Magicycle launches the ‘SUV of e-bikes’ with full suspension fat tire electric bike
Electric bicycle maker Magicycle has just unveiled its newest model, which is the most premium e-bike yet in the company’s lineup. The full-suspension Magicycle Deer also claims to be an “SUV e-bike,” though that term seems to get thrown around a lot lately.
We’ve seen plenty of “SUV e-bikes” before, with some companies applying the term more towards crossover and touring-style e-bikes, while Magicycle seems to lump it into the full-suspension fat tire category.
Whatever you want to call it, the Magicycle Deer is a lot of e-bike. It’s 92.3 pounds (41.9 kg) of e-bike, to be exact.
Moving that massive bike around is the job of a rear hub motor offering 750W of continuous power and 1,110W of peak power. The motor is rated for 96 Nm of torque, which is quite high for a hub motor.
And since that’s a lot of power to demand from an e-bike battery, Magicycle made sure to outfit the bike with plenty of capacity. The removable battery hidden in the bike’s downtube is a 52V and 20Ah pack with 1,040Wh of capacity. The company says that will be good enough for up to 80 miles (130 km) of range in low power pedal assist mode. The throttle range isn’t listed, but you can bet it’s less than 80 miles.
When using higher power pedal assist, the Magicycle Deer can reach speeds of up to 28 mph (45 km/h). Riders who use the half twist throttle to engage the motor without any pedaling will only be able to reach speeds of up to 20 mph (32 km/h).
Bringing the bike back down from those speeds is the job of a pair of hydraulic disc brakes on 180 mm rotors.
Unlike most full-suspension e-bikes, the Magicycle Deer includes both a complete fender set and a rear rack. That should help it better perform dual roles as both an adventure bike and a commuter bike. The adventure rider in the lifestyle shots seems to have ditched his fenders and rack when he hit the dirt, but they do come as standard equipment.
With a max weight rating of 400 lbs (181 kg), the bike also has plenty of extra cargo capacity to load down that rear rack, even with a heavy rider on board.
A full color screen is included on the handlebars along with a 7-speed shifter. The bike uses a cadence sensor instead of a nicer torque sensor to engage its pedal assist, but the 7-speed transmission should still help make it a nice hill climber for those that like drop down into lower gear and help the bike up hills. Though with over 90Nm of torque and 1.1 kW of peak power, it sounds like the Magicycle Deer shouldn’t need very much help on the hills.
The e-bike is available in both a step-through and a step-over design and comes in three color options: Neon Green, Dawn Yellow and Space Gray. The model carries an MSRP of US $2,699, though comes with a launch promotion of $300 off when using the coupon code NA300.
Electrek’s Take
We’ve seen Magicycle e-bikes before and the company has a reputation for being a mid-tier budget brand. They haven’t done anything especially innovative in the past, but they also haven’t had their bikes break in half, so I guess that puts Magicycle in the middle of the pack?
One thing that gives me a bit of pause is that despite the bike officially launching today, there are already nearly a hundred glowing customer reviews on the sales page going back almost a month. Hmmmmm.
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Paris’ bike-share system, Vélib has long been considered one of the shining success stories of urban micromobility. With a massive fleet of over 20,000 pedal and electric-assist bicycles around Paris, the service has helped millions of residents and tourists get around the City of Light without needing a car or scooter. But lately, a growing problem is threatening to knock the wheels off this urban mobility marvel: theft and joyriding.
According to city officials and the service operator, more than 600 Vélib bikes are now going missing every single week. That’s over 30 bikes a day simply vanishing from the system – some stolen outright, others taken on “joy rides” and never returned.
“At the moment we’re missing 3,000 bikes,” explained Sylvain Raifaud, head of the Agemob company that currently operates the Velib system. That’s nearly 15% of over 20,000 Vélib bikes across Paris.
The sticky-fingered culprits aren’t necessarily professional thieves or organized crime rings. Instead, they’re often regular users who treat the shared bikes like disposable toys.
The city estimates that many people have figured out how to pry the bikes out of the system’s parking docks, unlocking one for a casual cruise and then ditching it somewhere far from a docking station.
Once pried free, the bikes are technically usable for the next 24 hours until their automatic locking feature kicks in. At that point, the bikes are often simply abandoned. Some end up in alleyways. Others get tossed in rivers. A few just disappear completely.
And since the bikes are intended to be parked at their many docking stations around the city, they don’t have GPS chips, further complicating recovery of “liberated” bikes.
The issue started small but has grown into more than an inconvenience – it’s beginning to undermine the entire purpose of the service. With bikes going missing at such a high rate, many Vélib docking stations are left empty, especially during rush hours.
Riders looking for a quick commute or a convenient hop across town are increasingly finding themselves without available bikes, or having to walk long distances to find a functioning one.
That kind of unreliability chips away at user confidence and threatens to drive potential riders back into cars, cabs, or other less sustainable forms of transport at a time when Paris has already made great strides to dramatically reduce car usage in the city.
The losses are financially painful, too. Replacing stolen or vandalized bikes isn’t cheap, and the resources spent on tracking down missing equipment or reinforcing anti-theft measures are stretching thin. Vélib has faced theft and vandalism issues before, especially during its early years, but this latest surge has officials sounding the alarm with renewed urgency.
Officials acknowledge that there’s no easy fix. Paris, like many cities with bike-share systems, walks a fine line between accessibility and accountability. Part of what makes Vélib so successful is its ease of use and widespread availability. But those same features make it vulnerable to misuse – especially when enforcement is limited and the consequences for abuse are minimal.
The timing of the problem is especially unfortunate. In recent years, Paris has seen impressive results in reducing car traffic, expanding bike lanes, and promoting cycling as a key part of its sustainable transport strategy. Vélib is a cornerstone of that plan. But if the system becomes too unreliable, it risks losing the very people it was designed to serve.
Meanwhile, as Parisians increasingly find themselves staring at empty docks, the challenge for the city and Vélib will be to restore confidence in the system without making it harder to use. That means striking the right balance between freedom and responsibility, between open access and protection against abuse.
In a city where cycling is supposed to be the future of mobility, losing thousands of bikes to joyriders and sticky fingers isn’t just frustrating; it’s unsustainable.
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