Himiway A7 Pro Commuter EBike – Test and Review

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Updated April 9th, 2024

Manufacturer and Model: Himiway A7 Pro
List Price: $2399

Summary

The Himiway A7 Pro is a big step up from what we have seen from Himiway in the past. It has a lot of new features not found in many commuter bikes such as a stem integrated display, dropper post, built in ABUS lock, and 120mm of full suspension travel with air spring fork and rear shock. It is powered by a 500 watt mid-drive motor. It has a rear rack with a new modular cargo system. This makes for a bike with a great smooth ride and all the utility you could ask for in a great commuter ebike.

Himiway A7 Pro Review and Test

The Himiway A7 Pro is so packed full of features I’m not even sure where to begin this review. It is a commuter bike that comes with road tires but it is a full suspension bike with 120mm of travel along with a hydraulic dropper post that adds a little more cushion. It comes with a Suntour air sprung fork and a generic rear air shock.

It has upright geometry with a steep head tube angle so you won’t mistake it for a mountain bike with how it feels. You won’t feel any cracks in the pavement or potholes while riding it. I think this could make a great bikepacking bike or dirt road cruiser if you through some gravel tires on it.

Himiway sent us an A7 Pro to try out. It’s quickly become my favorite ebike to ride.

Himiway A7 Pro Video Review

1 – 500 watt mid-drive motor

The A7 Pro has an Ananda M100 48V-500W mid-drive motor. It is quiet and gives plenty of grunt for climbing hills or faster riding. The torque sensor is very responsive and gives you motor power almost instantly when you put pressure on the pedals.

The mid-drive motor gives 2 huge advantages over a hub motor.

1. The motor can take advantage of the bikes gearing when going up hills. You won’t have a struggling hub motor turning at low RPM when going up a steep hill.
2. The rear wheel does not have to spin against the drag of the motor. When riding with the motor off or a dead battery, the bike is till very easy to pedal.

2 – Air Sprung Full suspension

This is where Himiway really set the A7 Pro apart from almost every other commuter bike out there. This bike has a very smooth and cushy feeling ride thanks to it’s full suspension.

The A7 Pro has a Suntour X1 32 LO R Air front suspension fork with 120mm travel. This fork has an air spring so you can tune it for any weight rider. Heavier rider’s won’t be stuck with a coil spring that is too soft. The fork is designed for a cross country mountain bike so it will stand up to anything you throw at it commuting or riding gravel. This is a huge step up from the typical generic coil spring fork with 75mm travel that most commuter ebikes come with.

The A7 Pro has an air sprung rear suspension. It uses a PShox A06 rear shock absorber that gives the bike about 120mm travel on the rear end to match the front. The shock is generic but it does a good job of smoothing potholes, cracks, and dirt roads.

This suspension system sounds more like something that belongs on a cross country mountain bike and not a commuter bike. If you want a smooth ride and don’t want a sore butt after riding long distances, the A7 Pro is a great bike.

3 – 48 volt 15 ah removable battery

The bike comes with a removeable 48 volt 15 ah battery. The battery has a double latch built into it so that you won’t accidentally drop it on the ground. You turn the key normally to release the first latch. You have to push the key into the bike to be able to turn it to release the battery from the bike. It’s a good system and takes enough of a push that you won’t accidentally drop the battery on the ground. It doesn’t require you to open any secondary latches with your other hand which is nice.

4 – Torque Sensor

The A7 Pro uses a torque sensor like most other mid-drive powered bikes. It has a very smooth feel and good sensitivity. The power response is almost immediate when you push on the pedals. I never found myself wishing the motor would kick on faster.

4 – Throttle

The A7 Pro has a throttle for controlling the motor. Most mid-drive powered commuter bikes are pure Class1 or Class3 and have no throttle. You won’t find a throttle on any ebike from Specialized or Trek that cost a lot more.

The throttle operates in a binary manner. You get zero power or 100% power. It good for giving you that quick power boost for crossing busy streets. It lets you take a break from pedaling for a while. It’s not the most efficient throttle system for riding with throttle only long distances since you can’t have partial throttle power. You have to pulse it on and off to maintain speed.

5 – Hydraulic Dropper Post

The bike comes standard with a dropper post. This makes it very quick and easy to adjust the seat height. It also has a little bit of built in suspension to help absorb anything that made it through the rear suspension. To use it you pull up on the small lever under the seat and push the seat down to lower it. To raise it just pull up on the lever and the seat will move up on it’s own.

It does not have a handlebar control. Since the A7 Pro isn’t a mountain bike, you don’t need to be able to drop the seat for steep technical downhill trails. I don’t mind the lack of handlebar control on this kind of bike. It just makes adjusting the seat really quick and easy.

6 – ABUS Lock

The A7 Pro has a built in ABUS lock on the rear wheel. It looks similar to an ABUS Pro Tectic 4960 but not exactly the same. It works by sliding a steel bar through the rear wheel making the bike impossible to roll. At the same time it gives you a lock you can put a chain in to secure the bike to something. ABUS has available chains to go through the lock for securing to a rack or sign post. The lock is not Sold Secure or ART rated.

7 – Display integrated in the stem

The color LCD display is built into the bike stem. There is no separate LCD display attached on top of the handlebar. This gives the bike a much more integrated and clean look. The display is easy to read in any light condition.

8 – Power (9.0/10)

The A7 Pro has a 500 watt mid-drive motor. Mid-drives are more efficient and need smaller sized motors than hub-motor bikes. They can make use of the bikes gearing for hill climbing and high speed riding. The A7 Pro feels like it has similar power to many of the 750 watt hub motor bikes we’ve ridden such as the Aventon Aventure 2 and Himiway Zebra D5. On PAS 5 it gives a big force multiplier to your pedaling. At PAS 1 it feels like it is barely giving you any assistance.

The A7 has 5 PAS levels. The 5 levels put different power output limits on the pedal assist. Level 2 will only give you 50% assist and never more no matter how hard you push on the pedals. Level 5 will give you 100% assist power if you push hard. The Aventon torque sensor bikes seem to be able to give you close to 100% power on any assist level if the torque sensor feels the push. The A7 Pro has a firm assist limit for each PAS level. If you someone who only wants a little assist from the bike, you can have it on this bike.

Top Speed

The bike is set with a top speed of 20mph for throttle and 28mph for pedal assist from the factory. I took it out to a long straight flat path to see how fast the bike would go on level ground.

• Throttle – Max Speed GPS – 20.1 mph
• Throttle – Max speed shown on display – 20.7 mph

• Pedal Assist – Max Speed GPS – 27.5 mph
• Pedal Assist – Max speed shown on display – 28.2 mph

The gearing range on the bike makes it easy to go up to about 26mph. Above that you need to pedal really hard to get anything more out of it. I had an easier time getting the bike to go up to 28mph on a slight uphill where the torque sensor could read more push from the pedals. A little bit larger chainring would make higher speeds a bit easier.

Hill climbing

I took the A7 Pro out to my standard test hill. This is a 1/2 mile hill with 10% grades. I use a 250 lb rider. I do the test twice. Once with throttle only and again with max pedal assist. I use the factory settings for top speed and power which limits the top speed to 20mph for pedal assist and throttle. We got the following test times.

• Throttle Only – 2 min and 10 seconds. Average speed 14.61 mph
• Pedal Assist – 1 min and 40 seconds. Average speed 19.13 mph

The pedal assist time of 1 min and 40 seconds is quick for a 500 watt bike. The Aventon Level 2 we tested took 1 min and 55 seconds for the pedal assist climb.

The throttle only climb is a bit of a different story. The bike took 2 minute and 10 seconds with throttle. This is about 6 seconds slower than the Aventon Level 2. Much of this can be explained by the how throttle only mode works on this bike.

The throttle mode on the A7 works kind of a like a manual transmission car. You have to shift gears as you increase bike speed because the motor tops out. Every time you shift gears, the motor cuts off while the derailleur is moving. You get about a second loss of power with every gear shift. When you start up a steep climb with throttle only you have to shift up and down the gears and the pause in power adds up.

I’m sure I could get a better climb time with this bike with more practice and experimenting with when to shift gears. It takes a little more thought than just jamming the throttle open and going on a hub motor bike.

9 – Range (10/10)

I took the bike out on my standard range test ride. I ride the bike as close to 15mph as possible on a mixture of bike paths and streets. The route has some long climbs on it. I don’t just do a long flat path since most people will have at least some hills where they want to ride. I do the test with both pedal assist and throttle only.

Pedal assist

I was able to get the bike to go 50.6 miles using pedal assist. I spent most of my time in PAS level 2. I used PAS 3 for some of the steeper hills in the route. That bike gave enough assist in at those levels where I was only doing a little work pedaling. This is about where I expect to be for range with a 15 ah battery.

It takes some practice riding the bike to really get good at being efficient with it. For flat land cruising you get the best speed for the least amount of power using a high gear and pedaling slow softly. For climbing hills it wants a fast pedal cadence. The motor feels like it has more torque at higher RPM’s.

Throttle Only

I repeated the test again using only throttle. I tried to ride at a constant 15mph throughout the route. This is a bit challenging since the throttle is binary and only operates at all or nothing. You have to keep pulsing it on and off to maintain a steady speed. It also takes some effort shifting gears to get the most efficient range out of the mid-drive system. The bike went 32.4 miles using only throttle and no pedaling.

10 – Ride and Handling (10/10)

The A7 Pro with it’s dual suspension really shines in the ride and handling department. The suspension does an excellent job at smoothing out almost every crack and bump in the pavement. 120mm of travel is cross country mountain bike territory where you need to smooth out a lot of rocks and roots that you won’t find on your average paved road adventure.

The bike head tube angle is a bit steeper than you would find on a modern mountain bike but not too steep. This keeps the bike nice and nimble while still giving it good stability at higher speeds on smooth surfaces. It tracks well through corners. The 27 inch x 2.4 inch tires are grippy and stable feeling.

I think the A7 Pro would make a really good gravel bike if you swapped out the paved tires for some gravel tires. The suspension is so good at smoothing things out. The mid-drive gives it good power going up hills. I could see using this as a bike packing bike. Bring along an extra battery for more range and go on a long trek.

11 – Braking (9.5/10)

The hydraulic brakes have good feel and do an excellent job of stopping the bike. They feel sized right for the weight of the bike and expected speeds. I haven’t had any squealing develop yet in the brakes which is rare.

12 – Controls (9/10)

The A7 Pro has a 4 button controller on the left handlebar to control the bike electronics. It has a + and – button along with a “set” and power button. The LCD display is built into the handlebar stem instead of being a separate component attached to the handlbar. There is a shifter, throttle, bell, and brake lever on the right handlebar.

Having the throttle and shifter on the same handlebar gives the right side a bit of a busy or overloaded feel. I would have preferred they put the throttle on the left handlebar instead.

The bike has a settings menu that you access by pushing and holding down the “set” button for several seconds. This will let you reset the trip meter along with some other settings.

13 – Pedal driveline

The A7 Pro has a 9 speed Shimano Alivio pedal driveline. This uses a freehub instead of a freewheel so you could easily upgrade the bike to a 10 to12 speed pedal driveline by replacing the shifter, derailleur, chain, and cassette. The in included 9 speed components have a good gearing range that works well for the bike up to about 26mph. Above that the pedal cadence is a bit too fast to put enough push into the pedals to get a lot of motor assist. It’s geared low enough for hills and easily pedals up to it’s top speed.

14 – Accessories

The A7 Pro comes well equipped for commuting or riding around. It comes with a headlight and tail light, front and rear fender and also a modular rear rock. This is in addition to the dropper post and ABUS lock mentioned earlier.

Lights

The lights are bright enough for riding 20mph on a street or path. I like to supplement my bike lights with a helmet light so that I can always see where I’m looking.

Modular Rear Rack

The rack attaches to the rear suspension links and rear fender. The rack comes with a built in bungee strap that you can use for tying stuff down. Himiway will be releasing some other accessories such as bags and a basket that attach to the rack where the bungee attaches now.

15 – Size and Fit

Himiway gives a height range for this bike from 5’4″ up to 6’2″. I am just under 6′ and find the big feels very good. I’m using the seat about 1/3rd down from the top. I can easily step over the frame for getting on and off. My wife is about 5’6″ and finds the bike comfortable to ride as well. She uses the seat in the full down position.

For smaller riders, there is some room to further adjust the seat down by loosening the dropper post and sliding it farther down into the frame. The stem is also adjustable so you can move the handlebars up and down for different sized riders.

16 – Assembly Ease (9/10)

The bike comes encased in a few layers of black EPP foam. Himiway gets a 10 for packaging for protecting the bike. They get a 0 for the amount of black foam going to the landfill after you unpack the bike. I like the bike protection in shipping. I hate the amount of throwaway foam and plastic used here. Other ebike brands are using all cardboard packaging that can be recycled and doing a good job of protecting the bikes.

Assembly Time – 1 hour

It took me about 1 hour to complete assembly of the A7 Pro. The major steps are attaching the handlebar and mounting the front fender and headlamp. The front wheel uses a thru-axle which makes mounting and aligning it very easy.

There are a couple of steps that aren’t shown in the assembly manual. There is a small plastic cover included in the small parts box. It’s not shown in the manual at all. It goes on the front of the handlebar stem to cover a little more of the wiring.

The headlamp gets bolted up into the bottom of the stem. When you put the headlamp on, you will block access to the bolt for the small plastic cover. Put the cover on before mounting the light or you will be taking the headlamp back off. You can see from the image below how I know that.

Extra tools required

I try to assemble every ebike with just the included tools until I hit a step that can’t be done. That step came with the front fenders on the A7 Pro. The fenders have a nylock nut and bolt that need to be tightened together. You can used the included multitool for either the nut or bolt but not both.

The multitool that Himiway includes is very easy to strip. I have stripped 2 of the hex wrenches now while tightening the stem bolts on the handlebar. It looks like a nice tool but in reality the metal is too soft.

Adjustments needed

The rear derailleur on my bike was adjusted correctly out of the box. This is rare. We have had to adjust it on the majority of e-bikes we have gotten to get smooth shifting. It’s nice to get a bike that has a derailleur that needs no adjustment.

See Parktool for how to adjust a rear derailleur if your bike doesn’t shift smoothly.

Recommendation – Buy or No Buy?

I really like the Himiway A7 Pro. It is a big step up from the ebikes we’ve seen from Himiway in the past. It has a super smooth ride. It has the features to compete with some of the higher end commuter bikes from Specialized or Trek. It is a mid-drive but still has a throttle which most of the high-end ebikes are missing. If you are looking for a commuter ebike I highly recommend checking out the Himiway A7 Pro.

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