Atherton’s First eMTB Is Coming, but April 9th Holds the Big Secret

The eMTB scene is evolving quickly, and it’s hard to imagine the bikes of the past with their heavy batteries and the awkward frame design needed to accommodate a motor and battery. With the rise of smaller, lighter, and more powerful batteries and motors, it seems that those days are very far behind us. The Atherton team has taken a patient approach, waiting until the technology aligned with their ideal experience of what an assisted mountain bike should be. And it looks like we’ve reached that point. From what we can guess, the Atherton Bikes S170E looks to tap into the newest, yet-to-be-announced Avinox system, but we’ll just have to wait and see come April 9th, 2026.

The Atherton Bikes S170E launched under pre-order in January of 2026, and the coming launch of whatever is hiding under the shroud is sure to be exciting.

The headline here is undoubtedly the Avinox motor. If you’ve been following my recent deep dives, you know this system is a game-changer. It’s got a level of raw, mental power, but also a surprising amount of tuning capability, all packaged in a very light package. But it’s not just about the power; it’s the way that power interacts with your pedaling. It’s smooth, intuitive, and refined. And that seems to be what Atherton Bikes was waiting for.

Atherton didn’t just slap a motor in a frame and call it a day, though. They benchmarked this thing against the gold-standard Bosch Turbo, finding they could squeeze 1,400 meters of elevation in Turbo mode (or a massive 3,000+ in Eco) out of their battery. Power, torque, and range are one aspect, but the real magic comes from the chassis. By obsessing over tube sizing – where doubling a square tube’s size increases stiffness eightfold – they managed to keep the front-end compliance nearly identical to the analog S170.

Throw in Dave Weagle’s kinematic wizardry and Atherton’s signature 12-size range, and you get a bike that feels planted, low-slung, and as they put it, “analog” in its handling. While the bike and powertrain are still under wraps (pun intended), we can expect some pretty great things from this new breed of eMTB.

Learn More at Athertonbikes.com