I have this bike since last week and have made a little bit more than 150 km on it so far, and I can tell you I really enjoy it! It's a pretty big bike, but it's perfectly fine for me since I'm 6'1" 180 lbs.
I live in Quebec City, Canada, and I've tested it in all possible winter weather throughout the week. We've had a big snow storm, rain that turns into ice, sunny days, cold weather and warm weather (around 3°C). So far, I am very pleased with the bike, it handled different kinds of weather pretty well. I've been running it on icy hills were cars got stuck and was able to run trough pretty easily. I went to piles of snow like they were nothing, it feels awesome! I tested it on fat bike trails in the wood as well with 7 other people that had regular fat bikes, they all tried it and now all want to buy oneThe smallest person to rode it is 5'5" 140lbs and it was still ok, although I would not recommend this bike to someone smaller, probably at about 5.7 it would start to be a better fit.
The bike was shipped in a great package and no noticeable damage was apparent on it. The only problem I had was that the front light didn't light up much (almost nothing), I sent them picture of it not working well and one week later, I received another front light that works perfectly fine. It's not that strong, but good enough so that car will be able to see me in the dark at least! It was pretty easy to assemble, it took me and my father about 1 hour to get everything together without any problems. Here we can see the bad light and the good one.
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The motor works great, after unlocking it I can go to about 40-45 km/h with the throttle and up to 50 km/h with the pedal assist. First long ride I did was about 50 km on one charge (was about 3°C outside) and then when I recharged the battery indicator was flashing, so I bet I didn't have much left in the battery. I don't know at what % it starts to flash. The are 5 bars on the indicator, so my estimation is that if each of the bar is worth around 20%, maybe that the system starts flashing when it's at 10% or so of the battery charge remaining. My tires were about 15 PSI since there was not to much snow.
Today I ran 35 km on a fully charged battery before it started to flash, but it was around -6°C outside. Can't tell if the outside temperature have a big impact on the charge, but it appears to have had influenced it because I ran on the same roads in the same small hills. I dropped the tire pressure to about 10 PSI as well since it was icier, which might explain why I didn't run as much dinstance since there was more friction.
On both rides, I was almost always at maximum speed and at PAS 9, not really using throttle. I really like the use of the throttle to start the bike or go into big water puddle (it prevents my feet from getting wet since they stay higher), but that's about it. I prefer to pedal like a bike the rest of the time. The torque pedal assist works great, although the is a small delay of a fraction of second before it kicks in. I've adjusted the sensibility to the max, but there is still a small delay. It's not enough to annoy me and I still love the feeling. I can't comment or compare it to cadence sensing since I never rode a bike with it.
Another thing to keep in mind is that this bike is not a mid drive motor, so even with the 750 Watt of power, when you'll go up hill, the speed of the bike will diminish by a lot. It still gets the job done, but if you live in an area with a lot of hills that might be something to consider. For the flat surfaces it goes up to 45 km/h pretty easily though (if there is not front wind). If you want to carry trailers or a lot of stuff on your bike, you might want to consider a Bafang Ultra mid drive motor to provide more torque and power.
Also, when I'm on the 9th gear of the shifter, it tends to jump sometimes if I put a lot of torque, I bet I could adjust it a little not to do that, but I just stay on the 8th gear instead and the problem is resolved. If you want to pedal it without the motor assistance, it's feasible but quite exhausting since the bike is heavy and there is more friction with the fat low pressure tires. I have yet to try it with higher pressure tires for the pedaling without assistance and the battery capacity.
Another point to consider is that the battery is a 48V one and not a 52V battery, so you can really feel that the power of the motor is not as strong when the battery gets lower and lower. It still works fine, but you'll be able to notice the difference between a full battery and a low battery, mostly if you are in a hill. On a flat surface it's not as apparent.
I was able to carry this bike on a normal bike rack on my car that's ok for 140 lbs, this one is 70 lbs with the battery, so without the battery the bike rack would probably be ok for 2 of those. We had to be 2 people to make it fit though since it is pretty heavy.
I did not figure out yet how to use the cruse control and thus cannot comment on it, but I don't plan on using it either anyways.
The breaks and suspension work fine even in cold weather so far, so nothing to complain there either. The water bottle holder is pretty small and really close to the upper bar of the frame, so the only thing it could fit would probably be a really small water bottle or maybe a cup or coffee or a glass. The lights, rack, bell, shifter, computer, mirrors and seat post suspension all work well and as intended. Thus, I really recommend this bike to anyone like me who want a torque pedal assist for around the same price as the other fat ebike that only offer cadence sensing.
I'll let you know if I spot anything else or if things change in the months to come, but the bike looks sturdy enough so I have good hope I'll still be happy with it for a long time.
All in all, I really recommend this bike and this company since I've had a great experience and nice costumer service!
Hi,
I've had my Rize X since mid-April, pretty much the same time as you, and was wondering if you have experienced any issues yourself with the bike?
Cheers.
