Kona put a full-power Bosch motor in the Remote for the first time and kept the alloy build at $6,499. That combination is the story. The 2026 Kona Remote 160 geometry chart shows a bike that got a degree of head angle and five millimetres of chainstay slacker and longer than the outgoing frame, wrapped around Bosch’s 120 Nm Performance Line CX drive and an 800 Wh internal battery, at a price that undercuts most of the full-power field. Kona announced it alongside a bigger 180mm sibling, the Remote X, on August 13, 2026 (Mountain Bike Action).
For a brand that spent years running mid and mixed-power Shimano units in the Remote, moving to Bosch’s flagship CX is the headline spec change. But the geometry is where this bike earns or loses a tall rider, and that is worth working through size by size.
Full power, without the full-power price
Both new bikes share the same drive package: a Bosch Performance Line CX motor rated at 120 Nm of torque and 750 W of peak power, fed by an 800 Wh internal battery, with an optional 250 Wh PowerMore range extender for long days (Kona). That is the current top of Bosch’s full-power range, the same class of motor you find on bikes costing several thousand more.
The Remote 160 lands at $6,499 in the US, $6,999 in Canada, and €6,999 in Europe. The longer-travel Remote X is $6,899 US. For context, NSMB pointed out that an alloy Specialized Turbo Levo 4 sits around $6,800 with less travel, weaker brakes, and simpler dampers (NSMB). Kona built the Remote 160 around a RockShox Zeb Select fork at 170mm, a Super Deluxe Select+ shock driving 160mm out back, SRAM’s Eagle 90/70 drivetrain, and Maven four-piston brakes on 200mm rotors. That is a genuine ride-it-hard parts list at the price.
The Remote 160 geometry chart
Here is the full chart from Kona’s own size table, all four sizes, 29in wheels front and rear on medium through extra-large, with the small running a 27.5in rear.
| Measurement | S | M | L | XL |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reach (mm) | 430 | 455 | 480 | 515 |
| Stack (mm) | 636 | 636 | 646 | 656 |
| Head tube angle | 63.5° | 63.5° | 63.5° | 63.5° |
| Seat tube angle (eff) | 78.4° | 78.4° | 78.3° | 78.2° |
| Chainstay (mm) | 445 | 445 | 445 | 445 |
| Wheelbase (mm) | 1228 | 1253 | 1283 | 1323 |
| Front centre (mm) | 784 | 809 | 839 | 879 |
| BB height (mm) | 350 | 350 | 350 | 350 |
| BB drop (mm) | 15 | 25 | 25 | 25 |
| Head tube (mm) | 115 | 115 | 126 | 137 |
| Seat tube (mm) | 380 | 385 | 420 | 450 |
| Standover (mm) | 763 | 763 | 770 | 775 |
A 63.5° head angle held flat across every size is slack for a do-it-all 160mm eMTB. Most trail-weighted full-power bikes in this travel bracket sit closer to 64.5° to 65°, so Kona has pushed the front end a touch further out than the category norm. Paired with 170mm of fork, that reads as a bike built to be pointed downhill first and pedalled up second, which is exactly what a 120 Nm motor lets you get away with. Kona says the head angle is half a degree slacker than the outgoing Remote, with chainstays five millimetres longer.
445mm at every size, and what that costs the XL rider
The number that stands out is the chainstay: 445mm on all four frames. This site has spent the back half of 2026 documenting brands moving the other way, with size-specific rear centres on the Yeti MT, the Cube Fritzz, and the Whyte Sythe all growing the back of the bike as the front grows. Kona did not follow. The Remote 160 keeps one rear length and lets the front centre do all the growing, from 784mm on the small to 879mm on the extra-large.
Run the rear centre as a share of wheelbase and the drift is clear. On the small, 445mm of chainstay is 36.2% of the 1228mm wheelbase. On the extra-large it is 33.6% of 1323mm. That 2.6-point slide means the taller you go, the further forward your weight sits relative to the rear axle, and the more the bike wants you to actively push into the front on flat corners to keep the tyre biting.
At 6’4″ I read the XL as roomy in the cockpit and slightly long out front. A 515mm reach and 656mm stack give a big, comfortable descending platform, but a 445mm rear behind that reach is on the short side for a rider my height who wants to stay centred on steep, awkward terrain. It is not a dealbreaker; it is the trade Kona chose, and worth knowing before you size up.
Why the small bike runs a different bottom bracket
There is one anomaly in the chart worth explaining, because it looks like an error and is not. Bottom bracket height is a flat 350mm across all four sizes, but the small lists a 15mm BB drop where medium through extra-large show 25mm.
That is the mullet setup doing its job. The small ships with a 27.5in rear wheel, which has a smaller radius than the 29in wheel on the larger frames. A smaller wheel would normally pull the bottom bracket closer to the ground, so Kona reduced the drop relative to the axle by 10mm to land back at the same 350mm ride height. The rider on the small ends up with the same pedal clearance and the same cornering feel as everyone else, which is the point. Stack tells a similar story of deliberate sizing: small and medium share a 636mm stack because they share a 115mm head tube, then it steps to 646mm and 656mm as the head tube grows to 126mm and 137mm.
The Remote X: same platform, 180mm, and a mullet
The Remote X is the enduro-weighted version of the same idea. It runs roughly 180mm front and rear on a Fox 38 Performance Elite fork and Float X shock, on Kona’s linkage-driven single-pivot layout, and it ships as a mullet across every size with a flip chip to run a 29in rear if you want it (NSMB). Motor, battery, and range-extender compatibility carry straight over from the 160.
Geometry is close but not identical to its sibling. NSMB measured a size large at 476mm reach, a 63.1° head angle, 648mm stack, a 1285mm wheelbase, and 442mm chainstays, with a claimed weight around 58 lb. The parts move upmarket where the extra travel demands it: TRP EVO PRO brakes on 220mm and 203mm rotors replace the Maven setup. At $6,899 it is only $400 above the 160, so the choice between them is a travel-and-intent decision rather than a budget one.
Who the Remote 160 is for
The Remote 160 is the more versatile of the two, and for most riders it is the one to look at. A 63.5° head angle, 170mm of fork, 445mm chainstays, and a 120 Nm Bosch motor add up to a bike that climbs anything the battery can reach and descends like something with more downhill intent than its travel suggests. The value case is real: full-power Bosch, an 800 Wh battery, and a Zeb-and-Maven build for $6,499 is aggressive pricing in a segment where $8,000 is common.
If you are tall and ride steep, demanding terrain, put a leg over the XL before committing, and pay attention to how the fixed 445mm rear feels under you at speed. If Kona’s bet on one chainstay length across the range suits how you ride, this is one of the better-value full-power eMTBs of the year. For a wider read on how the chassis and the drive system pull against each other, our eMTB geometry versus motor breakdown works through the trade, and the 2026 eMTB motor and drive-system guide covers where Bosch’s Performance Line CX sits against Shimano, TQ, and DJI’s Avinox.