Hot from Cannondale is this Moterra 1 e-MTB, the first production bike in the UK no less! It’s the top-spec build of Cannondale’s 130mm all-mountain plaftorm, which starts with the £3,799 Moterra 3 and also includes the £4,299 Moterra 2. On top of that there’s a 160mm long-travel bike available in two builds, the £4,499 Moterra LT2 and the £5,499 Moterra LT 1. So five bikes in total: Cannondale are clearly not just dipping a toe in the water here.
Cannondale’s tag line for this range is “Mountain Biking – Supercharged”. They’ve put a lot of thought into this bike, and it’s most evident in the motor and battery configuration.
This bike uses a Bosch Performance Line CX motor, which is still the power unit to beat out on the trails. Many e-MTBs bolt that on to the bottom of the frame and then the battery goes on the down tube. It’s a simple enough job to lay the bike out like that but it does have its downsides. For a start, the weight of the battery is higher in the frame, meaning the overall centre of gravity of the bike is lifted making it a bit less stable. We’ve seen manufacturers addressing this: Lapierre’s new Overvolt, for example, slides the battery down and across the top of the motor.
Cannondale’s approach is different: they’ve located the battery not on top of, but underneath the down tube, and lowered it such that the battery is on a level with the motor. This, they claim, means that the Moterra has the lowest centre of gravity of any e-MTB. The battery position means it’s more susceptible to damage from trail debris but Cannondale have addressed that with a protective rubber strap that covers the battery and also helps to reduce the vibration in the mounting system. The side and top plates of the battery enclosure create a box section which Cannondale call the Torsion Box, which they claim adds stiffness to the main triangle.
The design of the frame also means that it’s the only full-suspension e-MTB that we know of to offer a full-sized bottle cage mount; our bike came fitted with Cannondale’s own side-entry cage.
Another issue with the Bosch motor is that the standard configuration requires fairly long chainstays, especially in a full suspension bike where it’s difficult to get the pivot where you’d want it. Cannondale have addressed this on the Moterra platform by developing their own motor mount. They’ve used the system to mount the motor at an angle (a bit like the Orbea Wild) which allows Cannondale to tuck the suspension pivot in a bit further for a shorter rear end. The pivot position is unaffected by motor torque so there’s no need for pulleys or linkages to compensate. The result is the shortest chainstays in class, according to Cannondale. “A couple of dealers have already mentioned it’s one of the only bikes they can wheelie!”, they told us.
Cannondale have also brought their Ai offset chainline to the Moterra, which moves the chainring and cassette out by 6mm, giving better performance and more mud clearance with the short chainstays. The Moterra 1 has a custom chain guide which sits on the main pivot.
This build of the Moterra is high-spec stuff, as you’d expect from a bike costing over five grand. The Fox Factory 34 Float fork is optimised for e-bikes, which means beefing up the stanchions to cope with the extra heft of the motor and battery. You get a matching Fox Factory Float EVOL rear shock bolted into the Moterra’s carbon link plate.
Transmission is from Shimano and it’s all XT, with the exception of the 11-speed SLX cassette. There’s a KS LEV dropper seatpost with remote for on-the-fly seat height fiddling, and a Fabric Scoop Elite saddle on top of that. The Cannondale own-brand alloy cockpit includes a 780mm bar; Cannondale use the Bosch Intuvia display on this bike while the LT bikes will have the new Purion unit instead.
We can’t wait to get out for a lark about on this one! Look out for a full review in the new year.
