Focus Quits the Non-Electric Mountain Bike. Is the Entry-Level Hardtail Next?

One of Germany’s biggest bike brands will only sell mountain bikes with motors from 2027. In its home market, just one in fifteen new mountain bikes is still pedal-only. Here is why that matters for new riders on both sides of the Atlantic.

by Robert Langer

If you ride in North America, there is a decent chance you have never seen a Focus up close. In Germany, the brand is everywhere: a mainstream name in every bike shop, the kind of bike a lot of people bought as their first real mountain bike. That is why one forum post is getting so much attention in the German riding community right now.

A rider who has been loyal to Focus since the nineties went looking for a second carbon hardtail, opened the new catalog and found only e-bikes. His farewell thread is simply titled “Bye Focus,” and the replies split the way these debates always do. Some shrug: brands build what sells. Others say they hardly ever see an analog mountain bike on their local trails anymore.

What Focus actually announced

The news was hiding in plain sight. Back in August, Focus said it would drop the superscript “²” from its eMTB model names for 2027, so the JAM², SAM² and THRON² become simply the JAM, SAM and THRON. The reason Focus gave is the real story: there will no longer be equivalent bikes without an e-drive. The little “squared” used to signal “this model also comes with a motor.” With no pedal-only version left, it has nothing to signal.

Focus will keep making road and gravel bikes without motors. Off-road, the cheapest way into the brand is now the THRON 7 at €3,699 in Europe.

Germany has already gone electric

Before calling this a betrayal, look at the market Focus sells into. According to the German bike industry association ZIV, roughly 793,500 mountain bikes were sold in Germany in 2025. Of those, 741,000 had a motor. Only 52,500 did not, about one in fifteen. Consultancy EY puts the electric share of German mountain bike sales at 93 percent.

Focus is part of Pon.Bike, the Dutch group that also owns Santa Cruz. Seen from a boardroom, keeping a pedal-only mountain bike line alive for a market that shrinks every year is a hard sell. Focus simply said out loud what the numbers already said.

The superscript meant “also available with a motor.” Now the motor is the only option.

Why North America is not Germany, yet

The US and UK markets are not following the German curve one to one, and trail access is a big part of the reason. Across much of the US, e-bikes are still treated as motorized vehicles on federal land, which keeps them off a large share of non-motorized singletrack. If your local trail network says no motors, a Class 1 eMTB does not help you much, and a good pedal bike remains the default.

That is exactly why the Focus decision is worth paying attention to. Global brands plan their ranges for global markets. When the biggest market in Europe stops buying pedal-only mountain bikes, the pressure on the entry-level hardtail is felt everywhere, including at your local shop.

The real loser is the first-time rider

The forum veteran will find his next bike. He has thirty years of experience and knows exactly what he wants. The person this hurts is the one walking into a bike shop for the first time, trying to figure out if mountain biking is for them.

For decades, the entry-level hardtail was the front door of the sport: a front suspension fork, no rear shock, no battery, a price well under a grand. It is where you learned to pace a climb, read a root section and fix your own flat. If brands keep closing that door, the cheapest ticket into mountain biking starts closer to four thousand. Committed riders will pay it. The curious ones, the teenagers and the people who just want to try it, often will not.

The entry-level hardtail was the front door to this sport. Close it, and you do not lose the veterans. You lose the curious.

How to find a pedal-only first bike in 2026

Stick with brands that still care about the segment. Trek keeps the Marlin in its lineup as an entry-level hardtail, and several big European brands, including Cube and Canyon, still offer affordable aluminum hardtails. Check current pricing in your region.
Buy used without fear. A hardtail has no battery to wear out and no motor to fail. Brakes, fork and drivetrain are what matter.
Do not overbuy. Around 100mm of fork travel, hydraulic disc brakes and a 1x drivetrain are all you need to start.
Look at small builders. Steel hardtails from smaller brands are often built for exactly the kind of riding a first bike should do.

Where we stand

We are not anti-eMTB. Plenty of us ride one, and the motor has brought a lot of people back to the mountains. That is a good thing. But a sport where the only way in has a battery attached is a more expensive and less open sport. Focus made its call and was honest about it. The question now is whether the rest of the industry keeps the front door open. Our answer has not changed:

More bike, less moped.

Published by Radical Life Studios / MTB Report