Having revealed our 2026 Road and Gravel Bike of the Year winners last week, we're now turning our attention to our annual Mountain Bike of the Year test, with the Atherton S.170E.2 crowned as the winner.
The progression in eMTB tech – and how quickly the bikes are changing – meant we simply had to focus on these complex machines for our 2026 test.
This year has all been about big-travel, heavy-hitting bikes that feature a variety of motors, each with different traits. With that in mind, we pulled together a shortlist of six of the latest and greatest electric mountain bikes from Amflow, Atherton, Marin, Merida, Specialized and Yeti.
It's a fast-moving, super-competitive category and we wanted to pull together a definitive test – featuring some of the most important bikes on the market – in order to determine which machines are leading the charge, and where you should spend your hard-earned month.
After months of testing, the Atherton S.170E.2 came out on top as the champion. When pitted against the Merida Lithos 8000 and Yeti LTe T4 in our final showdown, the Atherton rose to the top against stiff competition to be crowned as our 2026 Mountain Bike of the Year.
You can read our full head-to-head test here to see why the Atherton beat the Merida and Yeti – and look out for individual reviews of all six shortlisted bikes on BikeRadar in the coming days.
Introducing our 2026 eMTB of the Year contenders
- Amflow PX Carbon Pro – £8,999 / $10,199 / €9,999
- Atherton S.170E.2 – £7,999 / $N/A / €7,599.05 (before applicable local taxes)
- Marin Alpine Trail EXR – £6,899 / $8,999 / €7,999
- Merida Lithos 8000 – £8,500 / €8,899
- Specialized Levo 4 Evo Pro – £9,699 / $10,499 / €10,999
- Yeti LTe T4 – £12,999 / $14,900 / €14,500
It’s been a real team effort to put this test together. Some of the bikes included had already been reviewed by myself and experienced BikeRadar tester Tom Marvin, while others were updates on older bikes that had previously impressed us.
Luke Marshall stepped in as lead tester, pitting all six of our shortlisted bikes against one another, in order to select the final three. I also joined Luke to run the rule over each bike and find the eventual winner.
This test rounds up the latest and best electric mountain bikes money can buy, but we’re not oblivious to the fact we’re missing some bikes that, for availability and logistical issues, we couldn't get hold of in time for our deadline. Rest assured, we'll include any missing bikes in next year's test.
The 2026 Mountain Bike of the Year podium
Third place – Yeti LTe T4
By far the priciest bike here in the test, Yeti’s carbon e-enduro rig is equipped with a six-bar linkage, Fox’s upside-down Podium fork, a Bosch CX-R motor and a removable 800Wh battery. It has 170/160mm of travel and can be run with 29in or mixed wheels.
Verdict: The LTe blends Yeti’s superb Sixfinity suspension with excellent range and the strongest climbing performance here.
Second place – Merida Lithos 8000
This carbon-fibre enduro eMTB has 170/174mm of travel and can be run with mixed wheels or as a full 29er. It uses Bosch’s most powerful CX-R motor and a removable 800Wh battery. The build is based around RockShox Ultimate components.
Verdict: Merida’s enduro-focused Lithos 8000 boasts exceptionally supple suspension, natural handling and great composure at speed.
First place – Atherton S.170E.2
Available in 12 sizes, this Welsh-built aluminium e-enduro bike has 180/170mm of travel and runs a mixed-wheel setup. It’s powered by Avinox’s M2S motor with a 700Wh battery. Again, you get RockShox Ultimate suspension.
Verdict: With the most controllable high-power motor and excellent suspension, the Atherton S.170E.2 offers a truly rewarding ride at a competitive price.
Read more on Bike of the Year 2026
We revealed our Road and Gravel Bike of the Year winners last week. You can check out all of the skinny-tyred action below.
- Revealed: our Road and Gravel Bike of the Year 2026 winners
- I've tested 2026's leading gravel bikes – these three made the podium, but only one stood above the rest
- I've tested race bikes for decades – they've changed dramatically, but the Eddy Merckx 525R takes race bike design in a radical new direction that I love
- Endurance bikes are faster and more capable than ever – and the five-star Canyon Endurace CF SLX is one of the true greats of the genre
How we chose our winner
Once we'd compiled our six bikes, we drafted in Luke Marshall – a familiar name for regular BikeRadar and MBUK readers. Luke's one of the best testers in the business, and one of the fastest riders out there.
Luke’s job was to ride all six bikes and work out a top three. This is a hard enough task on a conventional bike without a motor – add a drive unit and the ability to tune it via an app and, suddenly, testing times start to balloon.
To fully understand each bike, Luke spent months riding lap after lap in various locations.
He’s included everything from fast, flowing jump trails and meandering singletrack through to steep technical trails with enough roots and rocks to rattle your fillings out.
Of course, it’s not all about descending, because climbing technical trails is one of the most exciting things you can do on an eMTB.
Doing all of this has helped to establish which bikes offer the best suspension balance, which carry their weight well and how their motors respond when traction is at a premium clawing your way up the steepest inclines.
With this new breed of bike, there’s even more to consider now. Each motor or bike brand will likely have an associated app, throwing up questions such as: what’s the connectivity like? How easy is the app to work and how much can be done with it?
These are all points that Luke has had to bear in mind, along with cost and value, plus putting the miles in to see just how far he could ride each bike on a single charge.
To help narrow things down further, I jumped on each of the bikes before Luke settled on his top three rigs. After some heated discussions, timed laps and even more chat, we finally decided on the winning bike.
Ticking all the boxes required to top this category was a very, very tall order. The motor had to feel controlled, offer power and torque deep down when you’re really struggling, but deliver it in a calm, composed way.
Then, of course, the bike itself had to ride well, and the spec had to make sense, not only on paper, but on the trail too – and it was Atherton's S.170E.2 that ticked every box to earn the 2026 Mountain Bike of the Year crown.
