BHZ

BH BHZ is the Basque brand's bold bet on going it alone. Rather than buying in a Bosch or Shimano unit, BH co-developed this drive with SEG Automotive and has it designed, developed and built at SEG's plant in Treto, Cantabria, making it one of the few genuinely Spanish-made mid-motors on the market. At 65 Nm of torque and 500 watts of peak power (250 W continuous, fed by a 36 V system) for just 2.1 kg, it sits squarely in the SL-class, the same lightweight bracket as Bosch's SX, Fazua's Ride 60, Specialized's SL 1.2 and the TQ HPR50.

The defining trait is naturalness. Three sensors, torque, speed and cadence, sample more than 1,000 times a second, so the assist arrives the instant you load the pedals and tapers cleanly toward the 25 km/h cut-off. BH quotes 100% power at all times regardless of battery charge across its Boost, Trail and Eco modes (with finer Trail+/Trail-/Eco+/Eco- steps in the app), so there's no over-eager surge and no lag, just a motor that amplifies the rider rather than replacing them. BH and the German press both flag it as one of the quietest units on the market, with no freewheel drag to spoil the descents, though no lab has yet published a decibel figure for it.

It is not, and was never meant to be, a 100 Nm full-power bruiser. On steep, technical climbs a Bosch CX (85 Nm) or Specialized 3.1 (101 Nm) will simply walk away from it. But for riders who want an e-MTB that rides like the analogue bike it's based on, the BHZ delivers the kind of light, lively, low-drag character that lets BH build a 120 mm trail bike that tips the scales at 17.8 kg while still carrying a 630 Wh battery.