Claud Butler Wrath 2.0 (2024 - ) review

E-bikes come in all shapes and sizes, and various configurations. From the off the Claud Butler Wrath 2.0 shouts its mountain bike cred, with a burly aluminium frame, chunky off-road tyres on big wheels, flat handlebars and a stylishly modern look. The latter is helped by integrating the battery into the frame, which looks a lot neater than the external battery on the cheaper Haste-E and makes the Wrath appear a lot more expensive than it actually is. As the top of the Wrath line-up the 2.0 gets a bigger battery and greater range, and is capable of 42 miles of assisted pedalling over the 28 miles of the Wrath 1.0. The hub-mounted motor is simpler than the more expensive frame-mounted units that drive the pedals directly and, while that does perhaps limit how hard you want to push it, for gentle forest tracks, canal towpaths and the like the Wrath 2.0 is a capable and good looking machine.

In mountain bike terminology the Wrath 2.0 is a ‘hardtail’, which is to say it has suspension at the front but not the back. Taking advantage of the latest trends in the industry it runs en vogue 29-inch sized wheels, which are bigger than those of the past but have been integrated into the frame geometry so as to not have it feeling too gate-like. For your six-foot tester the larger of the two frame sizes felt roomy enough, Claud Butler clearly taking account of modern trends by making it nice and long but still keeping the frame low to help what’s called standover height. There’s also a medium option, which with the low-slung frame should suit most smaller riders, with plenty of adjustment in the quick release seat post. As standard the riding position is relatively stretched out and racy, putting handling ahead of comfort. Which is fine for the riders it’s aimed at but if you want something more upright and comfort-oriented there may be better options.

In the mountain bike style the Wrath 2.0 doesn’t have mudguards, a rack or other accessories. There are mounts for them, but you may struggle to fit conventional mudguards over the fat tyres. Or you can just accept that a bit of mud on your backside is all part of the fun when it comes to riding off-road! Fair to say that, overall, practicality is not number one on the Wrath’s priorities, style and the intention to explore off the beaten track more what it’s about.

Hub-mounted motors like that on the Wrath are easier to integrate, and help keep costs down compared with the more sophisticated frame-mounted motor systems you’ll see on some other e-bikes. They have equivalent power to get you up the hills as well, so you’re not losing out on the all-important assistance, though some motors on properly fancy mountain bikes can provide a stronger kick if you’re really serious. Albeit at a considerable extra cost. The hub motor can also be a little slower to kick in, though, and you sometimes need a couple more pedal strokes on your own before it wakes up, which can be a struggle if you’ve stopped on a hill. Good job the Wrath 2.0 has a wider spread of gears than its cheaper Wrath 1.0 equivalent, the 10-speed Shimano system using quality components that should get you up pretty much anything with a combination of leg and electric power. Powerful brakes are essential on e-mountain bikes given the extra weight they need to slow – again the Wrath uses proven kit here, the Tektro hydraulic disc brakes from the budget end of the spectrum but proven, powerful and reliable.

That modern, stretched out riding position will feel familiar to anyone coming from a regular mountain bike, and combines stability at speed and over all kinds of terrain with a nicely ‘centred’ position on the bike to put weight through both tyres for grip in acceleration, braking and cornering. Which we liked! Obviously, the Wrath 2.0 is built to a price, and we were less taken with the rather basic suspension forks and way they sprung back rather harshly over the bumps. Put it this way, the ride quality on an equivalently priced non-electric hardtail mountain bike would be night-and-day better, the considerable extra weight of the battery and motor also thumping hard into the bumps rather than skipping over them. Because of the Wrath’s weight you also need to keep the tyres pumped up pretty hard to avoid punctures, which doesn’t do you any favours in terms of comfort or grip, either. For flatter trails with smoother surfaces the Wrath will be fine, but if you have ambitions to ride more challenging terrain it would be worth the extra money going for a full-suspension mountain bike.

While the performance of a hub motor may not be as good as a frame-mounted one it is a lot simpler mechanically, the fact it’s self-contained meaning it won’t need the upkeep or maintenance more sophisticated motor systems sometimes demand. It also means the rest of the parts – the cranks, gears, chain and suchlike – are all standard bicycle kit, so no more expensive to maintain or replace as and when things wear out. The fact they’re of decent quality should also see them last well. If you intend to ride off-road a lot we’d advise talking to your local bike shop about converting to a tubeless tyre set-up to save on getting through inner-tubes at a rate of knots, and the weight of the bike might see you replacing brake pads more often than you would on a non-electric equivalent. But other than that running costs should be reasonable.

See above on how the quality of the components should help the reliability and longevity, this alone making the extra money over the Wrath 1.0 feel worth it on the basis you won’t be replacing bits as often. In terms of the battery and motor we’d be slightly concerned at the fact these come from a generic source, rather than a big name like Bosch. That may sound snobbish but if anything does go wrong you stand a reasonable chance of being able to repair systems from a known supplier on the basis they have an established support network and bike shops will be more familiar with how to fix them.

As above, because the hub motor is a self-contained unit and the rest of the bike uses standard components the Wrath 2.0 can be serviced by any competent shop, and the cross-compatibility means flexibility when it comes to replacement parts. Which can help on costs. The one-year guarantee covering the bike and all components is, however, the bare minimum, many other brands offering a couple of years for e-bike batteries and motors. While the Wrath’s hub-motor layout should be tough and reliable the electrified bits can be costly to replace if they do go wrong, and ideally we’d want a longer guarantee than just a year.

You pays your money and takes your choice but the Wrath 2.0 puts its emphasis on the quality and style of its frame more than it does extras like lights, racks and mudguards. Which is fine, on the basis there are other bikes in the range offering that! Overall, we did appreciate that you can remove the battery for remote charging if you prefer, the quality of ‘finishing kit’ like the saddle, the fashionable tan-wall tyres and Shimano gears. The neat display for the motor system and convenient controller for showing the range and switching between levels of power assistance was also good, and includes information about how far and how fast you’ve been riding.

So long as you’re realistic in your expectations of what kind of terrain it will work best on the Claud Butler Wrath 2.0 is a stylish, well-specced and sensibly priced electric mountain bike seemingly deserving of its award as the best hub-motor mountain bike under £2,000 given to it by a specialist e-bike review site. The extra power of the bigger battery, the wider range of gears and the improved quality of the components makes the extra £200 or so over the Wrath 1.0 a no-brainer as well, given the parts should prove tougher and longer-lasting so saving you money in the long run.