MONDRAKER DUNE

A Bike That Is ALMOST Perfect: Mondraker Dune

There’s no sugar coating it or trying to do an intro, I just have to get straight to the point…the Mondraker Dune is a great bike. There, I said it. I should note that although I have owned and ridden plenty of e-bikes such as the Shuttle Am and Levo, they are not a constant bike that’s kept in my fleet. Although they are enjoyable bikes to ride and definitely have their place in the market, I personally prefer a bike that allows me to get my heart rate high when charging up and a bike that is nimble going down. This is seen with me regularly “under biking” opting for a Yeti SB140 park set up to keep agility rather than bumping up to an SB160. 

Anyways, the Dune was an utter surprise to me. On paper this was a bike that wouldn’t appeal to me; long travel, mullet wheels, higher stack. Simply put it on paper it was in line with other bikes that I have ridden and not particularly enjoyed. And hearing Marks constant raving about the bike over the last week and a half had me questioning how great it could be vs. how much of it was driven by being the hot new toy. 

The plan was to ride it on our Wednesday night shop ride, everyone else had agreed upon trying our new full power Shuttle LTs and I wanted to see how this little Bosch SX motor stood up. Stepping over the bike I felt at home with an almost perfect 480mm reach on the large. The stem felt high, but nothing that wasn’t easily adjusted with stem spacers and a multitool. With 28% Sag Front and Rear and tire pressures set, we head off onto the first long pavement climb.  

The bike immediately surprised me with the power and made it felt like it was an XC pro, flying up the hills, but by no means was it easy! The motor powers the rider along as long as you keep cadence high. The e bike experience came to be incredibly enjoyable because it was reminiscent of driving a slower sports car fast, as long as you keep the revs high you will be good. The motor and the output incentivized you to use the range of the cassette and as long as you keep it in that rpm sweet spot it goes with close to the perceived power as a full E. And it should be mentioned that there were no issues keeping up with full power e bikes. Although full power bikes had the all out power advantage, it seemed to even out with the Dune being unmatched in its ability to effectively get the power down to the rear wheel.

Downhills historically have been where I have found a distaste for e-bikes. Although they are incredibly planted and stable, that comes with the sacrifice of agility, the one feature i typically prioritize over any other. Riding the Dune down agressive chunk had me pleasantly surprised and amazed at what had been done with the bike. With a low enough weight to really throw the bike around and get aggressive but not tired, and more than enough power this struck the perfect balance of what an ebike should be. Agility was still apparent in the bike and allowed me to save my a** with some last minute adjustments that would have not been possible on a full e.

Early I’d eluded to the “almost perfect bike” and it ticked every box for me but 1. When you are built like me (5’11” and 34” inseam) you look for one thing in every bike and that’s dropper insertion. The zero suspension system provided that excellent rear end, but is ultimately what causes this bike to have a general in-ability to run longer droppers when compared to other similar models on the market. It should be noted the the large still had a 180mm dropper post which was enough, but in my use case for the bike I will be swapping that out to a Oneup V3 210mm post to remedy this and make the Dune the perfect bike. 

The bike I was riding was our Large Dune R demo bike, it’s one of 3 Dune demos that we have in the store and is one of the few bikes that I’d urger EVERYONE to try. This was not the bike for me on paper and it completely changed my perception of what the perfect e-bike is. 

Specs Below: 

• Rider Weight / Height: 169lbs / 5’11”
• Mondraker Dune R
• 35mm Stem // 5mm Stack Under Stem
• Fork PSI: 84.5
• Fork Compression: 5
• Fork Rebound: 17
• Shock PSI: 175 
• Shock Compression: N/A
• Shock Rebound: 3