Bulls Wild Flow + Fazua = A Beautiful Friendship
Introducing the Bulls Wild Flow, a very unique Fazua Evation powered full suspension eMTB! The Wild Flow weighs in at only 40lbs. Starting with the overall platform, it's a full suspension 120mm travel front and rear trail bike. It has an excellent spec using Shimano XT components for the driveline and the brakes are done by Magura - MT5’s. The carbon FSA cranks are a nice addition, and suspension front and rear is done by Fox. It’s really light and nimble, and for its intended purpose and out of the box it does an excellent job. The frame is also carbon keeping the weight overall over low, and on the trail its pretty amazing how it feels. I’d say it feels closer to a regular mountain bike than it does a traditional eMTB especially when starting to gain some speed and getting into the flow of the turns- it feels really light and pleasant underneath you and doesn’t feel like a bulky bike.
Moving on to the Fazua Evation Drive system. In short we are huge fans of this system. We have ridden Bosch, Yamaha and Brose for many years and was really excited to try something completely new. The way this system is integrated into the bike and the way that it functions and works with your pedaling is very different. For starters the motor and battery are completely removable and are housed into the down tube. Once removed, the battery can be swapped allowing you to extend your ride time. It’s really snazzy in that the whole unit comes out as one piece allowing you to ride it as a regular bike as well reducing the overall bike weight to about 10 pounds. Now you’re getting pretty close to a 30 pound trail bike which is pretty awesome!
The Evation drive system is also different in that there is a drive shaft where a bottom bracket/a traditional electric bike motor would be. Once the motor engages it couples with the drive shaft and then allows the power to transfer into the cranks- the thing you’re spinning between your feet is the drive shaft not the motor itself. Once you hit the 20mph speed limitation for what’s legal for a Class 1 electric bike, the motor decouples from the driveshaft and you can ride with no drag at all. You’re basically pedaling a regular bicycle so it feels really natural when you make that transition.
The battery system is 255Wh which is a bit smaller than your traditional ebike battery, however you are using less power because the bike is less heavy. So in our use case we have not found that to be an issue. If you’re cranked up to the maximum power setting you may want a spare battery with you to extend your range but if you’re using it more in a way to have the system amplify and boost your pedaling we suspect you can get a very decent amount of ride time.
Fazua also released a brand new software update (Black Pepper) which allowed the system to amplify its maximum power output and also be able to support riders at a higher cadence. So if you choose to set up the software to maximize the power, you now can have much more assist than what was previously capable. Kudos to Fazua for pushing out that update and making it really easy for users to update their bikes as it completely transformed the riding experience.
So whose the wild flow for? It might be said that it’s an electric bike for people that don’t like electric bikes. Its light weight & nimble, yet still has the power to get you back up the hills with ease. We are very excited about the Bulls wild flow and the future of light weight electric bikes on the Fazua platform.