More Bike, Less Moped: Why Avinox’s Power Statement Doesn’t Add Up

Published by Radical Life Studios / MTB Report

DJI’s e-bike arm Avinox went public on May 19th defending the rise of high-output motors. The arguments sound reasonable. Some of them even are. But the statement sidesteps the real issue — and there’s a good case the whole thing is by design.

Avinox has spoken. The brand that rolled up the eMTB market with the M1 and, more recently, the M2S — peaking at 1,500 watts — is pushing back against industry critics. The pitch: high power doesn’t mean high speed, and concerns about trail damage or safety risk are missing the point. Power, Avinox argues, is about accessibility — for heavier riders, older riders, riders with disabilities, cargo applications.

It sounds plausible. Some of it even holds up. But the statement is neither honest nor helpful to the thing it claims to protect: mountain biking itself.

Credit Where It’s Due

Let’s give Avinox what it deserves first. The brand has shaken the market awake. Bosch, Shimano, Brose — the legacy players have been coasting on solid-but-unspectacular tech for years. It worked, because the market took what was on offer. Our earlier coverage of the Avinox M2 made the case clearly: the new motor beats the established competition on almost every meaningful metric. Lighter, more efficient, smarter software, better app.

A new player walking in and saying „here’s what’s actually possible“ is healthy. Real innovation rarely shows up when no one’s uncomfortable. So credit where it’s due — Avinox has dragged the industry out of its nap.

But the problems with the power escalation are far clearer than Avinox lets on.

More power means more load — on tires, on brakes, on drivetrains, on frames. More power also means a different riding style. A rider arriving at a berm with 1,500 watts on tap rides into it differently than one with 600. You can’t argue your way out of that with semantic gymnastics about decoupling „power“ from „speed.“ Physics doesn’t care.

And the trail effect isn’t abstract. Brake ruts get deeper. Berms take harder hits. Natural trails change faster, and not for the better. The IMBA hasn’t raised concerns by accident. Read the discussions on the major MTB forums and you’ll hear the same worry from riders themselves — not envy of new tech, but a real question about where this is heading.

The accessibility argument has cracks too. Sure, some riders genuinely benefit from more assist. But 1,500 watts isn’t an accessibility feature anymore — that’s moped territory. The overwhelming majority of eMTB riders aren’t heavyset, aren’t disabled, aren’t hauling cargo. They’re regular riders on regular bikes that are suddenly being equipped with motors built for a use case most of them don’t have.

An eMTB isn’t a moped. It’s a bike with assistance. More bike, less moped — that’s the direction the industry should be heading.

Here’s where it gets interesting. Look at the Avinox statement again and it reads less like a defense and more like a positioning move. Possibly even a strategy.

Avinox came in from outside, out of the DJI universe. They’ve got every technical card. They can’t win the market on tradition or dealer networks — so they win it on power. And the trap snaps shut: the legacy brands are now following. Bosch, Shimano, and the rest feel the pressure and start cranking their own outputs up. Instead of doubling down on what they actually do well — reliability, service infrastructure, decades of field testing — they chase the new player into a fight that blurs the line between a mountain bike and a motorcycle.

Whether Avinox planned it exactly that way is impossible to prove. But strategically it’s brilliant: define the market by power, force everyone onto your battlefield, and dominate that battlefield because you’re technically the best on it.

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