Unleash the beast: the high-performance electric mountain bike

I found myself in the air long enough to think about how to land while staying above the bike I was riding in the moment before the jump. Based on similar experiences while skiing, I immediately realized that this always meant very bad things. After a few seconds, as I was cleaning the dirt from the scratches I had just picked up, I thought about what I had done wrong.

Once again, you've misunderstood HPC's Trailblazer e-mountain bike. Doing so has become a feature of my time on the bike.

The Trailblazer looks like a powerful, massive beast of a bike (and that's no insult—I've received compliments on its looks while riding the train to some trails). They're covered in components that will likely be unfamiliar to people familiar with the default kits that come with bikes from major manufacturers. But if you do a little research into the ingredients, you'll realize that the Trailblazer was chosen by someone with deep knowledge and somewhat particular tastes. The ride offered by the bike has some surprisingly subtle qualities that took some time to adjust to.

Separate piece

Performance Cycles offers two Trailblazer models, the base and Pro, both of which have the same carbon fiber frame. They vary almost entirely based on their components, with the Pro mostly having the best materials to match its $9,000 price tag and the base model costing $6,400 for very good but still grade-level components. You can increase the price of either by purchasing more capacity batteries, faster chargers, lights, or even a built-in hub equipped with it. (Note that the company just updated the specifications for 2024.)

You can also pay to have the engine boosted to one capable of achieving speeds that will make you a danger to yourself and others, which will make the bike illegal to use on anything other than private property. Let's get one thing out of the way here: Making an e-bike that can reach speeds of 65 km/h (40 mph), as some Trailblazer configurations do, is a mistake. But HPC sent me the low-profile model that operates as a standard Class 1 e-bike, with a top speed of 32 km/h (20 mph), so that's the subject of this review.

Most of the components you'll find in mountain bike tires come from a few manufacturers. HPC relies on some of them (notably SRAM drives). But smaller design companies stay afloat through a combination of replacements for broken parts, enticing people with upgrades, or offering some specific feature that the more general designs of the larger manufacturers don't serve. The Trailblazer leans heavily into these.

For example, the tires come from Kenda and have a good reputation for grip at the expense of high rolling resistance – a drawback that doesn't matter much when you have electric assist. The forks and shocks come from a company called DVO and they have a modification that, based on what I've read, should help compensate for the extra weight of the hardware. Bafang, which supplies the motor, is not a household name, but it is a major player in the electric cycling space. I had already identified the WTB Volt as a highly rated saddle and was pleased to find one on the bike to try out. I can look at the rest of the bike's specs and say similar things about the other components.

Overall, the parts list looked odd, and might give someone expecting big names some pause. But every component I looked at had some features that made it a good (or at least interesting) option for an e-mountain bike.