E-bikes weigh more than unassisted bikes. You can’t get around that. If you’re adding a motor and battery, you’re unavoidably tacking on a few kilograms. The new Scott Lumen’s clamed weight of 15.5kg is therefore pretty eye-catching for an e-MTB.
Because while rear hub motors can be a little lower profile, the best e-MTBs pretty much always employ larger mid-motors as these can produce higher torque at lower speeds – which is what you need when navigating rough ground and steep climbs.
Scott say they were striving for a bike you could ride with the assistance switched off. That led them to the TQ-HPR50 e-bike system.
TQ say the motor component of their system weighs 1,850g (a smidge less than the 1.96kg of the Fazua Ride 60 system). This is combined with a 360Wh battery, a small display in the top tube and a handlebar remote. The whole system comes in at 3.9kg. Needless to say, there’s an app too.
To put all this in context, while the Swiss-made Lightrider E Ultimate is said to weigh 14.6kg, we can’t think of too many other e-MTBs that are significantly lighter than the Lumen.
It’ll cost you though. Only the top-of-the line Lumen eRide 900 SL hits this mark and it costs £14,699.
Prices start at £6,499 for the Lumen eRide 910 and Contessa Lumen eRide 900, but both of these are more like 17.6kg. Splitting the difference is the Lumen eRide 900 at 16.3kg and £9,299.
Performance is the other side of the equation of course and the TQ-HPR50 motor can provide up to 50Nm of torque. You’ll get more with bigger Bosch motors and the like, but that’s not really how this bike is being pitched.
In Scott’s own words: “This is an e-bike for a mountain biker, with all the benefits of a regular bike, now with added assistance to get you up those hills faster to enjoy riding further and for even longer.”
The 360Wh internal battery can be supplemented by a 160Wh external range extender. This is fixed to the front water bottle mount with Scott’s quick release mount, which allows you to easily switch between the external battery or a second bottle.
The system can be charged with the range extender in place and the smart charger will prioritise the bike battery’s charge first. They say you can get 80% charge in two hours.
Other than that, the Lumen uses the same well-regarded suspension layout as the Scott Spark with the ability to switch between three ride modes via the remote: descend, traction control and lockout.
