Review: Aventon Ramblas Electric Mountain Bike

When I saw the price tag for the Ramblas, Aventon’s first electric mountain bike, I scratched my head and wondered, “How did they do this?” OK, so $2,699 isn’t exactly cheap. But most top-of-the-line, full-suspension e-MTBs are pushing $15,000. That’s a difference of more than $12,000, which can’t be explained away by the lack of a rear shock.

The company has been around since 2013, the year it started manufacturing fixies in Long Beach, California. In 2015 Aventon’s women’s Factory Team won the Red Hook Crit in Barcelona, a 20-lap race around a 1.2-kilometer course at speeds upwards of 35 km an hour. Despite a devoted fixie following, Aventon pivoted into the commuter ebike space in 2017. Seven years later, the e-MTB Ramblas was born.

Now based in Ontario, California, the company does almost everything in-house, from engineering and development to assembling small parts and manufacturing its own frames. On the Ramblas, Aventon even designed its own mid-drive motor. As a result, the maker can take out the middleman and do higher volume than competitors, which means lower prices to the consumer.

Make or Break It

Aventon works with more than 1,500 bike shops nationwide but also sells direct to consumers, so I had the company ship a demo Ramblas directly to me. My partner built the bike in under an hour, thanks to his mechanic skills and the easy-to-follow instructions accessed by the QR code on the box.

At first glance, I was impressed with the bike’s nicely specced components, which include a Rockshox 35 suspension fork with 130 mm of travel, a Sram NX 12-speed drivetrain, and Sram DB-8 mineral four-piston hydraulic disc brakes. In less technical jargon, that means more brake fluid is distributed across a larger surface area, making it easier to stop. Plus, the Ramblas comes with a dropper seat post and built-in front and rear lights.

As for e-components, the Ramblas uses an Aventon 708-watt-hour, rechargeable lithium-ion battery and the brand-new Aventon-designed A100 mid-drive 36-volt motor with 250 watts of sustained power and 750 watts of peak power that’s customizable via the companion app. I had never ridden an e-MTB that wasn’t powered by Brose, Bosch, or Specialized, so I was curious to see how the A100 would compare.

On subsequent singletrack tests, the Ramblas felt like a lot of bike, especially on tight turns and in spongier terrain. The Ramblas had the power, but its weight, combined with the lack of rear suspension, made it harder to maneuver. On one section of tight downhill switchbacks, I had to put my inside foot down in a section I can normally ride clean, because the bike’s weight threw my balance off.

The Ramblas wouldn’t be my go-to mountain bike, in part because I prefer to ride trails on an acoustic bike but also because it feels too heavy. I had a few other quibbles with the design. The bike’s screen is located just left of the handlebar stem, and it’s small and nearly impossible to read the percentage of battery power remaining while riding.

Photograph: Stephanie Pearson

But by the end of a month of riding it on the streets and trails that weave through Duluth, Minnesota, a city with notoriously steep hills, pot-holed streets, and varying weather conditions, I found the Ramblas to be an ideal utilitarian commuter for rugged terrain. The front shock greatly helped to diminish the cracks and holes and jarring weather-beaten shifts across the amalgam of paved streets, dirt roads, bike paths, and singletrack trails that would be impossible to ride on a lesser e-commuter.

What Aventon really nailed on its debut e-MTB is its smooth, consistent, powerful A100 motor. While the bike is nicely specced right out of the box, there are also no proprietary parts. Don’t like the crank arms, dropper post, wheels, or drive train? Swap them out and you’ll get an even bigger bang for your not-very-many bucks.