Scott Solace Gravel 30

What this bike is for

The Scott Solace Gravel 30 sits at the more affordable end of Scott's UK electric-gravel line-up, below the Gravel 20 and 10, but it's still built around the same idea: a genuinely light, drop-bar carbon bike that happens to have a discreet motor built in. Scott specifies it for riding condition 2, meaning roads, gravel roads and moderate-grade unpaved trails with drops kept to 15cm or less. That's a useful signal for buyers: this is a bike for long days combining tarmac and gravel, not one to take down technical singletrack with big drops. If your riding mixes road miles with forest roads, towpaths and the odd steep gravel climb, and you want help on the climbs without carrying a heavy e-MTB around, this is the kind of bike built for exactly that.

The motor, battery and drivetrain

At the heart of the bike is a TQ HPR60 mid-drive motor, offering up to 60Nm of assistance, paired with a 360Wh battery built into the frame. UK and EU rules mean the assistance cuts out at 25km/h, the same as every pedal-assist e-bike sold here, so above that speed you're riding on your own effort. What makes the HPR60 system notable in this class is how little bulk it adds: Scott claims a bike weight of around 14.3kg, which is light for an assisted gravel bike and means the Solace Gravel 30 still handles and climbs more like an unassisted gravel bike than a heavier trail e-bike. Shifting comes from SRAM's Apex XPLR groupset, described by Scott as electronic, running a 42-tooth chainring against an 11-44T cassette, so you get one wide-range gear ladder rather than a front derailleur to think about. Braking uses SRAM's Apex AXS shift-brake system with 160mm HS2 rotors front and rear, and the bike rolls on 700x50C Schwalbe G-One Overland tyres, wide enough to take the edge off rougher gravel without turning the bike into something ponderous on the road sections in between.

Choosing your size

Scott offers the Solace Gravel 30 in five sizes, from XS/49 up to XL/58, and the published height bands overlap at the edges, so someone at the top of one range and the bottom of the next has a genuine choice rather than a single right answer. Where that happens, it's worth looking at the full reach, stack and standover figures for each size rather than the height guide alone, since two riders of the same height can have very different proportions and a very different idea of how stretched-out they want to feel on a long ride. The stem length also changes by size, from 80mm on the XS/49 up to 110mm on the XL/58, which is Scott's way of keeping the handling reach consistent as the frame reach grows.

Extending your range and fitting accessories

360Wh is a reasonably compact battery for a bike built to cover long mixed-surface days, and it's worth being clear that it's the fitted capacity rather than a distance promise. If you regularly ride further than that battery comfortably covers, Scott's own answer is a 160Wh range extender, which is a separate accessory that fits in the bottle-cage position rather than something included with the bike. It's worth budgeting for separately if longer unsupported rides are the plan, and it also means giving up your bottle mount unless you're running a frame bag or similar instead. The other accessory worth knowing about before you buy is mudguards: Syncros fender kits are compatible, but Scott specifies only 45mm of tyre clearance once fenders are fitted, which is less than the 50C tyres the bike comes with. If you want mudguards for winter commuting on top of gravel riding, that's a genuine trade-off to think through rather than something to discover after buying a set.

Solace Gravel eRIDE 30 versus this HPR60 build

If you come across a Solace Gravel eRIDE 30 while shopping around, it's worth knowing that's an earlier, separately named configuration rather than this bike under an old label. That eRIDE 30 uses a 50Nm HPR50 motor along with a different wheel, tyre and brake-rotor specification, so its equipment list shouldn't be read across to the HPR60 build described here. If you're comparing listings, check which motor and component spec is actually quoted rather than assuming the name alone tells you everything.

Ownership over time

Scott backs the frame and rear end with a five-year guarantee, but that period only holds if you register the bike with Scott within ten days of buying it and have it serviced at least once a year by an authorised Scott dealer; skip either step and the cover drops to three years. It's a small bit of admin worth doing on day one, especially on a bike you're planning to keep for years of gravel and road riding rather than trade in after a season.