Yeti wasn’t particularly quick when it came to jumping onto the e-mountain bike gravy train, and again, it hasn’t hastily blasted a lightweight e-MTB onto the market. However, by combining its e-bike-specific Sixfinity linkage with the latest in TQ technology, the Yeti MTe has proven to be a well-considered and well-refined bit of kit. I got some time on the bike ahead of its launch, and these are my first impressions.

• Yeti ASR T3 first ride review
• First Ride: Yeti 160E T-Series T1 - Yeti's first e-mtb
• Yeti SB135 LR T3 first ride review

Although Yeti will no doubt be looking to aim the limelight at the MTe, perhaps the biggest headline is that it comes equipped with an all-new motor from TQ, the HPR60. As you might have guessed, it knocks out 60Nm of torque with 350W peak power. The result is 200% support in a package that’s claimed to weigh less than two kilos. The MTe joins only Propain’s Sresh SL in donning the new technology upon launch.

The MTe T3 XO bike I tested came with the 580Wh battery, whereas there’s a lighter weight model that gets a 290Wh-equipped model, which is not available in the UK.

2025 yeti mte motor.jpg, by Liam Mercer

With a new motor comes a new display, and while it’s not something I’d usually dive into too much, it’s a neat-looking design. It’s full colour and a considerable upgrade compared to the previous generation TQ display. Scrollable via the button on the dashboard, it can display a wide range of metrics while looking rather pretty.

Onto the bike itself, it revolves around Yeti’s e-MTB-specific Sixfinity linkage. Like the 160e, it provides leverage rate progression adjustment via a flip chip found at the lower shock mount, and it's tuned for pedalling efficiency at sag. Yeti then says that the anti-squat curves are scaled inversely to the bike’s assistance. It’s then designed with consistent anti-rise throughout the travel, so braking performance should still be on point even when rattling through chunky terrain.

2025 yeti mte fork.jpg, by Liam Mercer

The bike runs 160mm of suspension up front, 145mm at the rear, and comes as a full 29er as standard, although it can run a 650b wheel at the rear. Geometry-wise, the large frame I rode features a generous 480mm reach, a 64-degree head tube angle, a 77-degree effective seat tube angle, and a 449mm chainstay - all spot on trail figures, if you ask me.

Those are merely the highlights of the new Yeti MTe, to go into more depth on things like its Vectran Enhanced layup, head over to the news story for more.

Yeti MTe T3 XO - Componentry

Priced at £11,000, you would be right in expecting a pretty blingy build kit. Providing that 160mm of damping at the front is Fox’s very latest 36 Factory fork with a Grip X2 damper and that generatively designed arch. There’s a Fox Factory Float X shock and SRAM’s XO T-Type drivetrain. 

2025 yeti mte shock.jpg, by Liam Mercer

Slowing the bike is a pair of SRAM Maven Silver brakes with 200mm rotors at both ends. Those rotors are bolted to DT Swiss’s EXC 1700 carbon rims, and they’re wrapped with Schwalbe’s Magic Mary and Albert Radial tyres - a surprising deviation from the usual Maxxis choice from Yeti.

2025 yeti mte rear tyre.jpg, by Liam Mercer

Finishing up the bike is a 200mm RockShox Reverb AXS dropper, a Yeti carbon bar, ODI grips, and a WTB Solano saddle. We’re told that the overall weight is 19.64kg.

Yeti MTe T3 XO - Ride impressions

I rode the Yeti MTe through a collection of my very favourite regular trails that vary from mellow to steep, and from flat to constant root gardens, and the bike rarely missed a beat. A lot of the bike’s capability and friendliness comes from its wheelbase and notably, the chainstay, where on the climbs, it’s very much sit and spin as both wheels remain planted, without requiring much thought towards weight distribution to keep the bike behaving. The 29in wheel duo certainly helps here.

2025 yeti mte head tube.jpg, by Liam Mercer

The bike’s chainstay makes its mark on the descents too, both for the positive and negative. To start with the good, it’s a planted machine that’s way more forgiving than its 145mm of rear travel suggests. It’s stable and monstrously quick as it dispatched fast and technical sections without batting an eyelid, especially with the generous reach and on-the-money head angle joining the party.

A lot of that composure comes through that six-bar linkage where it’s keen to open up and absorb all kinds of bumps but remain behaved under pedalling loads. Handily, the rear axle path feels a little more rearward, which helps rear wheel glide over square-edged hits, which instilled heaps of confidence, allowing me to let off the brakes and charge into questionable chunk. The bike’s ability to shrug off square-edged hits encourages it to gather some serious momentum, but its geometry, composure, and the hefty Maven brakes kept me more than comfortable at higher speeds than I’m usually accustomed to.

2025 yeti mte screen.jpg, by Liam Mercer

Although I struggled to feel undergunned aboard the MTe, it’s very balanced in that it didn’t feel like too much when riding less intense tracks. It’s hard charging when it needs to be, yet welcoming and engaging when you want it to be.

However, there is an area where the bike felt a little too much - in tight corners, and that is owing to the chainstay and wheelbase. There’s simply more bike to haul around a corner, so it requires a little more consideration when attacking such features. That is nothing a slightly higher line, or a cheeky endo turn won’t fix, but better still, Yeti has given the bike a flip-chip that allows for a smaller rear wheel, which will certainly claw back some agility, if that’s what your riding asks for.

2025 yeti mte seat stay.jpg, by Liam Mercer

But when the corners open up, the MTe’s central riding position and lengthier chainstays make for a really good time. When leaned, it’s consistent and there’s a very clear level of communication and feedback from both ends of the bike. Then the low, but not too low, bottom bracket lowers the centre of gravity, which helps drive the bike through the corner. Again, in tight stuff, it requires a bit of extra brain power, but open corners are dealt with without much in the way of hesitation.

The tyre specification is an interesting one. Riders who are looking to wring the absolute maximum from the MTE might want to go for beefier casings for peace of mind. The Trail casing did the job just fine, but it is a little squirmy, on the rear, especially. Inflating the tyre well around five to eight PSI above my regular pressure made it a lot more predictable. 

2025 yeti mte cable routing.jpg, by Liam Mercer

As for the new TQ HPR60 motor, it very much pulls the brand’s offering well in line with the current crop of mid-power lightweight alternatives from brands like Fazua. As with the HPR50, it’s a very well-refined, quiet, and natural-feeling unit, but it has a little more power at its disposal, so that’s all rather lovely. The best bit, however, is its battery capacity and range. Where the HPR50 was rather limited in the range department, the new system took me just under 28km with 1,395m of ascent. After, I was left with 14% to play with. Throughout that ride, I didn’t try to be frugal with the power modes as I regularly flicked into the most powerful mode to winch myself up some beastly climbs. To put it short, the bike had more to give than my legs.

Yeti MTe T3 XO - Early verdict

Of course, the usual Yeti elephant in the room is very present - its price. At just short of £11,000, the MTe is a very serious investment. While it’s hard to say that it’s a good value bike, it does a valiant job of backing up that asking price. Namely, that’s with all the adjustments you could ask for, the TQ motor, and the very latest in Fox suspension technology. It also helps that it’s an awful lot of run to ride.

However, it rides remarkably similarly to YT Industries’ recent Decoy SN 29, which, in its Core 4 build, is a couple of grand less expensive. Its geometry is nearly identical with a few differences here and there, but that extra couple of grand grants you not only the Yeti name, which can be appealing in its own right, but also that motor, the Sixfinity linkage, and more adjustability.

Money aside, the Yeti MTe is a bike that’s got me properly excited, owing to how at home it was over each trail I rode and the heft of speed it encouraged. Whether it was a lengthy climb or chunky straightaway, it just got the job done without complaint. In its full 29er guise, it certainly favours stability, but that’s easily amended with a smaller rear wheel, and the level of adjustability it brings is certainly welcome. The motor is an impressive bit of kit too, as it brings the power and range expected of modern e-MTBs to TQ’s impressively natural power delivery.

• yeticycles.com

You might also like:

• Ten top tips for Alpine riding trips
• Fastest Known Times - everything you need to know
• off-road Opinion - E-bikes aren't a menace, it's all about trail etiquette