Heybike ALPHA Review – Great Value Mid-Drive Fat Tire EBike

Updated April 24th, 2025

The Heybike ALPHA is the latest fat tire ebike from Heybike. The ALPHA goes in a new direction for a budget fat tire ebike by using a 500 watt mid-drive motor instead of a big heavy hub-motor on the rear wheel. The surprising thing with the ALPHA is the price. It costs the same or less than other fat tire ebikes with hub-motors and cadence sensors.

How does the ALPHA perform? It’s one of my favorite fat-tire ebikes I’ve ridden so far. Keep reading to find out the full scoop on the Heybike ALPHA.

Heybike ALPHA

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What we liked:

The torque sensor is very smooth and responsive.
The mid-drive gives the bike a very natural power-amplifying feel. It doesn’t feel like a mini-motorcycle that powers you
Very good for relaxed riding on any terrain surface
Good power for slow grinding up steep hills
Easier to pedal with the motor off than any hub-motor powered fat tire ebike

What we didn’t like:

The throttle is very power restricted and not useful for extended riding.
There is no shift sensor to deactivate motor power while shifting gears
A suspension seat post (not included) would do wonders to smooth out the bumps on longer rides

Specifications

Max Speed – 28 mph
Range – 60 miles
Max Rider Weight – 400 lbs
Bike Weight – 71 lbs
Motor Power – 500 watt mid-drive motor
Battery – 48 volt 14.2 ah
Speeds – 8 Speed Shimano Altus
Brakes – Hydraulic disc
Wheel Size – 26 inch x 4 inch tires

Video Review

Heybike ALPHA Review and Test

The Heybike ALPHA is available as a step-thru or regular frame in 2 colors. It’s only available in 1 frame size for each. Our test bike is a white step-thru frame. I prefer step-thru frames since they are easier to get on and off. The step-over frame really has no advantage in terms of frame stiffness or bike performance.

Let’s get into the features and performance of the bike.

1 – 500 watt mid-drive with 105 N-m of torque

The biggest news about the ALPHA is the mid-drive power system. At the ALPHA’s price point there aren’t any other fat tire ebikes out there with anything but hub motors.

What difference does this make? The motor drives the bike through the pedal driveline so you can really gear down for going up hills. You might now blast up hills, but you can climb really steep hills that will make a hub motor groan and burn up.

The second big advantage of a mid-drive is that the bike doesn’t have to spin the rear wheel against a big hub motor. The bike coasts a lot faster. It’s a lot easier to pedal the bike with no motor. It makes the bike feel more like a regular bike that can give you a power boost when you want it. It doesn’t feel like a mini-motorcycle that is doing all the work for you and bringing you along for the ride.

2 – Torque sensor and 5 levels of pedal assist

The pedal assist system uses a torque sensor to activate the motor. It is really smooth and gives almost instant power with any pressure at all. There is no lag in the power from a stand still or if the bike is moving. The bike feels you push the pedal and you get motor power RIGHT NOW!

3 – UL Listed 48 volt 14.2 ah removable battery

The Heybike ALPHA’s battery is UL2271 certified. The entire bike is UL2849 certified. This means that you don’t have to worry about battery safety when using the bike.

The 680 watt hour battery has enough capacity to give the bike up to 60 miles of range. We tested it to 50 miles with a heavy rider and lots of hills.

The battery is installed in the bottom of the frame down tube. There is a separate cover that protects the battery and battery compartment from dirt and other riding debris. This is nice when you remove the battery for transport but still want to cover the hole in the frame where the battery was.

4 – Front suspension

The ALPHA has a basic front suspension fork that has adjustable preload and damping. It gives a little extra cushion to go with the 4 inch fat tires. There is no rear suspension or suspension seat post.

5 – 26 x 4 inch off road tires

The bike uses 26 inch by 4 inch fatbike tires. This gives it good traction on almost any surface and gives the bike some cushion riding over bumps and rough terrain. It also makes the bike very easy to balance for riders who want a bit more stability than a road bike.

6 – 28mph top speed

The ALPHA has a top speed of 28mph with pedal assist and 20mph with throttle. The display reads 1-2mph faster than you’re actually going. Overall, the bike was able to get close to the published speeds.

• With throttle only, I measured 20.2 mph on the display and 19.8 mph with the GPS.
• With max pedal assist, I measured 30.4 mph on the display and 26.5 mph on the GPS.

7 – 400 lbs capacity

If you’re a big rider or have a lot of stuff to carry, the ALPHA has you covered. The bike has a published 400 lb weight capacity. The rear rack doesn’t have a weight capacity listed anywhere on it. It looks very beefy and Heybike mentions using the bike with a passenger. The rack has enough weight limit to at least hold a small adult.

8 – The ALPHA has a throttle for taking a break

The ALPHA has a twist throttle on the right handlebar.

To protect the motor and drive train, Heybike does not encourage sole throttle use, especially at the start of a bike ride.

The throttle on the ALPHA is not a typical fat tire ebike throttle. It is not designed for continuous use. It’s meant to be used if you want to take a break for a few minutes and then go back to pedalling. It won’t from when the bike is at a stand still. You need to Pedal the bike up to 5 mph and then apply the throttle.

To use the throttle you have to upshift or downshit gears as you speed up or slow down. The motor has a narrow pedal cadence that it works at. There is no shift sensor built into the bike so remember to let off the throttle when switching gears and then apply throttle to keep speeding up or slowing down.

It’s limited to about 25% power. The display will never show more than 3 or 4 bars of power output. It is just enough power to maintain 10-15 mph on flat, level ground and no more. It’s not a throttle like you would find on a hub motor powered fat tire ebike. It’s more like a throttle that will give you a little break from pedaling every now and then and not much more.

To be honest, they could have left the throttle off of this bike and made it a pure pedal assist only ebike and not too many people would miss it. It’s so restricted that most people won’t find it useful.

9 – Power and Hill Climbing (9.5/10)

How well does the 500 watt mid-drive motor and 48 volt battery actually perform? The motor performs as well as any 750 watt hub motor. The acceleration is very quick on higher PAS levels. There is no lag when you push on the pedals. If you’re standing with the bike waiting to go and you rest your foot on the pedal, you can feel the bike trying to push off.

Hill climbing

We did a standard hill climbing test that we do with all of our ebikes. It’s a half mile hill with 10% grades. I use a 250 lb rider to give the bike a little more challenge. We time how long it takes. The ALPHA came in just about average for a fat tire e-bike. You can see the below list for how it stacked up.

• Heybike ALPHA – 1 minute 49 seconds
• Aventon Aventure 2 – 1 minute 50 seconds
• Himiway Zebra D5 – 1 minute 52 seconds
• Himiway Cobra – 1 minute 43 seconds
• RadPowerBikes RadRover 6+ – 1 minute 54 seconds

The mid-drive requires you to pause pedaling while you upshift. This slows it down a little. The mid-drive’s real benefit is slow climbing steap grades. The rear hub motor is a bit better for blasting around at high speeds.

10 – Tested Range 50 miles with a big rider and hills (9.5/10)

I did a standard range test with the ALPHA. I only tested range with pedal assist and not throttle. The throttle mode on this bike is not meant for continuous riding. I do the test going 15mph using a medium pedal assist. In this case, level 2. I use the same 250 lb rider as the hill climb test.

I recorded 48.7 miles on the GPS using pedal assist level 2 and an average speed of 15 mph. There was 1326 feet of hill climbing along the route. The bike was able to give enough assist to go 15 mph all the way until the last mile. Most hub motor bikes run out of voltage and can’t sustain 10mph for the last couple of miles.

The published range for the ALPHA is up to 60 miles. I think you could easily get to 60 miles or more with a lighter rider and riding on flat terrain.

• Heybike ALPHA – 48.7 miles (14.2 ah battery)
• Aventon Aventure 2 – 44 miles (15 ah battery)
• Himiway Zebra D5 – 63.2 miles (20 ah battery)
• Himiway Cobra – 55.3 miles (20 ah battery)
• RadPowerBikes RadRover 6+ – 35.9 miles (14 ah battery)

11 – Ride and Handling (9.5/10)

The bike has a nice, upright, and comfortable riding position. It doesn’t feel like a performance bike. It feels like a relaxed cruiser. It feels solid and stable at 28mph. The geometry of the bike feels balanced for what it is meant to do.

The suspension does a good job of absorbing bumps when riding off-road on trails or gravel roads. I did find the seat to start getting uncomfortable after a few hours. I would add a suspension seat post to this bike to make the back and seat a little more cushy.

Riding without the motor

The ALPHA is much easier to ride without the motor than other fat tire ebikes. On flat ground I could maintain 10-12mph which is about what I can do with my Specialized Fatboy, which is a conventional fatbike. I can barely pedal an Aventon Aventure or Himiway Zebra above 5 mph and forget goinig up any hills.

12 – Off roading with the Heybike ALPHA

The ALPHA comes with a front suspension fork and 4 inch wide knobby off road tires. We took it to some trails and gravel roads to test it out. The mid-drive gives you a lot of hill climbing power for chugging up steep hills. The front suspension does a good job of smoothing out some of the bumps and rocks. A suspension seat post would help a ton with comfort.

You could take the ALPHA out onto a mountain bike trail and it would do okay. The torque sensor is responsive enough to give you good power control. It has enough grunt and range for grinding up slow steep climbs. It’s easy to control riding tight corners.

Riding off road and steep climbs in pedal assist level 5 is the one place where I found you had to be careful shifting the ALPHA. If you shift while pedaling hard up a climb, the pedal driveline will make a lot of pops and bad sounds. The ALPHA does not have a sensor on the shift cable to deactivate the motor while it is shifting. You have to remember to ease up pedaling when you shift.

13 – Braking (9/10)

The hydraulic disc brakes do a good job of stopping the bike. They feel the correct size. They didn’t start squealing or making noise during our test. Stopping power felt similar to other fat tire e-bikes we have tried.

14 – Controls (8/10)

The ALPHA has a 7 button controller on the left handlebar and a color LCD display. There is a twist throttle along with the gear shifter on the right handlebar.

LCD Display

The LCD display is easy to read in bright sunlight. Everything makes sense on the display. It borders on giving a little too much information. You get everything you need.

One thing to note about the display is the battery meter. It has a battery with bars and next to it a percentage. The bars give you a rough idea what is left and work okay.

The percentage left is very erratic and not useful. You can go from 40% left to 5% left going from flat terrain to a steep hill. The percentage value will swing 25-35% going from coasting to climbing. The bars are more consistent. You can have 1 bar remaining with 10% or 40% on the percentage next to it.

Control Buttons

The controller has buttons for changing PAS level, turn signals, an info button, and a horn button. There is a dedicated power button.

The horn is loud. I prefer bells for riding on bike paths, as they aren’t as obnoxious for getting people’s attention. When you want a car to hear you, the electronic buzzer horn is the way to go.

The bike has turn signals with a left and right button on the controller. I never use turn signals on a bike. Some people really like them who ride in a city a lot.

Phone App

Heybike has an app for controlling some options on the bike. The app is easy to install and link and works with all of their bikes. It has more options than you can adjust from the menu on the LCD display.

Throttle

My only real complaint about the controls is the throttle. As mentioned earlier, it is so power restricted and limited that the bike would be better without it. I’m not a fan of twist throttles. They take much more hand effort to hold open than thumb throttles.

15 – Accessories

The bike comes complete with front and rear lights, front and rear fenders, and a rear rack.

Automatic Headlights

The headlights automatically turn on and off when it gets dark or light out. It is an improved design over the Heybike Horizon we tested last year. The lights turn off when the bike’s power turns off. No more worry about the lights turning on and draining the battery when you leave the bike sitting somewhere in the dark.

The lights can also be manually turned on and off from the buttons on the controller.

16 – Size and Fit

I’m just under 6 feet. The bike fits me well. I have a step-thru version of the bike. I find it easy to get on and off. I have the seat a little higher than mid-position. The published size range for the ALPHA is 5’1″ to 6’1″. I think someone a bit taller would be okay with it. 5’1″ might be pushing the small size end.

17 – Assembly Ease (9.5/10)

The bike comes in a large cardboard shipping box. The only steps required for assembly are putting the front wheel on, mounting the handlebars, mounting the front fenders and lights, and attaching the pedals. It took me about 40 minutes to go from box to ready to ride (not counting charging the battery time).

The bike comes with enough tools to complete the assembly. No extra tools are required to get the bike ready to ride.

Recommendation – Buy or No Buy?

The Heybike ALPHA breaks new ground with a mid-drive fat tire bike at the price range where you only find hub motors. It has a very smooth feeling torque sensor. It has good range and hill climbing power. It gives the bike a more natural biking feel compared to a hub motor. The bike has a lot of nice features, such as the automatic lights and heavy duty rack.

The downside to the ALPHA is the throttle. This is not a bike made for someone who wants to ride around without pedaling.

This is a bike for someone who wants to pedal but wants some help or wants to ride longer distances. It is for someone who wants a relaxed feeling e-bike that still feels like a bike and not a e-motorcycle.

Overall I really enjoy riding the ALPHA and recommend it for anyone who wants a bike to ride like a bike.

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Check out our guide to the best fat tire ebikes for other great options.

Ryan Craig
Chief Editor

I am a total gear nerd and love learning how things work and thinking about how they could be improved. Nothing excites me more than trying out new gear. I’d rather spend 3 hours taking my bike apart and learning how to change something than go to a bike shop. These days, I reside in Michigan by the Great Lakes and go skiing, biking, and boating as much as possible. Visit our About Us page and learn more.

ryan@greatlakesbikeskiboat.com