Very fat tires, a battery, front and rear springs and… a hinge?
Enlarge (credit: John Timmer)
Cyrusher offers a wide range of e-bikes, from basic around-town frames to rugged all-terrain bikes, with the unifying theme being very, very fat tires. I'd seen a number of people cruising around on extra-fat tires (as in, much fatter than a mountain bike's) and was curious about them. Just how much did the huge surface area of these tires slow down your ride? And is the traction they offer worth paying that cost in performance?
So, I was excited about getting the chance to try one out to see for myself. But then I noticed the XF690 Maxs and got excited about a bunch of other stuff, too. It was a folding bike, and I'd been wanting to try one of those. I've spent almost no time on mountain bikes and was curious about taking one across some rough terrain. The XF690 Maxs seemed to offer the chance to scratch a number of itches at once.
It didn't quite work out as I hoped, in that some of the things I wanted to try weren't especially compatible with each other. So, while the XF690 Maxs is an interesting bike, it's somewhat less than the sum of its parts, in that designs dedicated to just one of these capabilities will probably get you a better experience.