Pole Bicycles have released the all-new Voima eMTB with a whopping 190mm of front and rear wheel travel. Voima is Finnish for Power, and this enduro eMTB has no shortage of that. A 725 Wh battery fuels a Brose S-MAG motor that delivers up to 90Nm of torque to the rear wheel of this CNC machined aluminium frame. Here’s a brief introduction to one of the biggest eMTBs of 2021, the Pole Voima.
Pole Voima eMTB
Like all Pole Bicycles, the Pole Voima eMTB is manufactured in-house in Finland. This is their first foray into the world of electric mountain bikes, and boy have they made an entrance. The Voima is massive in almost every sense of the word; massive battery, massive power, massive travel and massively generous reach figures.
- Intention: Enduro eMTB Riding and Racing
- Fork Travel: 190mm
- Rear Wheel Travel: 190mm
- Wheel Size: 29″
- Frame Sizes: K1-K4
Though not exactly cheap by anyone’s standard, the only thing it isn’t massive on is price. The Pole Voima frameset retails at an introductory price of €5,490, with complete bikes starting at €8,490. The bikes aren’t due until early 2022, but you can reserve one now for just €200. Budgeting aside, let’s dig into the frame details.
Save for the CNC finish hallmarks of a Pole Bicycle, the Voima looks almost nothing like the Stamina and Evolink enduro bikes. That’s thanks to the all-new SENSEI suspension platform with elevated seatstays that allow room for the motor. This is a four bar linkage with a Virtual Pivot Point that hovers just above the chainline.
Pole say this layout delivers a progressive leverage ratio and a falling rate of anti-squat to keep pedal feedback to a minimum. Importantly, Pole’s early prototypes of the Voima were put together without the motor. That’s because they wanted to be sure they had a solid pedaling platform with suspension that worked well even without the extra weight of a battery and motor (which tends to improve the overall performance of suspension, in general).
The swingarm itself lacks a traditional seatstay bridge. Pole say that the double row bearings employed make the rear end more than stiff enough.
In true Pole Bicycles fashion, the Voima eMTB has some of the most generous reach figures on the market. The range stretches from 450mm in K1 right up to 535mm in K4, serving rider heights from 160cm to over 195cm. A slack head tube sits at 63.5° while the seat tube angle is very upright at 80°.
The chainstay length is generous too at an effective 455mm across all frame sizes, resulting in some whopping wheelbase figures (1368mm in K4).
The bonded 7075-T6 aluminum frame is compatible with dual-crown forks, so if you wanted to set it up as your own private shuttle for the bike parks, you can go right ahead and stick a FOX 40 on it.
For those readers interested in a more complete backstory of the Pole Voima’s development, the following seventeen minute video from Pole will be right up your street.
Pricing & Availability
The Pole Voima isn’t ready to bolt out of the starting blocks just yet. It is still awaiting the industry’s toughest EFBE safety testing in Germany. Assuming that will be successful and the Voima frame passes (as the remastered Stamina did), production will go ahead this autumn with K2 and K3 framesets available on a limited basis.
Pole have an introductory price for the Voima, set to 5490 € for the frameset with complete builds coming in at 8490 €. Beyond the introductory pricing time frame (no exact dates yet) framesets will be 5990 € and complete builds will be 8990 €.
