With over 325 years in business, Husqvarna is one of the longest-running brands of any kind and has over a century of experience in the world of motorbikes. But does all that heritage and history mean they can compete with some of the best electric mountain bikes out there?
They are part of the Pierer group, which is also home to the GasGas e-MTB range as well as KTM motorcycles, all with a long history of making two wheels go fast off-road, so I was excited to see how the MC5 stacked up. Husqvarna’s full-suspension bikes are split into two ranges. The Hard Cross or HC range, which are 180/170mm travel e-enduro bikes, and the Mountain Cross or MC range, which are trail bikes with 150mm of travel front and rear and in keeping with the moto theme, both utilize a mullet setup with smaller rear wheels.
Design and features
I had the Mountain Cross 5 on test, which shares a carbon frame with its lower-priced version, the MC4, and the range-topping MC6. It's a striking-looking frame, with an oversized downtube holding its 720wh battery and a neatly designed frame strut that holds the rear linkage charging point and is pierced by the rear shock. Straightaway, this bike stands out in a sea of four-bar linkage full suspension e-MTBs and cleverly manages to translate a lot of Husqvarna's well-established design language from their other products.
Starting at the front, it features a large headtube badge that neatly doubles up as ventilation for the battery. You may think that's overkill on an e-MTB, but it's worth bearing in mind that temperature extremes can significantly affect battery life and operation. On the side of the headtube are two sections that look like frame protectors, but they are purely aesthetic as the forks aren't high enough to touch them, and the headset already has a built-in bump stop to stop the fork spinning around in the event of a crash. The headset is an Acros model with all cables routed through it. Headset routed cables are widely known to be a mechanic's nightmare, but I will get onto that later.
Husqvarna does a good job of packaging such a large battery into the frame, which is helped by having the Shimano EP801 motor rotated upwards, giving them more room to keep the downtube in a more traditional position. This is matched by a parallel cross member that goes from the top tube to just above the motor, pierced by the shock, neatly hiding the charging point and creating a unique-looking front triangle. Considering that a four-bar suspension e-MTB frame is one of the most common setups available, the designers have done a great job of making it look different from competitors and somehow still keep the look of other non-bicycle Husqvarna products.
The battery is a Core 720wh unit with a neat rubberized cap on both ends to keep rattle and movement to a minimum and is easily removable by undoing the latch situated at the bottom of the downtube. This then has a connecting wire that hooks the battery up to the motor. It's a very well-executed setup, with no dirt ingress or issues throughout testing. I've used similar setups on other bikes with Shimano motors and non-Shimano batteries that have been prone to cutting out when the connection gets dirty or corroded or from flex, causing the cable to dislodge, but there are no such issues here, which was reassuring.
The smaller 27.5 rear wheel is mounted to a familiar-looking four-bar Horst link setup with carbon seat and chainstays, a substantial-looking alloy linkage, and a clevice-mounted rear shock mount. By having the pivot on the chainstay in front of the rear drop out, a Horst setup gives a very active back end that's less bothered by braking and pedaling forces that bode well for grip and handling. The design also makes packaging an electric motor and rear shock into a frame much more straightforward, too. There's a reason it's probably the most popular suspension layout.
The top tube is low-slung with plenty of clearance, but annoyingly, it has a tall seat tube section above the top tube, which limits the ability to size up if you are short of leg but prefer a longer reach. I opted for the Large version, which only has a 150mm drop unbranded seatpost, which is short by current standards. It worked fine, but having a shorter frame section and a longer drop seatpost would make sizing up easier.
The MC5 I had on test comes in a lovely two-tone light and dark blue with neat Fluro yellow highlights. It's a great-looking paint scheme and has turned plenty of heads on the trail. Though, like most matte finishes, I expect it'll look tired more quickly than an easily cleaned gloss finish.
Geometry
The Mountain Cross platform has been around for a couple of years now, and it shows in the geo, which on paper is a little behind the latest options with its 65.5-degree head angle and 76.9-degree seat angle (On the Large frame size). For reference, the latest Santa Cruz Heckler SL with a similar MX wheel setup and travel has a 64-degree head tube and 77.5 seat angle, which is more in keeping with the current crop of e-MTB trail bikes. It's a similar story with sizing with stack and reach figures of 646 and 476mm respectively, for my size large. It's not crazy short, but it's slightly behind current trends. At 5'9in / 172cm tall, I would usually go for a medium, but that only had a reach of 450mm, which would have been too short for me. As mentioned earlier, sizing up isn't straightforward due to the tall seat tower and relatively short dropper, so keep this in mind.
The MC range offers four sizes, from small to XL, and all run the mixed-wheel MX setup with the same head angle. They also share the same chainstay length across the range of 445mm, which was fine on the large I rode but not ideal on the small or XL sizes as it will affect the bike's rear center measurement on those bikes, again another nod to a slightly dated set up. The bikes will ride differently with the same chainstay length but different wheelbase lengths across the range. Many brands now offer size-specific stays to try and get all bike sizes to ride similarly.
Components, pricing, and build
At $7,787 / £5,199 / €5,899, the MC5 is the second in the range hierarchy. For a bike with a large 720wh battery and a Shimano EP801 motor, its spec is competitive and largely well thought out. Fox handles suspension duties with a Float 36 Performance Line fork with the simpler and older, but perfectly adequate, Grip damper and a Float DPS performance rear shock.
Wheels are the surprisingly responsive and robust Newmen Evolution SL E.G setup, with their 35mm inner width hookless alloy rims laced to their branded hubs. Info on the hubs is hard to come by, but they ran perfectly through testing and had more than reasonable pickup. However, I often find the freewheel on the majority of e-MTB motors has slower pickup than most hubs, which muddies the waters somewhat. Despite a few battle scars from the loose rocks on my local Peak District trails, they remained tight and straight with no damage to the rim, which brings me to one of the few chinks in the MC5’s armor – its tires.
It is specced with Schwalbe’s Nobby Nic Evo tires front and rear in the Super trail casing and Addix speed grip compound in a 2.6 width on the rear and a 2.4 with the Addix soft compound up front. The tires themselves are fine and would be more than adequate on a budget non-e-MTB, but on a bike weighing 24.3kgs and a very capable suspension, it needs a beefier rubber spec, something like the Tacky chan or Wicked Will in a gravity or supergravity casing would be far more suitable. They held air throughout testing but held back the bike's descending capabilities. If you ran them anything below 25psi, they would fold under hard cornering and, in most conditions, would offer OK grip, but when they let go, they do so with little warning and very quickly – which is a shame as the plush suspension encourages you to push and have fun on the descents.
Gearing is dealt with by the solid and reliable SRAM GX rear mech and the e-MTB single shift at a time shifter, which perfectly shifted the GX chain over the 11-50t PG 1230 cassette, if a little slowly. Though being unable to shift up the cassette more than one sprocket at a time is slower than a regular shifter, it does bode well for drivetrain longevity, as shifting under the extra load of a motor-driven bike can quickly kill a standard drivetrain.
The adequate but unremarkable SRAM G2 brakes handle stopping duties. They use a four-pot caliper and 200mm rotors front and rear, and the classic SRAM lever feel of plenty of lever travel with the power and bite coming later in the lever pull. They had enough power, but much like the tires, they felt a little undergunned, given how capable the suspension felt. At the very least, a larger rotor up front would be advisable if you like to push hard on descents.
The finishing kit, including its 780mm wide handlebar with 20mm rise and 8-degree sweep, 50mm 31.8mm diameter stem, lock-on grips, and 31.8mm dropper post and saddle, are all own-brand Husqvarna items. Although underwhelming, all worked perfectly well. The stem is a bit longer than current trends, which aligns with the rest of the bike's geometry.
Ride, Handling and Performance
The first pedal stroke on any e-MTB usually brings a smile to your face, and it's no different here. The Shimano EP801 motor is an improvement over previous generations and retains its more natural feel, though it still has an annoying characteristic clunk when coasting. I'm a fan of the Japanese system in general – we have a guide on the differences between the EP801 and the Bosch Performance Line CX motor for you to check out if you wish.
The full-power motor produces 85Nm of torque and has a 600Wh peak power output, and after the latest free update, Shimano has added the handy overrun option referred to as Extended Assist Carryover, which is super handy on technical climbing sections as it keeps the power on briefly after pedaling to help you clear obstacles. Modes are switched using the SC-EN600 L shifter mounted on the left-hand side, which is connected to its matching color LCD screen. It is a neat system, though the cable routing is a little messier than its Bosch cousins. Having said that, Shimano uses the same cables as its popular Di2 system, and they aren't hard-wired into the units, so replacements are easy to come by and quickly changed should they get damaged in a crash.
Setting up the bike was straightforward enough, though dropping the stem as low as I would have liked was challenging due to the cable routing that goes through the stem. The cons of the system have been reported many times, but in this case, the angle of the cables meant I couldn't slam the stem as planned, as after sizing up to get the reach I was after I had planned on running the stem low to help with front end grip. Bar that, it was a standard affair of setting the sag, fine-tuning the controls to my preferences, pumping up the tires, and ensuring I had charged the battery before heading out on the trail.
Once on the trail, the quality of the suspension design shines through. The back end is super active with tonnes of grip and feel. Such a setup would feel like riding through treacle on a standard bike, but with the added electric assistance, it is a seriously fun bike to ride. There's enough support to push through corners and find grip, but it likes to stick to the ground compared to other poppier setups. You could get a more supportive setup by adding some shock tokens, but to be honest, I like a more linear planted feel on an e-MTB, as it helps the rear dig into find traction on tech climbs. This, combined with the faster reaction speed of the 27.5 MX rear wheel, means the MC5 excels well on the ups despite its high 24.3kg weight.
Much like its numbers on paper suggest, it has a slightly dated feel, though that didn't make it any less fun. Its longer-than-fashionable 50mm stem and shorter 780mm bars felt perfectly adequate, and my position, though high at the front, made for a fun and playful ride, which, to be honest, is what I look for in an e-MTB. Powered bikes, for me, are about those stolen hour sunset rides or sneaky lunch rides where you want to smash as much trail time fun in as you can in a short time, and for that, the MC5 fits the bill nicely.
On really steep stuff, the high weight, average brakes, and limited tires made themselves felt, but for less testing trails with plenty of corners, the MX setup and plush suspension made for an intoxicating ride, but one that would have been improved by using something like the Shokz openfit earphones, as the combined noise from the cable routing and the EP801 motor was annoyingly distracting. The headset developed a loud creak after a few rides that was muted somewhat with liberal use of Teflon grease, but the rattle I couldn't cure. I suspect it was the cable housing rattling in the headtube, which, given the mainframes' large tube profiles, echoes and sounds louder than it might do on traditional frames, but that combined with the motor rattle when freewheeling was an unwelcome distraction on a bike that rode well when you let off the brakes and let it go.
With a rotor upgrade and more suitable rubber, the Husqvarna MC5 would be a much more compelling option, but the rattle and noise would eventually drive me crazy, I think, which is a real shame as there is a really well-finished fun bike with a sensible, usable spec trying to get out.
Verdict
The MC5 feels like it's due for an update. It's a fun bike that's great for stealing trail time, but it needs a few upgrades to really make the most of the very good suspension setup. It is sadly let down by its headset cable routing, which isn't just a nuisance for bearing replacement down the line but also limits adjustability and develops noise far too easily for me.
I did enjoy riding the Husqvarna, it's a head-turning bike that, deep down, is a real laugh to ride, but sadly let down by niggling issues, and in a competitive market space, it makes it a hard bike to love.
Test conditions
- Surface: Local Peak District grit rock, sand, rooty loam-filled woodland, and more mud than I would have liked.
- Trails: Natural Enduro courses, moorland singletrack, red and black grade trail center runs, and off-piste play trails
- Weather: Plenty of wet and inclement rides but also lots of dry (ish) trail rides, too
Tech Specs Husqvarna MC 5
- Discipline: Trail, All Mountain
- Price: $7,877 / £5,199 / €5,899
- Head angle: 65.5 degrees
- Frame material: Carbon Fiber
- Size: XS, S, M, L (tested), XL
- Weight: 24.3kg/ 53.57lbs (size Large actual)
- Wheel size: 29in front, 27.5in rear
- Fork: FOX Float 36 GRIP E-optimized 150mm travel
- Cranks: Shimano FC-EM900
- Rear mech: SRAM GX Eagle 12-s
- Shifter: SRAM GX Eagle single click
- Cassette: SRAM Eagle PG-1230 12-speed 10-50T
- Brakes: SRAM G2 R 4-piston hydraulic disc brakes with 200/200mm rotors
- Tires: Schwalbe Nobby Nic Super trail casing Addix soft 29x2.4in front and Schwalbe Nobby Nic Trail casing 27.5 x2.6in rear
- Wheels: Newmen Evolution SL E.G
- Bars: Husqvarna alloy 780 x 20mm
- Stem: Husqvarna alloy 50mm 31.8 diameter
- Grips: Husqvarna lock-on
- Seat post: Husqvarna 31.8 150 mm travel
- Saddle: Husqvarna MTB
