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Monterey, CALIF. (2021 Sea Otter Classic) — SCOR Bicycles was born from a couple employees at BMC searching for a bike to push their limits on the world class trails found in the Swiss Alps. While BMC is no stranger to high performance bicycles, the Swiss brand’s endurance-based bikes left some day dreaming about a bike for the bigger hits and gnarlier terrain.
Electric Bike Report got a chance to meet the SCOR/BMC team at the 2021 Sea Otter Classic and see what they were all about. Tyler Miller, the midwest regional sales manager for BMC America told our team more about how SCOR came to be and what makes them so unique.
Naturally, we had our eye on their eMTB, the SCOR 4060 Z LT XT which was on display at the event. The rear linkage design, beautiful paint job, Shimano EP8 motor and the rarity of the eMTB made it a hard bike to ignore. We are hoping to put this bike to the test on our rocky Southern Utah terrain in the near future.
The SCOR 4060 Z LT XT we saw at the Sea Otter Classic was done up in this gorgeous purple paint. It’s a looker.
SCOR: “More interested in play than performance”
The 2021 Sea Otter Classic was the first time U.S riders have seen these bikes in the flesh. “We are starting this brand with a very grass roots mentality with very few dealers. A part of the big reason for that is so we can support them with product,” Miller said. The 2021 Sea Otter Classic housed a lot of new ideas, brands and bikes over the four day event — for as young as the SCOR brand is it’s pretty impressive to see where they’re at already.
SCOR is “more interested in play than performance,” however it appears the performance is just as prevalent as ever. Thanks to the research and development done by BMC, SCOR was created without the hurdles a lot of other start-up manufacturers face. Lots of the process and engineering that goes into their cycles has already been put to the test by BMC, the brand affiliation also allows SCOR to be more approachable to die-hard BMC riders.
Nested beneath SCOR’s neat-looking rear suspension linkage is a Shimano EP8 motor, a very solid lightweight eMTB power plant.
The SCOR brand “came from passion,” Miller said. Miller also put a big emphasis on the approach BMC is taking with their sister company — “We wanted it to stand alone. We wanted SCOR to make its own footprint in the market”.
The BMC backing and passion is very clear within the finer details of SCOR Bicycles, the relationship between the two companies has allowed SCOR to be a lap ahead of some other new boutique bicycle manufacturers with their technology and design. The SCOR brand has a big focus on versaitility, “there is a tunability for what each rider is looking for,” Miller said.
Considering the monstrous and awe-inspiring mountain range in the backyard of their headquarters we have no doubts about their testing to make that the case.
