Macfox X7 Extra-Fat Tire eBike In-Depth Review
Hey there, welcome to the channel. I’m Ben and today MacFox sent me their brand new X7 to test out for you guys. Huge thanks to them for sending this bike out to me. It sounds like they’ve made some pretty sizable upgrades to this bike and also sort of change the size a bit. This is going to be designed for a slightly shorter or smaller rider in comparison to the last Mac Fox bikes that I tested out here on the channel. And if you guys saw any of those videos, you know that I don’t review bikes just to try to sell them to you. I unbox them, assemble them, look them over, see what they’re all about, and then take them out for a bit of a hard ride on everything from pavement to some nastier off-road trails, and then basically just report back on exactly how I feel like the bike performed and let you guys make the purchasing decisions. Of course, if you decide to make a purchase, don’t be afraid to use my discount code to save yourself some money. And if you use the affiliate link down next to that code, it will basically allow me to keep doing this. And I definitely love taking these bikes out. So, if that sounds interesting, stick around. and we’ll get into it. [Applause] [Music] So, we’ve already got some pretty noticeable differences here. And the main thing that I’m pretty excited to test here is the Mac Fox branded hydraulic brakes. Here’s our Mac Fox seat. flip down pegs. Beautiful gold chain here that leads back to our well sort of derailer. I suppose it’s really just a chain tensioning device now since we just have a single speed. We do have a pre-installed derailure guard. We’ve got sort of a dual sportish Mac Fox branded tire that I think should still do fairly well off-road. Of course, we’ll have to see. Probably not going to be as great as a knobby, but the rear is a 5-in wide tire where the front over here is actually a 4 and 1/2 in. And that’ll give the bike kind of a muscleyish look. And there’s a look at our rear Mac Fox branded hydraulic brake caliper. And I believe that’s going to be a 180 mm slotted rotor. Same as the front here. And for those of you who are interested, there’s the model info on the 500 W nominal 750 W peak motor. We’ve got a hard tail in the rear, which can actually be a lot of fun, especially if you’re somebody that likes to do wheelies and other BMX style tricks. On the front here, we do have a bit of suspension. There is a compression damping adjustment as well as a preload adjustment. This side is going to adjust the spring itself, where this is going to adjust how fast the spring can be compressed. Here we’ve got our 13 amp hour battery. Looks like we’ve got an onoff button, a USB connection to plug something in to charge off of the battery, and then the charge port for the battery itself. We’ll get this pulled off and on the charger. And if you’re interested, there’s the info on the battery. 48 volts, 13 amp hours. And it looks like we get a 2 amp charger. With the battery turned on, it looks like we are not completely charged. Of course, always want to charge this with the battery turned off. You also don’t ever want to leave one of these charging up unattended. Everything should go smoothly, but if it doesn’t, it can cause a major fire. And speaking of safety hazards, it seems like assembly of this bike should be fairly straightforward. We’ve of course got to put the front tire on. We’ve got to get the handlebars mounted up. And well, I usually like to look everything over and make sure everything is tight. Possibly put some thread locker on some stuff, especially the front axle bolts. But even still, like it says in the owner’s manual, you should always look over every single fastener. Make sure everything is set and ready to go before you take off on one of these. They also recommend that even if you feel capable of putting something like this together yourself, it’s a good idea to have a professional look it over. And I am certainly not a professional mechanic. I have put quite a few of these together, but don’t use anything that you see or hear in this video or any of my videos as professional advice. It’s all use at your own risk information. It’s quite the little tool kit they give you. It’s kind of neat. See if we can get this axle off with it. Oh, well, it’s loose enough anyways. And we’ve got to fit the rotor into the caliper. H. Did they tell you to put the kickstand on first? It definitely should have gone on first before the front tire. H. So, to get this fastened down, we do not get a quick release. Instead, we’ve just got two of these machine screws with a little locking nut and this special grommet, washer, whatever you want to call it. I am going to put a bit of thread lock on both of these. We want to make sure that that axle is all the way in there and square. Definitely don’t want that coming loose. And next, we got to get this removed. Especially with these bars on here, I think this is going to be one of the most BMXish looking ebikes that I’ve test ridden. I don’t think we’ll be hitting any skate parks up, but these things are pretty well set up to be a BMX kind of style bike. Excellent. Nothing like little cat hair on the threads or husky hair or German shepherd hair or my hair. So, I’ve got these more or less tightened and I’m going to throw a leg over this just to kind of get an idea of where I want them. Whoa, what’s going on here? Oh, there we go. Have to tighten down our brakes, but that’s not really a bad thing. We want to make sure they’re positioned properly for us. Anyways, throttle’s going to need to get adjusted as well. Throttle needs to be loosened. Throttle seems broken. Throttle is definitely broken. I’m sure all I’ll have to do is ask and they’ll send a new one. So, I’m not too concerned about that. With these positioned the way that I want them now, I’m going to hit all of these fasteners in sort of a crisscross pattern just to make sure everything gets tightened down evenly. Next, we’ll get some pedals installed. And we do have a right and a left. right side is going to be threaded normally. I don’t really know how you’re supposed to get that tight with this since it folds up when you do it the right way. So, I’m going to grab a regular wrench. That’s going to be a 15 mm. Left hand side is going to be left hand threaded or reverse threaded. Last thing we’ve got on the bench here is the headlight and number plaque I suppose you could call it. If I recall from the X1S that I tested last time, this should be a pretty decent light. Plugging that in. Looks pretty self-explanatory. We just got to make sure that the arrows on the outside and the tab and slot on the inside line up. And before I get those too tight, I suppose we should fire this up so I can aim this because it is going to adjust where the beam lands. All right, let’s get this battery in here and power this thing up. I suppose I should also throw a leg over this thing to kind of show you guys how it fits somebody my size. Again, I am 510. I’ve got about a 31 in inseam and I weigh about 150 lbs. And this feels, I would say, kind of better than the other ones that I’ve tested. They all sort of look small, but when you actually throw a leg over them, the seat is so high that that kind of makes it a little bit difficult to get your feet to the ground. And if you’re just going to get on it and ride, that’s not a big deal. But if you want to do some well more dangerous stunts, I suppose it’s a little bit nicer to be able to get your foot a little bit more firmly planted. So if I actually sit down on the seat, you can see I’ve got a decent amount of bend in my legs. So somebody shorter than me could ride this, I would think, fairly easily. One thing that I’m noticing with both the front and rear brakes is that I would maybe just like them a little bit further out. And in order to do that, we just got to spin this little adjuster clockwise. basically just moves that lever out a ways and gives you a little bit more space in there. Same exact deal with this side. Oh yeah, much better. These grips actually do feel pretty decent. They really look pretty nice, too. They are Mac Fox branded and they’re actually a clampon grip. Probably would be a good idea to check that. Maybe throw some thread locker on it. They do feel like they should stay in place and they feel nice and grippy. We’ll flip the battery to the on position here and that will allow me to power up the bike and the display. So, not a super intense colorful display or anything, but I think sufficient and honestly for a BMX style bike, I wouldn’t personally want a giant screen here. And we do get a few bits of important information. We’ve got our speed readout here. If we cycle through on the plus and minus here, we’ll get the three different pedal assist level settings. If I press the power button itself, we’ll cycle through a trip. Volts and then just back to the odometer. All right, let’s get this spun around so we can check out the headlight. The website says this is 87 lb. That’s about what it feels like. It’s not terrible. Could be a little bit lighter, but with a very solid steel frame like this, that’s just kind of what you’re going to end up with. This should be our I guess low beam on the right and high beam on the left. And this is a three position switch. So there is the low beam. Certainly not a huge beam pattern, but I suppose we are a little bit close to the wall here. There’s off, and there is the high beam. And that just adds that very bright center portion there. By sort of tilting this up or down, we can adjust where that light actually lands. The power button does turn the lights on and off. It just is only turning the actual headlight function on, no matter what I do with it. Even if this is in the mid position here, the light stays on. That doesn’t change the little halo. But regardless of whether the bike is on or off, turning the light to the either high or low position and then hitting this button will turn that either on or off. This also changes whether the tail light is on or off. And it looks like we do get a brake light when you squeeze the brakes. We kind of have to squeeze them hard though. And I almost wonder if that’s the way that I’ve got these set. Yeah, it seems like they have to get past a certain point before they’ll activate. And since that same sensor also tells the motor to stop working when you’re on the brakes, this is certainly not something that you want to have set improperly and definitely worth testing out before you head out on a ride. I also installed a few other accessories like my Rock Bros cell phone holding frame bag to carry the bike’s manual and tools as well as a set of adventure style motorcycle mirrors which are infinitely adjustable and are designed to move out of the way in a crash rather than breaking off. With all that in order, it was time to see what this bike could do. So, we are down to three bars on the battery meter and we’re flashing between 47 and 46.9 volts on pedal assist level 3. Let’s see what the throttle will give us here up this relatively steep hill. It’s a little bit shallower and then kind of gets a little bit steeper as we go. So, let’s see what we can do here. Not a super fast takeoff. Takes a little bit to ramp up. But we’re certainly moving. Getting to the steeper part now. And not gaining any speed. Staying at six. Yeah, that’s about all we’re going to get. How about a brake test? Woo. Well, there’s some power there. Now, let’s try starting off on the absolute steepest part of the hill and see if this thing can do it. Ooh. Yeah. Yeah, a little bit more growling going on there, but we’re moving. Not getting to 6 miles an hour though this time. Now, if I was fully charged up, that might be a little bit better. If I was lighter, it would definitely be better. [Music] They work, but they just don’t quite have that punch that I like to really be able to pick up the back tire or really be able to slide the rear. I mean, you can do it, but they just don’t seem to quite have the power that they should. And that doesn’t mean that you can’t do a stopy. You just have to really throw the bike into it and commit. Whoa. Throttle hangs a little bit there. And now for what could be the most important test of the whole video. Let’s see if this thing will wheelie. And since our power delivery is a little bit slow, we of course got to time it right. Keep a finger on the rear brake. And of course, don’t try this if you’re incapable. And even if you are, it’s still a dangerous stunt. Let’s see if the X7 can do it. Let’s see if I can do it. Whoa. Somebody didn’t tighten the bars down enough. Oh yeah, definitely. bike seems honestly a bit more capable I think than I am. And one thing that I found about this bike with these extra fat tires on here is it really does handle pretty nicely. It actually feels kind of nimble, meaning you can kind of toss it around, but yet it also at the same time feels very stable and like you can really lean it just because you’ve got so much tire there to lean on. So, I do have this thing turned down for some reasons that I’ll get into in a bit. But, just know we’re only going to hit about 18 for a top speed. We are on pedal assist level three. There’s no gears in the back, but I will just use the pedals here and we’ll see how fast we get to top speed and also how fast the cadence sensor kicks in here. So, ready, go. So maybe a half a turn of the pedals and the power comes on strong but not relatively quick. I’m putting in some power and there’s about top speed and I do have the forks completely locked out here. So there’s going to be no give in the front which means standing and pedaling actually works relatively well. And if you want to kind of BMX this thing I think that’s important. Loosen that back up a ways. So, we have some suspension. I was really kind of excited to see the hydraulics on here, but they just don’t seem to work as well as even the mechanical ones did on that first Mac Fox bike that I tested. And now, if I turn this back down to pedal assist level two and give this thing a pedal, you’ll see why I decided to turn this thing down to a top speed of 18. So, if I had this set out of the box, for one thing, it wouldn’t fit the class 2 requirements here, but it would also not allow me to keep up with the pedaling really at all. And on pedal assist level two, with the top speed brought down to 18, I can actually do some pedaling and help the bike conserve battery and also get myself some exercise, which is of course good. It’s also just nice to be able to stand up and really put some power down rather than just ghost pedaling, which is all you get to do with this thing cranked up to three. I can just barely keep up, and it’s certainly not something that I would consider to be an enjoyable experience at all. [Music] [Music] So, now we’re going to move on to my absolute favorite part of riding an ebike, and that’s the fact that they’ll get me into places like this that are unaccessible on my dual sport motorcycles. Of course, you need to check what is available to you as far as riding goes in your county land or state land or whatever’s around, but in the state of Wisconsin, in the county that I’m in, I can ride any class of ebike on the county land trails and roads and stuff. So, I think that is pretty awesome. And like I said, definitely my favorite part. And this bike, aside from the tires, I think should do pretty well out here. These are sort of a dual sportish tire, but I think they’re probably not going to hang on to the leaves nearly as well as a real knobby would, but they certainly feel okay so far. And we can get the bike up in the air fairly easily. How about that front wheel for lofting? Yeah, not too bad. Suspension seems to be soaking everything up that I need it to. Woo! Yeah, those sleeves are a little slippery. Standing and standing and pedaling works really nice. out here. And yeah, this is a pretty well set up bike for whoa some aggressive riding. Other than the fact that these bars are still moving on me and I’ve got them cranked pretty tight. So that’s really not cool. I think that’s because we don’t have any sort of knurling on the bars themselves. So even with them clamped down tight, they can still slip in there because there’s not enough traction. Let’s see. Where do we want to go? I do like that low seat height for stunts like that. However, I do find myself sort of sliding towards the middle of the seat even when I’d like to be on the back. So, I guess maybe that’s where the sizing of this bike comes in. This is really supposed to be for somebody basically 5’9 down to like 46 or 4 or something and I’m 5’10. So, I’m just basically an inch above what is recommended for this bike. Suppose we could use all the power that we’ve got. That’ll assist three. It’s actually doing okay on two. And for pedaling, I suppose maybe it would be nice to have a little bit more leg room, but it certainly works, especially when I stand up. So, I don’t know that I would necessarily recommend this for somebody who is any bigger than me, I think, than the X7L would be a much better option. But for everything that I did with this thing today, I mean, it certainly held up just fine. And boy, it is I think I know I say this all the time, but one of the coolest ebikes that I’ve tested. It is really a neat looking machine. And I love the blue and black, especially with that halo headlight. I do sort of like how the seat dips down as far as looks go, but I think if I was to buy one of these at my size, I would probably go with the size up. The seat certainly would be a bit higher then, and that’s going to limit ground reach for stunts. But I think as far as actually being comfortable on this thing goes, having it just a little bit bigger, I think would be better for the majority of riding. I think on mud, these things are certainly going to suffer. Sand as well, but hard pack dirt and even hard pack gravel, I mean, I think these are probably a pretty good option. And they did feel pretty smooth out on the road. I would, I think, appreciate a little bit more power. I shouldn’t say power, a little bit more torque. But to be honest, it certainly did everything that I asked it to and seems to be able to do wheelies and everything just fine. Similarly, the brakes worked, but I think could have performed a little bit better. Definitely would have liked it if those handlebars hung on a bit tighter. If you guys are interested in picking one of these up, I’ll have a discount code if I can offer you one down in the description, as well as an affiliate link to both the bike and all the gear and tools and stuff that I’ve been using in the video. doesn’t cost you guys anything extra, but I make a small commission off of it, which allows me to keep making videos like this for you guys, which I definitely appreciate. Huge thanks to anybody that’s been using my affiliate links. I absolutely love getting out here in this beautiful world and enjoying awesome machines like this. So, thanks for watching. Take care. Stay safe. Stay swanky. Get out here and enjoy this beautiful world God created for us to explore and enjoy any chance you get. Doesn’t matter what you’re riding. Even if you just have to get out for a walk, get out here. It’s good for the soul. As far as range capabilities of the single 13 amp hour battery on this charge, I actually ran out of juice before I even hit 20 mi and had to pedal the bike a decent distance under my own power, which is not something I would recommend as the bike and the extra wide tires are rather heavy. Range is of course heavily dependent on things like terrain, riding style, and rider weight, but even on slightly easier terrain back when it was a little bit warmer out, I still only got about 24 miles out of a charge. So, if you’ll need any more than that, I’d highly recommend upgrading to a dual battery version, which should effectively double your range.
Macfox sent me the newest ebike in there lineup, the X7, to review. So, in this video I assemble it, look it over, and then take it out on a variety of terrains, to see how it performs!
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