Cannondale MOTERA SL - A Deep Dive into this lightweight, full power eMTB

Hi I'm Benji from Single Track Magazine and I'm here with a deep dive on the

Cannondale Moterra SL. Before we get into the stuff that gets all the hoopla and headlines about the

Moterra SL, we should first clarify some of the bikes vital stats. The Cannondale

Moterra SL is a 150 mil travel pedal assist e-mountain bike with a 160 mil

travel fork up front and a firm focus on being a capable do-it-all trail bike

This is not just an exercise in shaving grams at the expense of actually being a

good mountain bike, it's supposed to be a good pedal assist mountain bike but also

happens to be pretty flipping light. See that head angle there, that is 62.5

degrees, that is bonkers. That is slacker than a lot of World Cup downhill bikes

That alone tells you that the Moterra SL is not a weight weenie, fire road

munching, Euro Lycra nightmare. Cannondale are describing this bike as and I quote, the lightest full power mountain bike ever. What do they mean by

full power? Digging down to the asterisk section of the Moterra SL spec sheet

reveals that for Cannondale, full power means a motor that can give out at least

85 Newton meters of torque. More importantly, a full power e-bike can't be

doing anything daft with its battery. A full power e-bike needs to have a decent

capacity battery as well. There's no point saving weight by running a dinky

battery if it means you can only play out for an hour before it dies. So in

this particular lightest full power mountain bike ever claim, Cannondale set the parameter of the battery being at least 600 watt hours in capacity

Despite all the glamorous carbon framery and high-end build kits, fundamentally it's

Moterra SL's battery and motor that are the building blocks of this bike's low weight

The Shimano EP8 motor is one of the lighter full power drive units out there

weighing in at 3.1 kilograms. The 601 watt hour capacity Shimano sanctioned

battery from Darfon also weighs 3.1 kilograms, including its wiring. That's about the same weight as most brands 500 watt hour batteries

Where else have Cannondale saved weight on this bike? Well, the battery is not

designed to be easily removed from the frame. You charge it in situ. This method

saves some weight in the down tube area. Oh, to state the obvious again, the frame is

all carbon. Aluminium e-mountain bikes with removable batteries are significantly heavier machines. We're talking 25 kilograms sort of heavy

So yep, the Moterra SL1 and SL2 are carbon fibre and the highest of high

fallout in Moterra SL, the Lab 71, uses extra fancy carbon fibre that yes, saves

even more weight and yes, costs even more money. On a less obvious note, the use of

a smaller rear wheel size also has weight savings attached to it. Like for

like, 27.5 wheel is always going to be lighter than a 29. Perhaps the most

eye-catching area of weight saving is those super slender flattened chainstays. Look at them. They look really skinny and that's with them covered in a fairly

substantial rubber chainstay protector. Under the rubber they are amazingly thin. This flat skinny section is called the flex pivot. Essentially, it's an area of

bend-friendly carbon fibre that's used instead of having an actual pivot bushing

or bearing in this spot. A pivot down there only has to rotate a few degrees

so it's feasible to use flex stay here instead. Less weight, less maintenance. Keen

Cannondale watchers may recognise this sort of thing from the brand's Scalpel XC

race bikes. Let's wind this whole thing back a bit and ask a question. What is

wrong with having a heavy e-bike? There's a motor there, why are we

worrying about weight? It's all about the handling. Full fat e-bikes? Well, for a

start they're called full fat e-bikes. That almost tells you everything you need to know. Full fat e-bikes are a handful, especially when things are

sketchy. Trying to change direction or improvise a move on something that

essentially handles like a fridge freezer is often not a fun experience

And then there's the whole issue of having to lift the things up and over

obstacles. That gets pretty old pretty quickly. Don't get me wrong, I'm a regular

full fat rider, but they are a very different animal to a mountain bike. Full

fat e-biking is almost a different sport. The Cannondale Moterra SL is designed to

feel much more like a normal mountain bike, but better. For those of us who have grown up using pounds as a bike weight metric as opposed

to kilograms, it can all sound a bit not very impressive. A 25 kilogram bike

doesn't sound that much more than a 20 kilogram bike. To go all retro or North

American, 20 kilograms is 44 pounds. 25 kilograms is 55 pounds. Take it from me, a

40 odd pound mountain bike feels fine. It feels very, very similar to a capable

enduro bike. A 50 odd pound bike feels like, I have no idea, but it's not a

bicycle. On a full fat e-bike, you need to work in marker pen style broad strokes

On the Moterra SL, you can doodle, have fun, be creative, improvise, be more in

control. Talking of control, the Shimano EP8 system that comes with the Moterra SL

you have more control than is standard. The usual Shimano systems only offer three levels of assist, eco, trail and

boost. On the Moterra SL, Cannondale have managed to get a custom tune that

offers five levels of assist. The levels don't have names per se, it's called one

two three four five, but I'd say there's the usual eco and the usual boost, but

now there's three levels of trail in the middle. More choice is good. Anyone who

says otherwise can go back to having a seven speed cassette. Let's talk about where Cannondale have not saved weight on the Moterra SL

We've all seen SL e-bikes before. Typically they often have not a lot of

suspension travel and some pretty anemic build kits. Not so with the Moterra SL

That's a Fox 36 fork there, not a Fox 34. That's a piggyback reservoir there, not

an undernourished inline affair with no guts. Decent sized dropper post, proper

four-pot disc brakes and rotors, tyres that can actually be ridden on, 30mm

internal width rims, lock-on grips, wide bars, proper saddle. Any bike, especially a

mountain bike, sinks or swims by its geometry. If the geometry isn't up to it

doesn't matter how fancy the carbon is or how good the components are, it'll be

a dud. The geometry of a Cannondale Moterra SL is exceptional. Honestly

they've knocked it out the park with this one. It can do steep downs, it can do

steep ups, crucially it is still engaging to ride on the things that are not steep

in any incline. The geometry and the suspension kinematic for that matter are

proportional. In other words, it's different per frame size. The idea being that to the

rider on board, a small Moterra SL rides just like an extra large Moterra SL

We have a large here, so here's the geo numbers for this model. 445mm seat tube

lots of standover, lots of dropper insertion, 453mm chainstays, a nice modern all-round length, low slung 335mm bottom bracket height, a middling 470mm

reach, super nice steep 77 degree seat angle. Oh yeah, and that aforementioned

bonkers slack 62.5 degree head angle, which actually just feels totally fine

and normal. If 62.5 scares you, the headset cups are reversible, which deepens

things up to 63.7. What we have here is the large Cannondale

Moterra SL. This retails at £8,550. There's a Moterra SL2 for £6,550 that takes a

step down or two in tier as regards suspension, drivetrain and wheelset. Truth

be told, it looks like it'd be every bit as good to ride. There is also the Moterra SL

Lab 71. It comes with the even fancier carbon frame, carbon wheelset, wireless

everything, and that retails at the why are you even asking £12,500

Look out for a full in-depth review of this particular

Moterra SL1 on singletrekworld.com very soon