TESTED: YAMAHA’S YDX-MORO 07 E-MTB

Seeing as Yamaha has been developing their Power Assist System for 30 years now, you’ve got to wonder why it’s taken them so bloody long to bolt the thing into a bicycle frame that also bears the Yamaha moniker and have a crack at the lucrative and fast-expanding eMTB market. After all, Yami are no fools when it comes to alloy frame fabrication too, right?

Well, the Japanese giant has finally done it; they’ve just released their long-heralded YDX-Moro 07 in Australia. It’s a full suspension enduro e-MTB that uses a Yamaha developed-and-built electric motor and frame – which makes Yami the only e-Bike manufacturer to offer its own motor and frame package.

But how does this thing perform? What’s its component spec like? Where does it sit relative to the existing eMTBs on the market? Is it good value for money? And is it a smart move to sell them exclusively through Yamaha’s motorcycle dealer network? For answers to those questions and more, we enlisted the help of mountain bike guru, Matt Holmes, to send this cool-looking two-wheeled hybrid around Western Sydney’s Wylde MTB Park for a day…