Himiway Zebra D5 Fat Tire EBike – Test and Review

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A high powered electric fat tire bike with superior range thanks to it’s 48 volt 20 ah battery

Manufacturer and Model: Himiway D5 Zebra
List Price: $1899

Summary

The Himiway Zebra D5 is their upgrade from their popular Cruiser electric fat bike design. It offers up a more powerful motor with 86nm of torque, a 48 volt 20 ah battery that is integrated into the frame and other improvements such as hydraulic disc brakes. The latest D5 version comes in new much more appealing color options. It is a great bike for anyone who wants a bike that is quick, climbs hills well, and can go a really long distance.

Himiway Zebra D5 Review and Test

We reviewed a Himiway Cruiser last fall. It was one of the first e-bikes we have ridden. We were really impressed by the high powered nature of the bike. It did have some downsides such as brakes that didn’t quite match the power of the bike and it looks bland with a battery sitting on top of the frame. Himiway introduced the Zebra as a stop up from the Cruiser and they have improved on the design in almost every way. The Himiway Zebra has a more powerful motor, bigger battery, more powerful hydraulic brakes, better looking frame, etc…It keeps everything we liked about the Cruiser including the raw power and even longer, very long range.

1 – D5 Frame Colors

Himiway decided to spice things up a bit with the frame colors for the Zebra and introduced the D5 collection. These are 4 new color options that give the Zebra a much more vibrant look. Before you were limited to the Model T “any color you want as long as it’s black” look. Now you can have a much brighter and more fun looking ride.

1 – 750 watt geared rear hub motor

The Zebra comes with an upgraded 750 watt geared rear hub motor. It produces a very strong 86nm of torque. This is an upgrade over the 80nm of torque from the Himiway Cruiser.

2 – 48 volt 20 ah removable battery

The Zebra uses a large 48 volt 20 ah battery for power. It is made with Samsung or LG cells. The battery is integrated into the bike frame. You remove it by dropping it out of the frame using the key. You need to use the key to put the battery back in also. The battery can be recharged either in or out of the bike.

Most other bikes in this price range come with a 15 ah to 17 ah battery. It’s nice seeing 48 volt 20 ah on a bike under $2000. Big fat tire bikes eat up a lot of juice. More battery is always better.

A 3 amp charger is included which can recharge the battery in 6 to 7 hours from completely dead. The charger has a built in cooling fan to keep things from getting too hot.

3 – 4 inch wide fat tires and front suspension

The Himiway Zebra uses 26 x 4 inch fat tires for grip and cushion. Like all fat tire bikes, you can tune the ride a lot by adjusting the air pressure of the tires. 5 psi is good for sand, mud, and snow. 15 psi is good for general offroad riding. 25 psi is good for riding on pavement.

The Zebra has a coil spring front shock with about 80mm of travel. It has a pre-load adjustment that helps to make it stiffer for heavier riders. It has a lockout dial on top of the other stanchion. These forks do an okay job of smoothing the ride a bit. The pre-load is not stiff enough for heavier riders above 250 lbs. This is where an air-spring fork would be a great upgrade. It’s not hard for 250-300 lbs riders to bottom out the fork on bumps.

The frame and front fork have enough extra clearance to fit 4.8 inch tires if you want to upgrade.

4 – Cadence Sensor

The Zebra uses a cadence sensor for pedal assist motor control. It takes about 1/2 pedal turn for the motor to come on. Cadence sensor bikes are better for people that like to ride fast and don’t want to have to put in a lot of effort to pedal at high speeds or uphills. The Zebra will easily ghost pedal up to it’s maximum speed.

6 – Power (9.0/10)

Himiway e-bikes have an aggressive motor and power. You will never wonder whether the motor is running. It will let you know immediately. They have a much faster and more aggressive initial acceleration then the e-bikes from other brands. You will either love it or hate it. If you want a fast feeling e-bike then you are in the right place with Himiway. If you want a bike that is easy to ride slowly, this is not the bike for you.

Top Speed

The manual for the Zebra says that the max speeds are set to 25mph by default and can be set faster. The bike comes set to 20mph for throttle and PAS. The max speed it can be set at is 25mph. We took the Zebra out to a flat smooth chunk of pavement and measured the top speed we could get using a GPS.

• Throttle – Max Speed GPS – 18.9 mph
• Throttle – Max speed shown on display – 20.0 mph

• Pedal Assist – Max Speed GPS – 19.7 mph
• Pedal Assist – Max speed shown on display – 20.0 mph

We set the max speed to its upper limit. There are directions in the manual for making this adjustment. It’s easy and takes just a couple of minutes. We repeated the test again.

• Throttle – Max Speed GPS – 24.2 mph
• Throttle – Max speed shown on display – 24.9 mph

• Pedal Assist – Max Speed GPS – 24.2 mph
• Pedal Assist – Max speed shown on display – 25.0 mph

Hill climbing

We took the Zebra to our standard hill climbing test hill. This is a 1/2 mile hill with several sections of 10% grade. It is a long and tiring hill to ride on a pedal only bike. We use a 250 lb rider to add to the challenge for the bike. The Zebra powered up the hill without much slow down.

We repeat the test 2 times. We run the bike with the default factory settings for everything. We do it once with throttle only. We do it a second time at the max pedal assist setting.

• Throttle Only – 1 min and 57 seconds. Average speed 16.2 mph
• Pedal Assist – 1 min and 52 seconds. Average speed 16.9 mph

The Zebra is a few seconds slower in both tests than the Aventon Aventure 2 and about 10 seconds slower than the Himiway Cruiser. The Cruiser still stands as the fastest bike we have tested for hill climbing. We expected the Zebra to be faster than the Cruiser since the motor has a little more torque according to the specs. 86nm vs 80nm.

Upon further investigation, the Cruiser comes from the factory with its max speed for throttle and PAS set to 22mph. The Zebra comes set at 20mph. The bike is running at max speed for a good portion of this hill so the 2mph in top speed makes a difference.

Acceleration

The Zebra has quick aggressive acceleration. This is a bike for someone who likes fast bikes. The slowest pedal assist speed is 12mph and it will hit 12mph in a few seconds of pedalling. This bike feels fast compared to most other e-bikes when the motor kicks in.

7 – Range (10/10)

We did our standard range test with the Himiway Zebra. We do a ride out to a local park with a lake, go around the lake, and come back. The there and back trip takes about 35 miles and has about a 1000 feet of climbing. It’s got a few long extended hills with steep grades. After that we have some small circuits we ride around depending on much battery is left to completely drain the battery. We ride as close to 15mph as possible for the entire ride. We use a 250 lb rider.

We repeat the test twice. Once with pedal assist and once with throttle only. We ride the bike as close to 15mph as possible in both PAS and throttle modes.

Pedal assist

The Himiway Zebra has a 20 ah battery. We have been getting around 45 miles out of bikes with 15-17 ah batteries. I expected to get around 60 miles from pedal assist riding. I rode the bike set on PAS 2 which has a speed of 16mph. I rode the bike for 4 hours and 51 minutes going 63.2 miles before the bike stopped giving any meaningful assist. The route involved 1545 feet of hill climbing on the way.

Himiway claims a range of 60 to 80 miles for the Zebra. I’m confident you could get 80 miles out of the bike on a flat route going 10-15mph with a 150-200 lb rider.

Throttle Only

I rode the same circuit again only using throttle. We rode as close to 15mph as possible. This time the bike went 41.57 miles before the motor wouldn’t move the bike any further. This route included 815 feet of hill climbing. This is the longest range we have gotten on any e-bike so far using throttle only.

8 – Ride and Handling (9.5/10)

The Zebra has a 4 inch longer wheelbase than the Himiway Cruiser. The handlebar height is 3.6 inches lower. This gives it a bit more stretched out, leaned over riding position. It is closer to a hybrid or mountain bike riding position than a true upright cruiser position. It strikes a nice balance between performance and comfort without being too stretched out.

Comfort

The big fat tires and suspension fork give the Zebra a nice cushy ride. It is comfortable to ride for a long several hour ride. The seat is a bigger more cushy seat with plenty of padding. It stays comfortable when you ride with throttle for a long time and you’re not taking any weight off the seat pedaling.

Cornering

The Zebra is a longer wheelbase bike. It likes to go fast and straight. It is not a nimble quick turning bike. It does feel like it carves around fast wide corners well. It’s very stable to ride at speeds over 20mph.

9 – Offroading with the Himiway Zebra

The most fun terrain to ride the Zebra is dirt roads and jeep trails. It loves tearing up wider double track width trails. It has plenty of suspension with the correct tire pressure to absorb rocks, roots, and whatever else you might ride over. The Zebra makes a great bike to ride to your favorite hunting or fishing spot or go bike packing in the woods.

The Zebra doesn’t really like tight very twisty singletrack mountain bike trails. The motor kicks in too aggressively and you need too much pedal movement with the cadence sensor to easily control it. It’s not really fun to ride on that kind of trail. The Zebra wants to run. It doesn’t want to walk or crawl.

10 – Braking (9/10)

The Tektro disc brakes are a big improvement over the cable pull mechanical disc brakes on the Himiway Cruiser. They give a lot more stopping power with only a little finger effort. They aren’t as powerful as the 4 piston brakes found on the Ride1Up Rift. They do an acceptable job at slowing this big heavy bike down from high speeds. A 4 piston brake might be a nice upgrade for anyone who wants a little bit more when it comes to stopping.

11 – Controls (8.5/10)

The Zebra has a simple set of controls and LCD display. There is a 5 button controller on the left handlebar. There is a gear shifter, twist throttle, and bell on the left handlebar. Nothing fancy here. Everything works and gives you all the information you need.

LCD Display

The Zebra has a simple black and grey LCD screen. It has all the basic info you need such as speed, a power meter, how much battery is left, and what assist level you are in. It has an info line at the bottom that can tell you things like trip mileage, max speed, etc..

The LCD display shows battery as a series of boxes. I would prefer it show battery remaining as a percentage. This gives you a better feel for how fast you are using the battery and how much you have left. It’s harder to estimate when you have a box that represents 20% of the battery.

The display shows how many watts of output you are getting from the motor at any time. This is a nice feature for trying to judge how hard the bike is working, It’s a nice extra on top of the power meter bar.

Control buttons

The bike has a set of control buttons on the left handlebar. The buttons are easy to use and intuitive. They are big enough to easily push while wearing riding gloves. It’s nice having a dedicated button for the lights and a dedicated button for changing the bottom display line. No fumbling around with double pushing buttons or long holds.

Pedal Assist and Throttle

The Zebra uses a twist throttle on the right handlebar. I am not a fan of twist throttles but a lot of riders prefer them. It has enough spring tension so that you won’t accidentally twist it into full throttle. It gets tiring to hold if you ride throttle only for a few hours non-stop.

The pedal assist has 5 levels. The 5 levels operate at the following speeds. These are the speeds shown on the display. Actual speeds measured by GPS are 1 to 2 mph slower. As you can see below there is no real difference between PAS 3, 4, and 5 with the default settings.

• Level 1 – 12.5 mph
• Level 2 – 16.2 mph
• Level 3 – 19.8 mph
• Level 4 – 19.8 mph
• Level 5 – 20.0 mph

The max speed for pedal assist and throttle can be set in the menu up to 25mph from 20mph. See the below link for how to adjust the maximum speed.

• Level 1 – 12.2 mph
• Level 2 – 16.0 mph
• Level 3 – 20.0 mph
• Level 4 – 23.0 mph
• Level 5 – 25.0 mph

There is some tunability to the PAS levels in the menu if you want a slower start. This is useful with the default top speed since the top 3 PAS levels have no difference.

Electronic Lock

The Zebra can be set up so that you need to enter a combination when you power it up for it to work. It’s not set up as delivered. The manual has instructions for how to turn this feature on. It won’t keep someone from walking off with the bike. It will keep them from riding it. This is not a fun bike to ride with no power.

7 speed pedal driveline

The pedal driveline uses a Shimano Altus rear derailleur and a Shimano Tourney 7 speed shifter. For the price this bike should have at least an 8 speed driveline with Altus shifter instead of Tourney. Tourney components belong on $250 Walmart bikes, not $1800 bikes.

12 – Assembly Ease (8.0/10)

Assembly Time – 1.0 hours

It took me about 1 hour from box to ready to ride, not counting charging the battery. The Zebra comes with a multi-tool with a bunch of tools including socket wrenches. The downside is that the 4mm hex wrench on mine stripped on the 3rd bolt I had to tighten so I needed to use a different tool to finish bike assembly.

Extra tools required

You will need either a second 10mm wrench or a second 4mm hex key to put on the front fender and light. You will need to tighten a bolt and need a tool for both ends. The fenders also require a second wrench to attach them to the fork.

Adjustments needed

Our rear derailleur required some adjustment to shift smoothly. The high gear limit was not set correctly so the cable tension was also off a bit. We’ve only ever received one e-bike that didn’t need rear derailleur adjustment so this is typical no matter who you get the bike from.

Rear derailleur adjustment is easy and takes just a few minutes. I find it easiest to just flip the bike over onto its handlebars and seat. Then you can easily turn the crank by hand and adjust the derailleur without using a stand. Remember to rotate the display down so the bike isn’t resting on it when flipped over.

See the below video from Parktool for how to adjust a rear derailleur.

13 – Accessories

Our Zebra came equipped with a rear rack, front and rear fenders, and front and rear lights. It has mounts for a front rack but does not come with one.

Lights

The light has 2 bulbs and is brighter than the average light that comes on an e-bike. It is bright enough for most situations. I would supplement it with a helmet light for trail riding to get a little more light and focus.

The rear light also acts as a brake light so cars can see you better.

Fenders

The fenders are heavy duty thick feeling plastic. They are holding up so far to our use on roads and trails. The rear fender comes installed. You have to install the front fender yourself.

Rear rack

The rack has a hefty looking welded aluminum frame. It is rated to carry 25kg or 55 pounds. It looks ready to go to war or camping. It’s bolted to the frame in several spots. Himiway sells several compatible bags to use with the rack. They also sell a trailer if you need to bring more stuff than fits on the rack or rack bags.

14 – Size and Fit

According to Himiway the step over frame is good for riders from 5’3″ to 6’5″. It is a large feeling bike. I wouldn’t recommend the step over frame for someone less than 5’8″ I am 5’11” and it feels big to me. My wife who is 5’6″ can ride it just barely.

Smaller riders should choose the Step-Thru Zebra. It has a published rider size from 5’1″ to 6’5″. It is better suited to anyone under 5’8″. I would recommend it for anyone under 5’10”.

14 – Zebra vs the Aventon Aventure 1 and 2

The Aventon Aventure 1 and 2 are the most popular fat tire electric bikes out there. How does the Zebra stack up to the Aventure? Both bikes have the following features:

• Hydraulic disc brakes
• Operate in throttle and pedal assist modes
• 26 x 4 inch tires
• Coil spring shocks with lockout
• Altus rear derailleur
• Frame integrated batteries
• Available in step-over and step-thru versions.

The Aventure is a solid bike. It only has a 15 ah battery which is 25% smaller than the Zebra. The Aventure is limited to 20mph for throttle only operation. The Zebra can go 25mph with throttle. The Zebra costs $200 less than Aventure 2 or a $300 more than the Aventure 1.

See the below table for a comparison of features between the 3 bikes.

Recommendation – Buy or No Buy?

If you want an e-bike with a really long range that is capable of going offroad then check out the Zebra D5. It has a nice overall package and the 20 ah battery gives it over 60 miles range in real work usage with hills and heavier riders.

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