Close your eyes and think of the word "McLaren", and your mind instantly conjures visuals of blue and orange Formula 1 cars or black and orange if you're keeping up to date, decades of sleek supercars, and the all-famous McLaren F1.
What does not come to mind are electric bicycles, but they're about to be added to the list. The manufacturer just launched a range of electric trail-riding bikes and claims that they're the "most powerful trail-legal" e-mountain bikes in the world.
Here's everything you need to know.
McLaren kicked off its venture into e-bikes, or "electric hyperbikes", with a limited-edition four-bike range consisting of the Extreme 600W, Extreme 250W, Sport 600W, and Sport 250W. And with McLaren being McLaren, the models are as performance-orientated as you'd expect. They were even designed by the same teams that are responsible for the brand's supercars.
The Sport range is an all-purpose hardtail e-mountain bike that's meant to be capable of general and single-track off-road routes and features the mechanical SRAM GX Eagle 12-speed drivetrain. Whereas the Extreme model is a full-suspension e-mountain bike designed for maximum off-road performance and uses the SRAM wireless XX Eagle 12-speed drivetrain.
Full-color LDC displays mimic those you'd find on cars from the automaker and show telemetry information including speed, battery life, and range.
Making the most powerful street-legal e-bike sounds like a pretty cool achievement until you realize that to be street-legal, the bicycle must be limited to 20 mph. So, what good is all that power if it cuts out at 20 mph? Since these bikes are intended to fly around trails, boundless torque on command is what makes these models so special.
The Extreme 600W and Sport 600W kick out, wait for it, 118 lb-ft of torque. That's more than a KTM 1390 SuperDuke R.
Naturally, you're going to need to control all this power, so don't accidentally end up doing a rolling burnout all the way to work. So McLaren has fitted the bikes with five power modes that are selectable via the digital display on the integrated cockpit:
- Off - No motor assist
- Eco - Energy conservation for longer riding
- Trail - A set-it-and-forget-it balance of power and efficiency
- Sport - Extra power output for when the trail demands more
- Race - Max power and max torque
McLaren is only making these e-bikes in limited numbers, and if you're interested in purchasing one, follow this link. The Extreme 600W and Sport 600W will only be available to purchase in the United States. Prices start at $7,950 for the Sport 250W and go up to $11,950 for the Extreme 600W.
Are there any readers among us who'd be willing to spend north of $10,000 to have the most powerful e-bike in the world? Let yourselves be known in the comments.
