a great spec, including a Factory-series Fox 38 fork and Float X2 shock, Shimano XT drivetrain and e-specific Crankbrothers Synthesis alloy rims on Industry Nine hubs, wrapped in Maxxis rubber. However, we found the EXO+-casing tyres to lack the carcass support or puncture protection needed with the extra weight of an e-bike (here, 23.09kg).
The slack-feeling 75.5-degree seat tube angle and long top tube, combined with a 50mm stem, give an aggressively stretched riding position, making the Decoy most at home when pushing harder on climbs or flat sections, where you instinctively want to lower your chest towards the handlebar. When seated, your feet feel quite a long way in front of your hips, giving the impression of being quite far back over the rear wheel. On one hand, this makes grip easy to access, but it also causes the front wheel to lift on steeper ascents, where we ended up running the saddle lower than usual to steepen the effective seat tube angle.
In the ‘low’ geometry setting, downhill performance is dominated by the Decoy MX’s playful ride feel and poppy suspension. Although some of its geometry figures – such as the 64.5-degree head angle and 469mm reach (large) – look conservative on paper, the bike works well as a full package. Its hand-to-feet relationship and supportive suspension (with 32.25 per cent progression) are a perfect match, allowing you to confidently flick and throw the YT across the trail and into corners. It’s a seriously fun bike.
This natural-feeling and highly intuitive ride makes it easy to hop onto the Decoy and feel right at home, but its conservative geometry does limit its potential for outright speed. On some bikes, you can simply go up a frame size for more reach, but the YT’s long seat tube (470mm, large) means that won’t be an option for many. It’s a bike that suits riders with longer legs.
A poppy and playful ride that offers addictive fun, at the expense of outright speed and stability
The aluminium Ransom eRide uses a vertically-mounted Fox Float X2 Performance shock to deliver a massive 180mm of rear-wheel travel. Unusually, Scott have orientated the shock so that its trunnion mount attaches to the frame rather than the rocker link. This means the bearings that decrease friction and improve longevity aren’t used to full advantage.
Uphill, the Ransom eRide puts you in a comfortably neutral position, thanks to its fairly steep 76.1-degree seat tube angle (‘low’ setting) and long top tube. Weight is evenly distributed between the wheels, with the lengthy 465mm chainstays accentuating this feeling of sitting in the middle of the bike. When seated, the BB feels like it’s under your hips, improving comfort and pedalling efficiency.
The Scott’s supple long-travel suspension keeps the back wheel in contact with the ground over the choppiest terrain, and remains impressively active when pedalling. But the back tyre – a speed-focused, 3C MaxxGrip-compound Maxxis Dissector – is easy to wheelspin on soft terrain, where its tread pattern doesn’t dig in. Its high-volume (2.6in) EXO+ casing doesn’t damp impacts well, either, further decreasing grip over rough ground. The extra air pressure required to avoid punctures and help the tyres retain their shape and support in high-load corners or compressions contributes to a rawfeeling ride, where impacts with rocks and roots reverberate through the chassis. You have to rely heavily on the front tyre for braking, too, due to the lack of rear traction, which upsets the bike’s balance,
Despite this, the Ransom eRide has an impressively poppy and lively ride, with changes of direction being both easy and intuitive. This agility defies its headline travel figure, making it feel like a lighter-weight trail bike, not a long-travel monster. The hand-to-feet relationship is easy to get along with, so reasonable pace comes effortlessly.
The Bosch Performance Line CX motor is massively powerful, especially in its ‘eMTB’ and ‘Turbo’ modes, but we struggled to hit 1,200m of ascending on a single charge of its 625Wh battery. Also, the positioning of the motor and battery makes the Ransom a tall bike, with a 790mm standover height and 470mm seat tube. This won’t be a problem for people with longer legs, but shorter riders wanting a longer reach are unlikely to fit on the next size up.
AFTER WEEKS OF TESTING, THREE BIKES WERE LEFT IN THE RACE TO BE CROWNED...
Fun and intuitive to ride, but not quite as calm or controlled-feeling as its travel and spec would have you believe
WE RAMPED UP THE INTENSITY, HEADING OUT IN ALL CONDITIONS – FROM SNOW TO BOG-WET AND EVEN OCCASIONAL WINTER SUNSHINE
With the pressure on to find a worthy winner of our inaugural E-bike of the Year test, we ramped up the intensity of our testing, heading out in all conditions – from snow and freezing cold through to bog-wet and even occasional winter sunshine – and riding the widest variety of terrain allowed by each bike’s battery capacity, to shine a light on the true performers. Most of the riding was done in Scotland’s Tweed Valley, home to the UK’s Enduro World Series (EWS) round and the famous Glentress trail centre, between them providing the kind of mix of trails any good e-MTB should be able to handle. Deciding on a final winner was a bit of a headache, and the top spot flip-flopped between two of these three bikes more often than we checked our tyre and shock pressures. As usual, picking a champion came down to the wire, but the more we rode the winning bike, the more comfortable we were with our choice.
Packing a punch
It’s no coincidence that our three favourite bikes – the Nukeproof Megawatt 297 Factory, Whyte E-180 RS and Mondraker Level R – all have 170mm or more of progressive suspension travel front and rear. Out back, Nukeproof and Whyte both go the four-bar Horst-link route, as with many other brands in this test. The Megawatt’s ‘V4’ layout, with down-tube-mounted shock and top tube swinglink, is also used on the race-winning Mega enduro bike, while Whyte claim their design, where the shock attaches to
the top tube and is driven by a rocker, is “slam happy” and ready to take on the gnarliest trails. Mondraker stick with their proven ‘Zero’ system, where a ‘floating’ shock is compressed by twin short links.
The start of each bike’s travel is soft and fluttery, to help with traction and comfort. Support ramps up in the mid-stroke, to provide stability in turns and compressions, and there’s plenty of bottom-out resistance, too, to reduce harshness on flat landings or meaty impacts. Suspension progressiveness does vary between the three, though. The Level’s 170mm of rear-wheel travel is the least progressive, at 18.67 per cent, followed by the 170mm Megawatt, at 21.68 per cent, and the 180mm E-180, at 27.69 per cent.
In terms of geometry, there’s a recurring ‘long, slack and low’ theme. We tested the large size of each bike. The Nukeproof’s 475mm reach is the shortest, followed by the Whyte’s 480mm, but beaten by the Mondraker’s 490mm. It’s the mullet-wheeled Megawatt that has the most compact chainstay and wheelbase figures, too, at 442mm and 1,264mm, respectively. Again, the 650b-wheeled E-180 sits in the middle, at 444mm and 1,270mm, while the Level 29er is the longest bike on test, measuring 455mm and 1,290mm. BB heights vary hugely, from a low 328mm on the Whyte to a middling 349mm on the Nukeproof and a relatively high 357mm on the Mondraker.
When it comes to the angles, though, it’s the Megawatt that leads the way, with a seriously steep 78-degree seat tube angle. That compares to 76.5 degrees on the Level and 75.3 degrees on the E-180. The Nukeproof shares its 64-degree head angle with the Whyte, in the ‘high’ position at least; switch the E-180’s ‘Shape.it link’ to the ‘low’ setting and its head tube slackens to 63 degrees. Mondraker opt for a steeper 65-degree head angle.
To keep costs down, all three bikes have aluminium rather than carbon fibre frames. These still show plenty of attention to detail, though, from integrated chain-slap protection to accessory mounts on the underside of the top tube (on the Level and Megawatt) and down tube bottle mounts (on the E-180 and Megawatt). Each bike
An impressive performer in gnarly terrain, the Mondraker’s weight and reduced battery life limit its all-round performance
has internally-routed cables, although the Nukeproof’s are directed through the headset rather than ports on the side of the frame.
Full power!
Bosch’s Performance Line CX motor with 85Nm of max torque is fitted to both the Whyte and Mondraker. The Level’s full-colour Kiox 300 display has Bosch Smart System functionality and smartphone connectivity that the E-180’s more basic Purion controller lacks. It also has a larger-capacity battery – 750Wh, compared to the Whyte’s 625Wh. Both Bosch systems have the impressive auto-adjusting ‘eMTB mode’, but only the Mondraker has the additional ‘Tour+ setting’, a lower-powered option for off-road riding. The Nukeproof uses Shimano’s STEPS EP8 motor instead, which has the same 85Nm of max torque, along with Bluetooth smartphone connectivity as standard via the colour display. Its has a 630Wh battery, stored, as on the Bosch-equipped bikes, within its chunky down tube. The Shimano drive unit has three basic modes, versus the Bosch system’s four or five, but you can adjust the power output in each setting using the phone app.
In terms of spec, there’s little to differentiate the bikes. Each has a Fox 38 fork, with the Megawatt and E-180 getting the top-spec GRIP2 Factory version, while the Level has a bottom-tier Performance unit with the less adjustable GRIP damper. The Nukeproof and Whyte use the same
SUPPORT RAMPS UP IN THE MID-STROKE, TO PROVIDE STABILITY IN TURNS AND COMPRESSIONS, AND THERE’S PLENTY OF BOTTOM-OUT RESISTANCE
Fox Float X2 Factory air shock, while the Mondraker has a coil-sprung Fox DHX2 Performance Elite damper. SRAM’s GX Eagle takes care of drivetrain duties on the Level while the E-180 gets the posher X01 Eagle and the Megawatt is decked out with Shimano XT. It’s the same story for the brakes – the Nukeproof has four-piston XT M8120 stoppers with 200mm rotors front and back, while the Whyte and Mondraker are fitted with SRAM Code RSCs and Rs, respectively, with a 220mm front disc and 200mm rear. The similarities don’t stop there. All three are fitted with a Maxxis Assegai 3C MaxxGrip tyre up front, with the Level getting a DH casing, the Megawatt a DoubleDown carcass and the E-180 an EXO+. The Mondraker and Whyte also have an Assegai out back, while the Nukeproof has a Maxxis High Roller II. Each bike’s rubber is truly sorted, then.
Super-chargers
With immense and addictive power, the Bosch motor fitted to the Mondraker and Whyte makes climbing a fast and exhilarating affair. Thanks to its clever assistance-mapping, it’s easy to control wheelspin on steep technical gradients, backed up by the Assegai’s immense traction on the rear. In its top ‘boost’ setting, the Nukeproof’s Shimano drive unit can be more on/off in its output, so hard starts on steep gradients aren’t as straightforward, although the High Roller II rubber helps eke out maximum traction. The Bosch system’s power comes at a price, however, with the Level’s bigger 750Wh battery and the E-180’s 625Wh cells depleting more quickly on the same terrain and in equivalent modes than the Megawatt’s more frugal Shimano motor and 630Wh power pack. For us, getting more range from a full charge outweighs outright power, so we’d prefer to take the Nukeproof out for a long day in hills than the Bosch-powered bikes. Your needs may differ.
The Megawatt’s steep seat tube angle puts your hips over the BB rather than behind it, improving pedalling efficiency and enhancing comfort and bike control. On the Level, the ride position is further enhanced by the long wheelbase and top tube, making you feel truly centralised and spreading your weight more evenly between the wheels. Being picky, the E-180 could do with a steeper seat tube; we had to tilt the nose of the saddle down and push it forward in the seatpost clamp to centralise our hips.
Thanks to good sprung-to-unsprung weight ratios (the mass of the swingarm, rear wheel and drivetrain is much lower than that of the mainframe, motor and battery), all three of our bikes have fluttery, traction-rich rear ends. The initial part of the Mondraker’s travel is impressive, absorbing plenty of trail chatter. However, the Spanish brand’s engineers have built in plenty of anti-squat (higher than 100 per cent), to combat pedal bob, and this makes it feel choked and less eager to absorb medium and larger hits when pedalling. The Whyte and Nukeproof are smooth at the start of their strokes, too. Their progressive suspension stops them from eating too far into their travel through medium-sized compressions, and also prevents
The Whyte delivers a speedfocused ride with supportive, sorted suspension and Goldilocks geometry
their seat tube angles from slackening excessively as the suspension compresses on steep inclines. Unlike the Mondraker, however, neither of these bikes choke up as the terrain gets chunkier, edging them ahead slightly in terms of feel and performance.
Serious speed
You’d be forgiven for thinking e-bikes can’t be fun and playful, given their meaty weight figures. The Megawatt defies that perception, however, with a seriously impressive combination of geometry, suspension and spec that blends stability with an insatiable appetite to bound across the trail – but only if directed to do so. This eagerness to please makes cornering intuitive, helped by the low centre of gravity and generous stack height (the vertical distance from the centre of the BB to the centre-top of the head tube), which makes loading the front wheel confidenceinspiring rather than perilous. The relationship between hands and feet makes you feel truly ‘in the bike’, too, sitting you behind, rather than on top of, the bar.
In contrast, Whyte’s designers have focused on speed, and providing the most stability possible. With the E-180 in its ‘low’ geometry setting, we found its 25.78kg weight a bit too much to handle; unless we were riding at 100 per cent, the bike tended to run away from us. Switching to the ‘high’ position made it easier to control as speeds increased, and once we’d found the sweet spot, the mix of agility and composure – with a bias towards more stable handling –
THE MEGAWATT DEFIES THE PERCEPTION THAT E-BIKES CAN’T BE FUN AND PLAYFUL, WITH AN IMPRESSIVE COMBINATION OF GEOMETRY, SUSPENSION AND SPEC
was addictive. The Whyte’s weight helps keep its chassis planted, while its long-travel, supportive and massively supple suspension works overtime to iron out chatter, but also provides plenty of support to push against in turns or through compressions. It has an element of softness to its ride, too. Banging through rough terrain isn’t a toothrattlingly harsh experience. Instead, the E-180 feels smooth and muted, with bumps perceptible but not creating fatigue. Grip is rich through corners, making hammering around turns seriously exhilarating.
At 27.27kg, the Mondraker is even heavier. Combined with its long wheelbase and reach figures, this means it feels well-behaved and calm on steeper or faster terrain, where we had to do less work to keep it level and stay in control. Its short stem and relatively steep head angle help keep the steering quick and sharp, but, when combined with its weight, don’t result in any twitchiness. The Level’s rear end gobbles up most small bumps, and provides plenty of mid-stroke support and bottom-out resistance, too, even though it’s the least progressive bike here. However, even fitted with a coil shock, the high anti-squat values cause it to feel harsh in certain scenarios. With the chain under tension, the rear wheel doesn’t move out of the way easily enough over roots and rocks, which, after 60km of riding, caused several spokes to loosen. This, added to its immense weight and reduced battery life, makes the Mondraker less of a generalist than the Whyte and Nukeproof, with a real focus on high-speed descending performance rather than all-mountain capability.
Exceptional performance across a broad range of terrain makes the Megawatt one of the best e-bikes currently available
The Mondraker Level R is a great bike, but its more speed-focused handling, high weight and slightly unforgiving suspension, along with its shorter battery range, meant the chase for the E-BOTY title ended up being a two-horse race. While the Whyte E-180 RS is more playful-feeling and intuitive to ride than the Mondraker, it lags behind the Nukeproof Megawatt 297 Factory in these areas, with the Nukeproof delivering both without sacrificing any stability or outright speed. This makes the Megawatt a bike that’s easy to jump on and ride fast, and engaging to move across the trail. Thanks to its fluttery suspension, it can stick technical, high-speed lines all day long, and its relatively low weight means it’s also a blast to ride around trail centres or on all-day epics. The Whyte is the best bike here for charging downhill, but not as much of a generalist as the Nukeproof. Its price also rose by £450 during our test period, making the Megawatt look like even better value for money. The Nukeproof totally defies its weight and travel until you need the extra stability they provide, in which case you can rely on it to pull you through chunky terrain without drama. Its magical mix of qualities makes it a truly worthy winner.
THE NUKEPROOF TOTALLY DEFIES ITS WEIGHT AND TRAVEL, UNTIL YOU NEED THE EXTRA STABILITY THEY PROVIDE