An easygoing trail lover.

Scott’s mountain bike range is polarizing. The bikes cut sleek silhouettes with their hidden shocks, headset cable routing, and general commitment to integration. One could make valid arguments about ease-of-service and proprietary parts, but, from a distance, Scott's bikes look like they’re from the future. Counterintuitively, though, that cutting-edge aesthetic is usually combined with a bike that rides really, well, normally.

That’s certainly the case with this Voltage eRIDE. Get past the sleek carbon lines and TwinLoc system and you’ve got a bike that offers a gentle motor assist and is a real pleasure to ride a nice range of trails on. So let's dive into the tech, and more importantly the riding experience of Scott’s Voltage eRIDE 900 (and yes, I’ll just be calling it the Voltage from here on out).

Scott Voltage eRIDE 900 Tuned Details

• Travel: 155 mm (rear) 160 mm (front)
• Wheel Size: 29”
• Size Tested: Large
• Build Tested: 900
• Head Tube Angle: 63.9°
• Motor: TQ HPR 50
• Battery: 360 Wh
• Measured Weight: 42.69 lbs (19.36 kg)
• MSRP: $9,349.99

Integration at All Costs

My first truck was an '80s Toyota with the 22R engine. You could pop the hood and immediately lay hands on just about all of the important parts that made it run and drive. For a broke high school kid it was perfect. It needed a lot of work and I could do all of that work myself, with rudimentary tools.

But, when I lift the hood of a modern electric vehicle I’m met by a plastic-lined "frunk." Modern cars need less maintenance and repairs, but the flip side is that the skills and tools needed to work on them have become increasingly inaccessible to casual drivers. When it comes to cars, I’m happy to make that compromise. My days of slapping some cardboard down in the snow and crawling under the truck to replace the starter with a slightly better model that I pulled at the junkyard are over. And with the Voltage, Scott is making the same choice. 

Everything is hidden, everything is integrated. You can swap parts around and experiment, but that’s really not the point of this bike. I like to joke with friends that I view complete bikes as spreadsheets of parts, and I’m constantly analyzing which of my, or my partner’s bikes each component could be swapped onto. The Voltage is designed for exactly the opposite sort of rider. This is a bike for someone who wants a bike that does bike things, and when it needs maintenance or repairs to keep doing those things, they’ll happily take it to the shop where a trained professional can work on it. In short, this is not a bike for the majority of the bike-review-consuming internet, but it’s still very much worth talking about.

Motor and Battery

The Voltage uses the previous version of TQ’s motor system, the HPR 50. The HPR delivers 300w of peak power and 50 nM of torque. That’s paired with a 360 Wh battery.

I’ve written recently about how most mid-powered e-bikes seem to want to compete with previous-gen full-power bikes, and new full-power bikes are basically mediocre motorcycles with an inconvenient throttle location. The Voltage doesn’t fall into this trap at all. 

Remember when “just enough help to keep up with your fit friends” was the normal tagline used for marketing lighter e-bikes? The HPR 50 hits that note perfectly. It helps, sure, but you can’t just move the pedals and wait for the bike to do the work. Instead it’s a gentle addition to your own power. 

In the early days of e-bikes there was an argument that they would do wonders for accessibility, that they’d allow folks with disabilities, or out-of-shape riders, to share the experience. That argument has largely fallen by the wayside as it becomes increasingly clear that motorized bikes are expensive toys that allow privileged mountain bikers to brap around the trails without having to acquire the skills, licensing, and access that dirt bikes require. But the Voltage delivers on the promise of improved accessibility without feeling like a motorcycle in disguise.

It provides the perfect amount of boost to allow an older family member to hold a conversation as you pedal, or help someone with a disability participate in a group ride. And, unlike more powerful systems, it’s not going to get you into trouble by giving you so much torque that you’re charging blindly uphill.

Of all the e-bikes I’ve ridden, the Voltage eRIDE 900 Tuned exemplifies the best use-case for motorized mountain bikes.

Scott Voltage eRIDE 900 Tuned Geometry

Now that the unrestricted, full-power e-bike dads are steaming at the ears, let’s talk geometry. The large Voltage sports a 63.9° head tube angle, 77.1° seat tube, 485-millimeter reach, 631.3-millimeter stack, and 455-millimeter chainstays. The end result is a pretty normal, balanced feeling bike.

I think this geometry fits the “gentle assist” attitude of its motor quite nicely. This isn’t a winch-and-plummet shuttle substitution, or a fast and snappy tech climb charger. Instead it’s a well-rounded trail bike, with geometry to match.

Scott Voltage eRIDE 900 Tuned Frame Details

This frame is not short on details. Starting up front, the integrated Syncross bar and stem combo conceals the thru-headset cable routing. And there are a lot of cables. Even with a wireless drivetrain, the Voltage still has two brake hoses, a dropper cable, a controller cable, and a TwinLoc cable. And, yes, that means that your left hand has a brake lever, two TwinLoc levers, a dropper lever, and two remote buttons to manage. It’s a little overwhelming.

The front triangle of the bike is sleek and clean, with space for two water bottles, or a bottle and a range extender. Hidden inside the seat tube mast is the rear shock, a custom Fox Float X Nude Factory affair. There’s an external sag indicator, and there’s a tool-free door near the bottom bracket that allows access to the pressure valve and rebound and compression knobs. There’s a clever fender at the main pivot, and robust chainstay padding.

The grand total of all these details is a very easy-to-love bike as long as you’re not working on it. It’s so easy to clean—mud slides right off! There’s so much space in the front triangle, imagine the frame bag you could fit there! But if you’re constantly swapping and fiddling with parts, you’ll likely get frustrated quickly.

Scott Voltage eRIDE 900 Tuned Build

The Voltage I’ve been riding came out over a year ago, and the build reflects that. That said, it’s still a good match for this easy-going bike. The SRAM Code brakes are technically an “old” model, but they do the job well, and are a better fit for this bike than Motives would be. The GX Transmission drivetrain shifts smoothly under power, and is wired straight into the main battery.

Syncros’s Revelstoke carbon wheelset delivers a nice ride feel that combines nicely with the very traction-forward tune on the rear shock. Up front, a previous-generation Fox 36 is a fine fork. It’s not as plush or confidence inspiring as the new model, but it has acted as a reminder to me that the 36 has been good for a long time.

You can monitor the pressure of the MaxxTerra EXO+ Assegai and Dissector via the included TireWiz gadgets if you’d like. Yes, I was pushing the limits of those casings on this bike, but I don’t think it will be much of an issue for most of Scott’s customers.

Again, I don’t think this is a bike, or a build, for folks who agonize over every detail while trying to maximize value. Instead, it’s a fine build for folks who will buy a complete bike, and ride it until things need to be replaced.

Riding the Scott Voltage eRIDE 900 Tuned

As I mentioned up top, this bike looks weird, has plenty of proprietary features, and rides really normally. That’s a fun combo. You get to have plenty of funny conversations with strangers, while not really thinking about what the bike’s doing most of the time. 

Once I had the hidden shock set up, I never touched it. I never adjusted the bar or stem because, well, you can’t. I did, however, spend plenty of time playing with the TwinLoc system.

First, a disclaimer: You can totally just leave the TwinLoc system alone and ride your bike while ignoring it. You could even pull the levers off. The Voltage rides just fine up and downhill with the rear shock wide open. But, if you like to optimize your ride for every trail, TwinLoc lets you do that on the fly.

The levers adjust both the damping and the air volume of the rear shock, so you’re adjusting both the spring feel and the damping. I found myself doing smooth climbs with the system fully closed, and then popping it open for tech sections where I needed extra traction. Similarly, on techy descents, I ran the bike wide open. On flow trails the middle setting made the bike feel very poppy and supportive. 

Am I sold? Do I want this adjustability on every bike? Absolutely not. But after riding the Voltage I can easily understand why its target audience appreciates those extra levers.

Beyond that on-the-fly experimentation, the Voltage has a very neutral, traction-forward ride feel. It’s easy to move around and play on, but never feels twitchy or unstable. It’s certainly not a bike I’d choose to jib and get weird with, or a bike that I want to charge through chunder on. Instead, it splits the difference. It delivers a nice mellow experience that shouldn’t feel weird or scary to anyone.

For Now

On the surface, Scott’s Voltage eRIDE 900 looks a little scary and a little "out there." But when you focus on how it rides, it’s immediately clear that Scott has dialed in an accessible, versatile bike. The more you value clean lines and integration, the higher on your list the Voltage should be.

Learn more: Scott Cycles