First Look: New Trek Slash+ | Long-travel, mid-power, biggish battery eMTB
With around two years of prototyping and development work completed, Trek has released an ‘E version’ of the high-pivot Slash.
The new Slash+ is a long-travel enduro mountain bike that is powered by the TQ drive unit. It’s the same motor and integrated display system Trek has on their Fuel EXe bike, but with a bigger battery, 580Wh to be exact.
Looking closer at the suspension, the rear travel is 170mm which is also as per the recently-released Slash. Whilst everyone is talking of it as a high-pivot suspension design, technically it’s more of a mid-high-pivot design – meaning the main pivot isn’t radically high. Trek tells us the kinematics are almost identical to that of the Slash. There’s also a flip-chip shock mount that provides for a more linear or more progressive setup – depending on rider preference.
Details
| 170mm Travel (Front and Rear) |
| MX Wheels |
| Carbon frame |
| High-pivot suspension |
| TQ HPR50 drive unit (Mid-Power) |
| 580Wh battery that weights 2.6kg |
| 50Nm torque, 300 Watt peak power |
| Angle adjust headset |
| Leverage rate adjust linkage |
All the models are MX wheelsize bikes with 29″ front and 27.5″ rear, except for the smallest size which is a 27.5″ front and rear wheel bike. There’ll be four frame sizes in the lineup, with reach numbers of 430, 449, 479 and 519mm. Head angle can be adjusted from as slack as 62.6°, to 63.4° or up to 64.2°.
As on their full-blown Downhill bike, the Trek Session, the Slash+ has size specific chainstays. In other words, the bigger frame sizes have slightly longer chainstays which plays a role in balancing rider weight distribution more evenly across the front and rear of the chassis.
When it comes to dropper post insertion, Trek have not been shy. I’m told the Large and XL frame sizes can run 200mm droppers, the medium a 170mm dropper and the small frame a 150mm dropper.
With 50Nm of torque and 300 Watts of peak power on offer, the Slash+ is classified as a mid-power eMTB. However, a key differentiator is the battery size; Trek is speccing all models with a 580Wh battery, which is pretty big for a mid-power eMTB. It’s a good move as there’ll no doubt be a lot of climbing done on a bike like this – and the bigger battery will enable that. Interestingly, for riders who are fine with a smaller battery, a 360Wh battery can be retrofitted to the bike, which I figure might save as much as 1000grams.
Complete weights are 20.38kg for the 9.7 model and 20.88kg for the 9.9 model. Local pricing will be R165k for the Fox / Shimano build on the 9.7 model and R250k for the 9.9 model which has a range-topping SRAM and RockShox build kit. Learn more here.