Lauf eElja electric mountain bike review: A tour de force

At a price of 37.7 pounds It’s only a few pounds heavier than my traditional mountain bike. However, with a motor capable of delivering 350 watts of assistance expertly hidden in the bottom bracket, the new eElja is anything but traditional bike.

Over the past decade or so, Icelandic brand Lauf has become more known for its innovative front suspension system. Instead of the traditional piston approach, Love created a suspension system that looked almost like two forks connected by a series of small fiberglass springs.

These days, Lauf is venturing into making complete bikes, recently introducing its new eElja electric mountain bike in one of two offerings: the cutting-edge racing design, featuring carbon wheels, upgraded suspension and groupsets, and carbon crank arms; And the more modest but still impressive Weekend Warrior build, which has alloy wheels, a high-range groupset, suspension and alloy cranks.

I recently spent a week testing the eElja (pronounced “el-ee-yah”) race model and was absolutely blown away by everything the bike has to offer. Then again, I kind of expect to be blown away by a bike that retails for over $8,000. However, given everything I’ve learned about this bike, both through riding and research, I’d say every penny at this list price will be money well spent.

Elijah racing model

Photography: Michael Venotolo-Mantovani

Weight Watcher

The eElja is fast and nimble when descending, and easy and comfortable when climbing. It’s responsive where it needs to be and comfortable when it needs to be. It’s also a great looking bike.

Thanks to a nice SRAM Eagle kit that includes the SRAM AXS PODS wireless electronic shifting system and a RockShox Reverb AXS wireless dropper post, the eElja looks very clean, with just two cables (one internally routed), operating the bike’s brakes. The eElja Race comes out of the box with a RockShox Pike Select+ fork, which features 140mm of travel, and a 130mm RockShox Deluxe Select shock at the rear. The race sits on E*Thirteen Optimus Carbon Sidekick, tubeless-ready, six-bolt, 29-inch XD freehub wheels wrapped in 2.6-inch Goodyear Escape Max Trail Lite tires. Both the Race and Weekend Warrior models come with a massive 12-speed cassette, ranging from 10t to 52t.

However, despite all the flashy bells and whistles (which are all things you’d expect on a bike at this price), The lightness of the bike is its hallmark. With many e-mountain bikes weighing over 50 pounds, the eElja’s weight of under 40 pounds makes it easy to maneuver on the trail. Perhaps just as importantly, it makes it easier to maneuver off the trail as well for those innocuous moments we often overlook: loading it onto your bike rack, sliding it into your workbench, and even putting it away or taking it out of your sleeve. Especially if, like me, you store your bikes on wall hangers.