Kalle Nicolai has been building bikes for off-road use for 25 years. Occasionally, he is criticised by loyal and beloved NICOLAI customers that the company is not as crazy as the early days, suggesting our current bikes are innovative and special, but have somewhat become high-tech mainstream. It was precisely the wild and wacky designs like the Lambda in the nineties, or the Nucleon born in the noughties which built our brand identity. Polarising machines that caused holler and heckle, but left nobody indifferent.

We would like to quote the boss: I simply love to design fast bikes that people enjoy, that warm their hearts and smile their faces. I love sitting at my desk late into the night, imagining, designing, calculating. I love the battle between design, error and re-design. The quest for solutions and down different paths that I descend. Then, I love to share these plans with my incredible engineers, fabricators, finishers and builders that can take the dream and create a reality from it. The results are celebrated, condemned, or we are simply called crazy Germans. The EBOXX Ultra will tick all three of those boxes.

The EBOXX Ultra closes the gap between eMTB and eMoto. eMotorbikes have massive power from 15 to 35 KW. Tonnes of torque, but weighing in over 100kgs can make handling difficult and can pull the brake levers on fun. In contrast, a licence-free eMTB weighs about 60% more than a comparable non-motorised MTB and provides similar handling and agility. However, due to their nominal power of 250 watts, eMTB’s don’t have much oomph. The EBOXX Ultra weighs between 55 and 65kg, its motor has a peak output of 10 KW and generates an incredible 275 Nm torque at the rear wheel. This power combined with a weight much closer to an MTB than a motorbike guarantees maximum riding smiles, fantastic control and agile handling. The Italian-made EXT suspension developed specifically for this bike can easily take on bombed-out tracks and the toughest trails.

NICOLAI is a mountain bike brand at heart, so at this point we clearly define that you have no business riding the EBOXX Ultra in your local forest on MTB trails: it is classified as a motor vehicle. The unrestricted motocross version, the EBOXX Ultra MX, reaches a top speed of 65 km/h and cannot be road legal in Germany in this form. Like any motocross bike, the MX version should only be operated on private, approved, and closed off-road tracks. Fortunately, approved off-road parks and tracks are becoming more common so you can legally let off steam with e-power.