'A radical ride experience' - Salsa launches 'industry-first' full-suspension gravel e-bike

Salsa Cycles today unveiled a self-proclaimed industry first: a Class 3 full-suspension gravel e-bike called the Wanderosa.

It's got 120mm of suspension up front, 110mm at the rear. A long reach, short stem and very wide drop bars. A dropper post. Tyre clearance up to 2.35 inches.

Salsa calls this "a genre-bending blend of full-suspension capability, progressive drop-bar geometry, and motorised assistance for a radical ride experience."

I’m more inclined to call it a cross-country e-mountain bike with drop bars. All off-road versus all-road.

What I can’t quite tell is whether this is a gravel-y mountain bike or a mountain-bike-y gravel bike. I'll let you be the judge.

Meet the Wanderosa

The Wanderosa is the fifth e-bike model that Salsa has released since February 2024. In introducing the model, the Minnesota-based brand calls it a "light electric full-suspension gravel bike, built to push boundaries so you can take your Adventure by Bike farther and faster than you thought possible."

It starts with a high-modulus carbon frame with a flex-stay rear suspension design and an increasingly common 'progressive gravel geometry' of a long reach, short stem, slack head angle, steep effective seat tube angle, and a long wheelbase designed for stability at speed.

Bar widths start at 44cm on the smallest frame (xs) and stretch all the way to 52cm on the largest (XL). Numbers that are far removed from its slick-tyred tarmac drop-bar siblings.

The Wanderosa comes in three SRAM builds, all of which use RockShox SID shocks to deliver 120mm of suspension in the front and 110mm in the rear. For context, that’s right in line with modern XC race bikes like a Specialized Chisel or Canyon Lux. Not a tad cushy for gravel, but fully normal mountain bike numbers.

The bike is powered by a FAZUA Ride 60 mid-drive system, offering a max speed of 28mph (20mph in Canada), 60Nm of torque and a 480Wh internal battery. It’s a relatively light-assist setup by e-MTB standards, but paired with this much suspension and this geometry, it’s clearly meant to encourage bigger, bumpier rides and higher speeds.

I'm not going to lie, when I first saw the Wanderosa, I thought this would be perfect to pedal over to my local mtb trail network (a 23-mile one-way outing), do a few laps, and pedal back.

Who's this for?

The timing of the Wanderosa couldn’t be more interesting.

It lands just after Pinarello rolled out its Grevil MX, another "gravel" bike that looks suspiciously like a mountain bike that’s been taught to use drop bars. At the same time, Life Time has been drawing firmer lines around what is — and isn’t — allowed at events like Leadville Trail 100 and Little Sugar, explicitly excluding drop-bars from mountain bikes.

While brands are enthusiastically stretching the definition of gravel, others are calling for a narrower spectrum. Ultimately, it's the consumers who have the final say. And Salsa intends this bike for the consumer who "seeks a gravel experience they can't find anywhere else."

The Wanderosa is not trying to win gravel races. It’s built, as Salsa puts it: for "comfort, control and confidence at speed," especially when the terrain starts to look a lot like… well, mountain biking.

"Wanderosa comes from the team that defined gravel to begin with and continues to develop products that redefine what gravel is,” said Joe Meiser, category manager at Salsa.

The Wanderosa is offered at three price tiers. The top-tier features a SRAM Force/XO Eagle AXS drivetrain and retails for $12,999 USD. At $9,999 USD, the mid-tier option comes with a Rival/GX AXS groupset and finally, there's an Apex-Eagle build that retails for $7,999 USD.