2025 HeyBike Horizon Review – webBikeWorld

The last ebike I reviewed was a HeyBike – the 1,000-watt Ranger S folder. By comparison, the Horizon is quite similar while also being very different. Rocking a 750-watt hub motor but with a full suspension frame and 24” x 4” wheels, the Horizon is the slower, heavier, bigger brother.

If you’re looking for a full-suspension folding ebike and are considering the Horizon, these are the five most important things to take away from this review

• You have to make liberal use of pedal assist and throttle with the Horizon – Its cadence-sensing pedal assist is pretty standard in terms of responsiveness and feel, but its entry-level groupset and middle-of-the-road riding position mean that you’ll be relying on the motor a lot.

• The Horizon has a real-world range of about 28 miles / 45 kilometers – HeyBike claims a maximum range of 55 miles / 88 km, but I doubt that is achievable in any setting other than flat, paved ground with a 120 lb rider. 

• It’s too big to fit into your trunk – I tried with my 2017 Ford Fusion and couldn’t get it in comfortably. 24” wheels aren’t big, but considering most folders come with 20” wheels, the extra 20% is pretty obvious when you’re trying to carry, store, or transport the Horizon when it is folded,

• It weighs nearly 80 lbs but only has a 14.4 Ah battery – Annnnd here is the price of the full suspension frame and “oversized” wheels. While many ebikes are in this weight range, those that are typically come with 18 Ah or 20 Ah batteries.

• The fit and finish is just okay – The core components of the bike are pretty solid, but the accessories are where they saved money. Welds are okay, but several washers came pre-rusted, one of the bolts for the display was missing, and other odds and ends betray its affordable status.

The bottom line is that this is a folding ebike made for people who aren’t concerned about whether or not it’s compact. Ideal for RVers, people with large properties, or someone who is tight on storage but still wants a full suspension/fat tire/folding combination. People concerned about micromobility or with small storage spaces will be better served by other folders with smaller wheels.

Words & Photography: Cameron Martel 

HeyBike supplied the Horizon at no charge. We do not have a financial relationship with HeyBike. All reviews are subject to our review policies. Products are scored based on our hands-on experiences with it. I am an avid biking enthusiast (both “acoustic” and electric) and have hands-on reviewed more than 30 ebikes to date.

2025 HeyBike Horizon Specifications

• MSRP: $1,999 USD / $2,299 CAD (on sale for $1,400 USD as of March 9, 2025)
• Where to Buy: HeyBike website (Canada)
• Warranty: 30-day free trial, 2-year warranty
• Top Speed: 32 mph / 55 kph (28 mph / 45 kph in Canada)
• eBike Class: Class 3 out of the box, lockable to class 2
• Range: Claimed 55 miles / 88 km (wBW estimated 25 miles / 45 km)
• Bike Weight: 79 .4lbs / 36 kg (including battery)
• Weight capacity: 330 lbs (149.7 kg)
• Motor: Generic 750-watt hub motor 
• Torque: 80 Nm
• PAS: Cadence, 5 -levels (app adjustable)
• Brakes: RSX hydraulic brakes w/ 180 mm rotors
• Gearing: Shimano Tourney 7-speed
• Battery: 48V 14.4 Ah (692 Wh), UL certified
• Wheels & Tires: 24” x 4” wheels with Chao Yang tires
• Other: Headlight, powered taillight, turn signal, electric horn, front and rear fenders, rear rack

HeyBike Horizon Unboxing & Assembly

The Horizon is simple to put together, but I suggest reviewing the assembly video vs. relying on the information from the manual. While the manual isn’t incorrect, it doesn’t show some of the nuance tied to building the bike (such as the order of washers on the axle, the downtube bearing, etc.

Assembly is straightforward:

• Unpackage the bike
• Attach the front wheel
• Attach the handlebars
• Attach the rear rack
• Attach the pedals
• Attach the front fender and headlight
• Screw on the pedals (note the stickers that tell you which direction to turn them)
• Tighten everything up, and you’re done!

Assembly Walkthrough Video

Notes

• The second bolt for the display was missing (this was also the case when I unboxed the Ranger S). 
• Check everything before you assemble it in case you need spare parts from HeyBike.
• If it’s your first time assembling a bike-in-a-box, plan for about an hour.

2025 HeyBike Horizon Aesthetics & Design

I’ll just come out and say it: folding e-bikes look the worst of all. Their step-thru frames, diminutive handlebars, and upright posture don’t exactly make for clean lines.

Considering that, the Horizon isn’t all that bad-looking. The rear suspension setup and big tires give the frame some visual heft, and so it doesn’t look as fragile as most other folders, but it’s still a folding ebike at the end of the day.

I’ve got the black and blue colorway here, but you can also get the Horizon in Cyan/Peal or All Grey/Black gradient. The Horizon also came in a limited-run “Sunset” scheme, but those are long sold out now.

Image: HeyBike website customer review

Of the three colors available, the Cyan/Peal is my favorite. It is the most modern and eye-catching, and it uses the clean break of the hinge in its style. Still, the black/blue combination is no slouch either.

Hope You’re Not Thirsty

With the rear horst-link suspension and the removable battery from the top of the downtube, there is nowhere convenient on the frame to mount accessories, such as a water bottle holder. Sure, you could get a handlebar-mounted version, but considering that the bars fold, this also becomes inconvenient for storage.

It’s a small – and odd – miss, considering that folding ebikes are meant to be practical and comfortable first and foremost.

What’s the 2025 HeyBike Horizon Like to Ride?

While HeyBike has fitted the Horizon with a 750-watt rear hub motor, its “paltry” 80 Nm of torque pales in comparison to the other HeyBike in my garage. Compared to the Ranger S’s 1,000 watts and 100+ Nm of torque, and considering the bigger wheels and fatter tires, the Horizon crawls where the Ranger flies.

The above 7 mile / 11 km loop isn’t the longest route, but it has a few good sections to test the Horizon’s chops on hills, flat singletracks, gravel, and some nice (cold) riverfront to ride beside. However, in the Canadian prairies in late February/early March, it’s also cold ride at 32 f / 0 c.

On throttle alone, the Horizon has repeatedly hauled me up a long and gradual 1-mile hill (highlighted in yellow above), though it isn’t moving too fast by the time you reach the top. Still, it’s moving fast enough that I have no problems keeping the wheels straight. Considering its heft and hub, I am surprised to see it conquer those hills.

Also surprising is how quickly the Horizon accelerates to its throttle-only limited speed of 30 mph (42 kph). It’s not a rocket, but it has no problems hitting and staying at its top speed.

Light off-road performance is okay. The coil fork will keep pace with casual riding, but aggressive riders will quickly find their intentions beyond the bike’s ability. Then again, if you’re an aggressive biker, this isn’t the right bike for you anyway. 

Where the Horizon has room to improve is its brake feel. The mushiness in the levers fails to inspire confidence, and when rolling along at 30 mph / 42 kph, you need to trust those brakes! I had no failures, but I did experience brake fade after aggressive braking. I expect a future upgrade to brand-name brakes would dramatically improve overall feeling.

Strengths

• The full suspension frame and fat tires make for a really comfortable ride. Set the tires at 10 psi for sand/snow riding and 16 – 20 psi for general–purpose riding.
• Its headlight is quite bright.
• The rear hub motor gets my 210 lb / 95 kg self up a hill without fuss, albeit at a walking pace on longer/steeper inclines.
• The frame is surprisingly rigid for a folder (which doesn’t mean rigid compared to your downhill bike).
• Since the HeyBike app allows you to customize PAS levels, you can dial in the exact performance you want from each setting (I set PAS 1 to 5 mph / 8 kph, for example).
• The suspension can handle some off-road riding, so feel free to go off the beaten path (within reason)!

Opportunities for improvement

• Give the Horizon a cassette that can handle hills better; sure, you’ve got the motor, but having a bigger cassette will also improve low-speed riding in snow or sand.
• The kickstand doesn’t leave much ground clearance and hits twigs, shrubs, etc,. during my rides
• The hydraulic brakes have too much play in the levers to inspire confidence during a serious flogging
• You eat through your 14.4 Ah battery pretty quickly

HeyBike Horizon Build Quality & Components

As you’d expect at this price point, the Horizon consists of brand-name and generic components of mixed quality. Basically, everything other than the groupset is generic/OEM parts, which keeps costs down but also introduces concerns regarding long-term reliability and the availability of replacement parts.

I inspected every grommet, bolt, nut, and joint on the bike, and just about everything required some tightening or adjusting, so be sure to plan for an extra 10-15 minutes before your first ride and give the bike a once over: mine needed it, and yours probably will too!

Brakes

The Horizon is equipped with RSX-branded hydraulic brakes paired with 180 mm rotors. This is a common configuration, but I’d have preferred to see brand-name hydraulic brakes or at least 200 mm rotors. 80 lbs is a lot of mass to move, and more stopping power is never bad.

Brake feel is not great, though I’m not worried about actual stopping power. Braking confidence is worsened because there is a lot of travel in both brake levers before you get a solid bite. I expect that I could adjust this with a brake service, but I shouldn’t have to do that for a brand-new bike out of the box.

Thankfully, after numerous 30 mph to 0 brake pulls, the Horizon only shows a nominal amount of fade.

I’ve ridden with RSX calipers on several occasions now – including many of the HeyBikes I have reviewed previously, such as the Brawn, Tyson, and Ranger S. The softness I feel in the Horizon’s brakes is the first time I’ve felt that from an RSX setup. However, every RSX setup I’ve ridden with has felt and performed worse than the also-common Tektro Auriga or Dorado models.

It’s also worth noting that there were a few kilometers where the pads rubbed slightly during motion. After a few brake stomps, the pads wore in, and the rubbing sound disappeared. This isn’t uncommon when riding your brand-new bike-in-a-box for the first time, but it’s worth mentioning if you haven’t encountered it before.

Interestingly, I’m not the only reviewer who isn’t in love with the brake feel on the Horizon. The guys over at eBike Escape reviewed the Horizon last year and had a rear brake failure that required bleeding the brakes and replacing the rear pads (though they somehow still scored the bike an 8/10?).

Drivetrain & Groupset

Like every other sub-$1,500 ebike, the Horizon is equipped with the ubiquitous Shimano Tourney 7-speed groupset and a cassette for city riding. Without the motor, any hill or trail with elevation variety is challenging. Take an 80 lb ebike, pair it with a sub-optimal riding position, and finish it off with a city-slicker cassette, and you have to wonder what the rear suspension is meant for…

Still, the above criticism is largely irrelevant once the motor kicks in, and assuming you’ve kept your battery charged, you’ll be able to handle easy trails and singletracks just fine. 

On the topic of riding trails, because of the cadence pedal assist, I opted to modify the PAS speed settings via the HeyBike app so that PAS 1 and PAS 2 were walking pace and fast walking pace, respectively. This keeps the bike from lurching forward when maneuvering on tight trails or around corners, which is a cadence curse that the stock PAS settings also subscribe to.

Suspension

The HeyBike Horizon has a hydraulic-coil fork with 80 mm of travel (including preload and lockout) and rear horst-link suspension. This setup on a folding bike is uncommon, to say the least, and paired with the 24” x 4” tires, the Horizon is the most comfortable folding ebike I’ve ridden.

The coil fork isn’t bad, but it’s also not a dedicated off-road fork, so don’t let HeyBike’s aggressive off-road marketing fool you: the Horizon can handle light singletracks, but it cannot handle downhill trails, technical riding, or even really gnarly terrain.

But the suspension and fat tire combination will absolutely dominate grasslands, gravel trails, simple singletracks, and anything paved. 

Yes, the “big” wheels and full suspension frame take away a lot of the compactness that typically draws buyers to a folding ebike, but that trade-off means that you have a folding ebike that can be used in some interesting places. This unconventional choice makes it easier for the Horizon to ride in more places.

Wheels & Tires

24” x 4” tires on a folding ebike are a rarity. In some ways, these “oversized” fat tires are counterintuitive to the main reason people buy folding ebikes: they aren’t compact or lightweight.

But… what you lose in compactness, you gain in comfort. And, frankly, it’s a pain in the butt to shove 80 lb in your trunk anyway, so the tradeoff is more than worth it, given the improvement in ride quality compared with other folders.

Chao Yang is not a premium tire brand. In fact, the only other times I’ve ridden with them have been on the other HeyBikes I’ve reviewed. They’re okay, but I’ll be glad to replace them with studded tires when the time comes since this bike is begging to be ridden in the snow.

It’s worth noting that this tire size combination is somewhat uncommon, so replacements aren’t as price competitive as you’d expect and see in more “normal” size configurations. Still, you can replace these tires for around $40/tire, which isn’t terrible.

Road noise on paved surfaces isn’t bad, and grip on grass and gravel is pretty good. The tires are knobby but not aggressive, so they perform better on dirt and gravel than they would on snow and sand. 

I tried to test them in the snow, but Alberta decided that we’d get blistering cold for a few weeks and that there would be almost no snow at all this winter, so that test didn’t happen. However, the tires aren’t set up to be studded, so they aren’t a serious contender for winter riding anyway.

Display & Settings

Like the other HeyBikes I have reviewed, the color display is pretty good but has limited functionality without connecting the bike to the HeyBike app. Via the app you can:

• Change between miles and kilometers
• Adjust PAS settings (0-5, 1-5, etc.) and PAS speed limits for each level (this is a great feature that every ebike should have)
• Monitor rides via the built-in GPS
• Turn the bike on/off (if connected via Bluetooth)
• See the battery charge level (though sometimes the app and the display disagree with each other)
• Rename the bike
• Adjust the display backlight
• Enable/disable the throttle PAS-sync speed limiter (the throttle can be limited to the speed limit of the current PAS level, or set to unlimited)

Overall, the Horizon is pretty customizable. However, if the app ever stops working, or you forget to bring your phone with you, the display becomes significantly limiting in terms of customization. Importantly, in this scenario, you’d still be able to turn on and ride the bike (you just wouldn’t be able to dial in the above settings).

Hinge Mechanisms

When I reviewed the KBO Compact, I decidedly remember thinking there was a non-zero chance of the central hinge loosening during aggressive riding. Despite having the thought, the reality did not occur (thankfully), but the wimpy hinge was never something I felt awesome about.

The Horizon has a beefy metal hinge that securely snaps into place. With the safety lock enabled, you can shake the shih tzu out of the bike and it’ll stay secure. The frame has a lot of wobble – as does every folding ebike frame – but it never feels like a liability.

The folding handlebar stem is the same. It locks into place with a tactile and satisfying click. 

Considering the Horizon’s ability to handle some dirt and singletrack riding, I was curious to see how robust these two hinge mechanisms would be. All told, while not as muscular as the hinge on the Surface 604 Twist I reviewed a couple of years ago, the Horizon’s hinges are hefty enough for me.

Accessories

The powered front and rear lights are HeyBike branded and quite visible in low light. The HeyBike branding is backlit (of course), and the headlight is quite functional at night.

The lights are operated via a switch on the left handlebars. One thing I find annoying is that the lights will stay on if the switch is activated, even if the bike is turned off. I can 100% see myself accidentally leaving the headlight on for a few hours and returning to a dead bike.

I’m less enthused by the fenders, which look like the garden-variety plastic bits that most bike-in-a-box brands include. However, looks can be deceiving: the plastic on these fenders is very lightweight, and the QC isn’t amazing. The rear fender was set up off-center, and the front fender was a pain to adjust because of how flimsy it is.

The rear fender, which came pre-installed under the rack, also came pre-scratched! While certainly not a big deal, I can appreciate that some people won’t be thrilled to see their brand-new-out-of-the-box ebike with some scratches and scuffs on it. You can also see in the image above that there is a small hole in the weld of the top crossbar. Again, it’s minor but notable (and not the only QC issue on the rack or bike).

Another petty complaint I have is the kickstand, which refuses to raise enough to truly get out of the way. Get any serious lean, and the kickstand rubs on the ground or hits trailside debris. The above image shows the stand fully retracted, so you can appreciate how in the way it can get.

An Unconventional and Imperfect eBike Perfect for the Right Kind of Rider

After riding the Horizon and getting a sense of how I felt about it, I came to the conclusion that it isn’t made for the apartment dweller who needs last-mile transport they can comfortably tuck into a closet; the Horizon is made for the retiree with an RV, the family beach house, or your cabin in the mountains.

It’s made to be as out of the way as possible when stored but help you enjoy as much of the terrain as possible when riding.

The Horizon is trying to strike a delicate balance between functional/compact/transportable and off-road/snow/year-round capable. A single bike can’t do it all, and the gaps in its performance are most apparent when the Horizon is trying to punch above its weight.

It has compromises inherent in every folding ebike: its folding frame means it’ll never be a serious off-road rider, its parts-bin component list means it’ll never be a serious performer, and its portly poundage means it’ll never be a long-distance superhero, either. 

But it also has a potent 750-watt motor and a decent-sized battery. Tie those things with a full-suspension frame and big fat tires, and you have a surprisingly capable folder that can tackle some dirt, gravel, sand, and snow way better than its skinny-tire, rigid-rear, underpowered peers simply can’t.

If the above use case resonates with you, the Horizon’s got your number.