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Oct 16, 2024

CYKE Falcon X Review | Serious Exploring Potential

The CYKE Falcon X lives in the exciting, somewhat hard-to-define all-terrain e-bike class. What is clear is that it’s built to roam off-road. Its powerful motor, slack geometry, long wheelbase, and

The CYKE Falcon X lives in the exciting, somewhat hard-to-define all-terrain e-bike class.

What is clear is that it’s built to roam off-road. Its powerful motor, slack geometry, long wheelbase, and 4.8″-wide fat tires make it conducive to riding across nearly any stretch of path in front of you. The unique properties helped it feel capable in sandy or loose conditions with some clear potential for mud and snow. It’s a bike where the term “riding season” doesn’t apply.

I had a lot of fun with it on local fire roads and double track, and it has mild to intermediate singletrack abilities. I can see the bike’s capabilities translating well as a camping/overlanding/hunting machine—there are simply a lot of places it can go.

The motor was one of the bike’s defining elements; the Bafang M620 is one of the market’s most powerful mid-drive motors. It gives the Falcon X 1000W of power (1100W peak) and 160Nm of torque to play with, which helps it fly to fast speeds and easily climb hills once you get a hang of the shifting.

Thanks to its full-suspension design, the bike was really comfortable. It’s very plush and handles well on straightaways over gravely terrain or when romping around rocky and rooty areas. It’s one of the few bikes I can confidently take over sand, too.

Some areas for improvement are noted below in the full CYKE Falcon X review, but for one of the most affordable all-terrain e-bikes I’ve ridden, the bike exceeded my expectations.

There are a lot of overlanding possibilities with the Falcon X.

There aren’t many mid-drive motors more powerful than the Bafang M620, but the programming does a good job dispensing the power.

A powerful motor needs a large battery, and CYKE fittingly equipped a 960Wh unit that integrates nicely into the downtube.

Let me cover one thing up front before we focus on the fun. The Bafang M620’s power rating isn’t legal in many places with how the Falcon X arrives out of the box – but it can be programmed to conform to the 3 Class system within the Bafang Go+ app.

If you want to go full send with it, ensure 1000W motors with throttles are permissible on your trails and check the speed ratings, too.

However, it’s a blast when you get an e-bike like this in OHV areas or on private land where speed limits and wattage aren’t a factor. Once the motor builds up a head of steam (which doesn’t take long), it can blaze. It has 1,000W of nominal power, an 1100W peak, and 160Nm of torque. I was able to get it going 35 mph without working too hard.

The motor is still a good time even when not at full throttle. The Falcon X is a heavy bike, but its weight makes it feel large and stable beneath you, inspiring more confidence when riding on uneven surfaces. The motor more than compensates for the bike’s heft, so you get a solid and fun ride that can reach exhilarating speeds.

The bike has cutoff sensors with the brakes and shifter as a safety measure. I also appreciate that from a durability perspective—high-torque mid-drives can wear through a cassette quickly if you aren’t shifting correctly, so the delay helps ensure better longevity.

The delay has tradeoffs, though. It’s longer and more pronounced than on most e-bikes, and it can make hill climbs harder than they need to be if you shift midway. Just make sure you shift down before big hills, and you’ll manage just fine. If you have proper shifting technique, this will be one of the best hill climbing motors you’ll likely encounter (more on that in the Hill Test).

At 960Wh, the battery is fittingly large for the motor’s needs. We’ve only seen a few e-bikes with larger single-battery setups, so the overall value of the electronics is pretty high.

You aren’t confined to just hardpack terrain; the Falcon X rides well in loose sand, gravel, and likely some snow too.

A 52” wheelbase is simply massive, but it makes the bike feel very stable over diverse terrain.

The color LCD is a nice touch, and it comes in a few different interfaces. It displays all the info nicely and is easy to see in sunlight.

The Falcon X includes a nice Bafang color display. It’s 4″ in size and was easy to read in sunlight. It’s IP66-rated, so it’ll hold up in typical weather conditions. You can access and tailor some of the motor outputs in the menu options, but you can do more in the bike’s apps. That’s right; “apps” is plural.

The CYKE Assistant app is a bit basic, but it seems new, so it might include a bit more functionality down the road with updates. The best thing it does is run a diagnostic of the electrical systems and let you easily contact the brand if there are issues. It has some redundant data you can get from the display and an online library of owner manuals. You have some control over motor settings, but you can do a bit more to the motor in the second app.

The Bafang Go+ app will give you more precise tuning on the motor. Here, you can change the speed level, power output (which will lower wattage and make your ride trail compliant where needed), the amount of assistance you get at various PAS levels, and the delay it takes for motor engagement to activate when you initially pedal. You can’t lower it to 0, but you can reduce it so it’s less noticeable.

Our test bike arrived set to 50 mph. However, it topped off around 35 mph. While it was a lot of fun experimenting with that, just remember to check your local laws and scale that back where needed.

So, I was pleasantly surprised when the bike got 32.34 miles when set to Boost mode. We did that with a 20mph speed cap for compliance, but we’ve tested several other all-terrain models that way as well, and this is still one of the better results we’ve seen with those parameters.

I’ll give a nod to CYKE’s programming here. Controllers are unsung heroes, and if you don’t dial things in at that level, a bike can burn itself out quickly. I think CYKE did pretty well with the programming to allow the bike to be fast but not a full-on rocket from the second the motor kicks in. This can make for solid efficiency, allowing you to enjoy longer rides.

One thing we noticed in our testing was a sharp power dropoff at 15% battery remaining, so make sure you wrap up the ride with a little battery to spare, as the last few drops of battery life feel more like a slog to pedal.

Let the throttle do the work when you hit the sand and have fun ripping through it!

The seat is fairly comfortable. There’s no dropper post on the bike (and we don’t think it needs one) so make sure you don’t go on super steep descents anytime soon.

The SRAM RD X5 groupset worked reliably and has enough range to handle whatever situation you find yourself in on the CYKE Falxon X.

Have yourself a day, Falcon X!

Unsurprisingly, this bike rips up hills with the capabilities of a mid-drive motor with 1000W of power and 160Nm of torque. At our Hell Hole test location (where each and every e-bike we review goes), it scored our third-fastest time in the throttle test and 16th-fastest in the pedal test. The top tier of either test features several bikes with the Bafang M620 motor, so it’s nothing if not a consistent unit.

At our second Water Tower test location, where we test the off-roaders, the CYKE Falcon X took home the status of king of the mountain. It beat out the previous leader by 11 seconds, and that bike weighed 30 pounds less! So this bike may be big, but it’s speedy on the climbs.

Given the unknowns of off-roading where this bike will be used, it’s nice to know there is such a capable motor helping you power the pedals.

Going beyond the testing, though, my best tip is to make sure you downshift before a hill. It’s a heavier bike, and the shift sensor’s delay feels a bit more pronounced than most of the others I’ve encountered, so it can be a real momentum killer on steeper hills. It only took one afternoon for that lesson to sink in, though, and I was downshifting early and often afterwards without issues.

So long as you approach a hill in the right gear though, it is smooth and easy sailing uphills.

The Renegade fork is very comfortable, but a thicker stanchion would tighten up the handling and better fit the big bike.

The 780mm handlebar helps give precise steering to the massive fat tires.

4.8” tires are really stable, and they provided great traction in loose terrain.

The throttle and control buttons are all pretty standard. The bike is a prime example of a fun throttle time though!

At this point, I’ve talked ad nauseum about the bike’s power, so let’s focus on comfort, handling, and value.

The bike was a pretty comfortable ride, which is impressive given that I rode nearly exclusively on rocky, bumpy, sandy trails. The terrain was anything but easy breezy, but the bike kept me comfortable the whole time. That’s thanks to a combination of the frame, suspension, and tires.

The long wheelbase feels planted and stable. Overall, it’s nice, but it’s almost excessive. With the significant spacing between the rear tire and the linkage, CYKE could afford to shave down an inch to tighten the backend up just a bit with shorter chainstays and seatstays. That would help reduce the chain slap and make the bike a touch better when handling corners, but consider this an area of suggested improvement rather than pointing out a problem.

The geometry is fairly slack, and the body posture felt comfortable as a result. It’s in line with today’s frame geometry standards.

The 4.8″ MAXXIS tires have held up nicely throughout our testing. Even the sandy, washed-out areas I typically steer clear of on an eMTB weren’t an obstacle for this bike. The extra tire width helped me float over them more easily.

The suspension system is a nice setup. The RST Renegade fork and RockShox Deluxe Select shock are quality systems. We were particularly happy to see an all-air suspension—it was a bit of a surprise at this price.

Speaking of surprise at this price, when I started adding up some of the parts, I realized this bike holds much more value than I initially thought. It’s in the $3000 range, so that’s hardly pocket change, but if you do a quick rundown on some of the components like the suspension, Maxxis tires, a nearly one-kilowatt battery, the Bafang M620, SRAM groupset, Tektro Dorado 4-piston brakes, well, it is a really good value score in terms of what you’re getting.

Most of the other e-bikes I’d put in the same category as the CYKE Falcon X cost between $4,000 and $7,000. Granted, some of those were perhaps a bit overpriced anyway, but still, this is significantly less expensive while it’s perfectly capable of competing with those other ones.

So budget-conscious shoppers will be happy to hear they aren’t giving up anything if opting for one of the market’s more affordable options.

The Tektro Dorado brakes worked well. 203mm rotors are a nice pair on a larger bike.

The shock and linkage system worked nicely to make the ride soft and comfortable.

The magnesium pedals are more than serviceable, and we give a high five to CYKE for bucking the trend and not doing another black pair of pedals.

Shifting was pretty crisp and we didn’t have to tune it much out of the box.

I was unfamiliar with CYKE before getting the Falcon X in for review, but this bike is making a pretty strong first impression on me.

I’m always a fan of power, and this bike has it in spades. It’s fast and a strong hill climber, and I like that the app lets me dial in the output to fit where I want to ride it that day. I’d welcome slightly quicker engagement after braking or shifting, but other than that, there are a lot of positives regarding the motor experience.

I was surprised by how comfortable the ride was. The full air suspension was frankly better than I expected to see, and it combines well with the long wheelbase and geo to produce a stable and fairly plush ride.

Arguably, what’s most impressive about this bike is its price. Assembling a bike like this for about three grand is borderline tremendous value. Add up all the components along with the motor and battery on a spreadsheet with the off the shelf pricing and you’ll see what I’m talking about. It rides as well (and in some regards, better) to me as similar bikes I’ve tested at twice the price.

I think this will be a fun ride for a lot of people. Like somebody who experiences all four seasons in their extremes, or a person who wants to explore and play in the outdoors will find appeal with the Falcon X. It’ll also be a solid recommendation to heavier riders who want a full-power experience that smaller motors can’t always produce.

If you think this might be the bike you’ve been looking for, you can find current prices at the button above, and CYKE can ship the Falcon X straight to your front door.

Happy Riding! Make sure to let us know if you have any questions or if you think we left anything out in this review of the CYKE Falcon X down in our comments section.