Dirt jumping electric bike review: The ONYX LZR Pro mid-drive e-bike
Electric dirt jumpers are a niche within a niche of the larger electric bike market. But while the ONYX LZR Pro e-bike doesn’t have much competition on either side of it as one of the models in its class, the bike still manages to stand out for its impressive build quality and ability to take it to the streets and the trails.
Now I’m not much of a jumper myself. I’ve seen the marketing images and videos from ONYX that show their team of pro riders flying across the sky on this e-bike and thought, “Well, there’s something I’ll never be able to do.”
And I was right. This isn’t going to be a review where I learn to defy gravity with the best of them. I’m not setting you up for a path-to-discovery type of story here, where the real dirt jumper was inside of me the whole time.
But what I did discover was just how much fun I can have on the trails and smaller jumps with a high-quality e-bike like the ONYX LZR Pro. I didn’t jump it off any loading docks or six-foot ramps, but I still had it nearly sideways on berms and slinging dirt in every direction. And if you’re a better rider than me, you could get some serious air time all day and night on this kind of bike without worrying that it won’t stand up to the abuse.
You can take a look at my own in-depth testing with my video review below. And if you want to dive even deeper, then keep on reading for the rest of my written review afterward.
ONYX LZR Pro video review
ONYX LZR Pro tech specs
- Motor: 900W Bafang M600 mid-drive motor
- Top speed: 28 mph (45 km/h)
- Range: 30-70 miles (51-112 km)
- Battery: 36V 14Ah (504Wh)
- Weight: 47 lb (21.3 kg)
- Frame: Aluminum alloy 6061
- Suspension: Front suspension fork with 100mm travel
- Brakes: Tektro hydraulic disc brakes
- Extras: Wood inlay LED dot meter for battery gauge and PAS level indicator, thru-axles, torque sensor, three color options (one for LZR Pro and two for LZR)
- Price: $1,999
Two bikes, two rides
First of all, you should know there are two different e-bikes in the LZR series. I tested the LZR Pro, which is the more powerful 900W version with the M600 Bafang mid-drive.
There’s also a slightly tamer 500W mid-drive version with a bit less torque (95 Nm vs. 120 Nm). They’re both quite similar otherwise, but you all know me — I’m going to opt for more power whenever possible.
Neither has a throttle, though, making these class 3 e-bikes in the purest form. That means that even though there’s good power here, you won’t be able to access it without some good old fashioned pedaling.
Build quality
The first thing you’ll notice about the LZR is the build quality. ONYX didn’t skimp on parts, and it starts right from the frame. They use something called Smooth Weld Additive Technology (SWAT), which somehow results in buttery smooth welds at the frame tube joints. I’ve seen beautiful frames before, and this one puts those other to shame.
Even down by the dropouts in the rear, where many nicely made frames tend to still have less-than-desirable weld finishing, the LZR Pro’s frame is immaculate. Whoever welded this thing took pride in their work and it shows.
The quality components continue around the bike. The bike uses BMX dirt jump hubs with true thru-axles instead of quick release skewers. The front is still a quick release to make it easy to pull out the wheel when necessary, but the thick thru-axles are designed to take the forces of repeated jumps and hard braking.
All the routing of cables and hoses is internal, including for the Tektro HD-M285 hydraulic disc brakes.
That front suspension fork offers 100mm of adjustable suspension with lockout for when you head back to the tarmac.
And there’s even a beautiful wooden inlay for the battery meter and pedal assist power level display. It reminds me of the wood on ONYX’s electric mopeds, and it helps create continuity in the company’s model lines, despite the very different designs and use cases.
Now as much as I love the way ONYX uses real wood in their products, the display on the ONYX LZR Pro is a bit simplistic because of that. You don’t get any speed readout with those five basics LEDs. Instead, you just get an approximate battery percentage with 20% increments and a 1-5 pedal assist level indicator. Does it work? Absolutely. Do I sometimes wish for more data? Also absolutely. I’m used to very detailed e-bike displays, and so moving to this simplistic display came with some adjustment period for me.
But I also get it. This is a dirt jumper. It’s a bike that will inevitably fly through the air and come crashing back down to earth. The fewer bits and pieces bolted onto it, the better. There’s less to break that way.
And that probably explains the lack of other parts like a derailleur, kickstand, LED lighting, or other added components that could become violently separated from the bike in a crash. You can add all of those (well, maybe except for the derailleur) if you wanted, but riders who use this bike for more extreme performance will likely accept that those parts are largely unnecessary. You’re not worried about being lit up for cars when you’re dropping in on a massive dirt ramp.
Since some riders will likely still use this bike for more commuter-oriented roles though, adding your own LED lights is probably a good idea.
How does it ride?
I tested the ONYX LZR Pro electric bike in a wide range of use cases. I took it commuting in bike lanes. I explored nature trails through the woods. I wound my way through singletrack switchbacks. And I even did a small amount of dirt jumping, at least as far as my primitive jumping skills would let me.
As a commuter bike, the fast and responsive pedal assist made it a great bike for taking the lane with cars or for slipping back into the bike lane when traffic got too heavy.
The bars are a bit wide for navigating some of the tighter areas in a city, especially if you frequently lane split like me and wiggle through cars in grid-locked traffic. But for anyone who mostly sticks to bike lanes, they’d be just fine.
The real fun starts when you head off-road. The powerful motor makes quick work of the trails. Most bikes can hold their own on relaxed nature trails, and the LZR Pro is no different. But it really shines when you get it on the more technical stuff.
The winding singletrack that I was riding was perfect for showing off how nimble the bike could be, and the up-and-down rollercoaster nature of the trails really accentuated the benefit of a powerful mid-drive for quickly climbing up inclines to get to the next downhill section. The responsive pedal assist gave me a nice boost, even when I only had time for a couple quick pedal rotations between switchbacks.
Since there is no hand throttle, I still felt like I was in the driver’s seat the entire time by providing my own pedaling. And I was still huffing and puffing a bit at the end of each trail, even though I had a powerful motor beneath me. I kept the pedal assist around level 2 out of 5 since the bendy trail made it hard to get going too fast. But on the straighter sections, I would bump the pedal assist up and really feel the wind in my face. And when back on the road, hitting pedal assist level 5 was a quick and easy way to get up to 28 mph (45 km/h) in a flash.
I’m sorry to say that I didn’t personally hit the big six-foot jumps that I’ve seen other people do with the ONYX LZR Pro. I wish I had those skills, but sadly I’ve always been more of an urban rider than an Evel Knievel. But a bike like this with such high-quality construction certainly gave me the confidence to get out of my comfort zone and get more air between my tires and the ground than I would normally feel comfortable with.
In case you’re wondering what it looks like when pro riders take to this thing, have a look at this.
What is this bike for?
So here’s the rub. Most people are probably more like me, in that you can have some fun off-roading but you’re more likely to be found on the streets and sidewalks than on a takeoff ramp.
In that case, the ONYX LZR Pro still works great as an urban bike. And we’ve seen plenty of stunt riding from ONYX’s pro rider team when they turn cities into bike parks and playgrounds. So we know it works just as well on the asphalt.
But for us average joes, there are still a few drawbacks. The lack of fenders or racks limit the bike’s utility for true commuter use. The nonremovable battery means you’ve got to bring the bike inside your apartment (or garage, if you’re lucky to have one of those) for charging. And the single-speed setup means you’re stuck with a single gear ratio (44T chainring and 14T rear sprocket). And all of that makes sense for a bike that is primarily designed to launch.
Even despite those drawbacks in the eyes of a more urban rider, the bike is so much fun as a dual-purpose runabout that I can look past those shortcomings. They exist not because the bike skimped in certain areas but because it’s specifically designed to be able to do more. And with the kind of build quality to make it rugged enough for that tougher riding that it’s designed for, it should last for years and years with normal city riding.
At its current sale price of just $1,999 (or $1,799 for the 500W version), the ONYX LZR Pro feels like a solid deal to me. That price is more than fair when you consider the quality parts and attention to detail in the construction of the bike.
This type of riding and this type of e-bike isn’t for everyone, that’s for sure. But for those looking for a bike that can handle this type of use, the ONYX LZR Pro is absolutely built to take it.
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Environment
‘Bitcoin Family’ hides crypto codes etched onto metal cards on four continents after recent kidnappings
The Taihuttus on a ski trip to Sierra Nevada in southern Spain. They sold everything they owned in 2017 to bet on bitcoin — and now travel full-time as a family of five.
Didi Taihuttu
A wave of high-profile kidnappings targeting cryptocurrency executives has rattled the industry — and prompted a quiet security revolution among some of its most visible evangelists.
Didi Taihuttu, patriarch of the so-called “Bitcoin Family,” said he overhauled the family’s entire security setup after a string of threats.
The Taihuttus — who sold everything they owned in 2017, from their house to their shoes, to go all-in on bitcoin when it was trading around $900 — have long lived on the outer edge of crypto ideology. They travel full-time with their three daughters and remain entirely unbanked.
Over the past eight months, he said, the family ditched hardware wallets in favor of a hybrid system: Part analog, part digital, with seed phrases encrypted, split, and stored either through blockchain-based encryption services or hidden across four continents.
“We have changed everything,” Taihuttu told CNBC on a call from Phuket, Thailand. “Even if someone held me at gunpoint, I can’t give them more than what’s on my wallet on my phone. And that’s not a lot.”
CNBC first reported on the family’s unconventional storage system in 2022, when Taihuttu described hiding hardware wallets across multiple continents — in places ranging from rental apartments in Europe to self-storage units in South America.
The Taihuttu family dressed up for Halloween in Phuket, Thailand, where they recently moved homes after receiving disturbing messages pinpointing their location from YouTube videos.
Didi Taihuttu
As physical attacks on crypto holders become more frequent, even they are rethinking their exposure.
This week, Moroccan police arrested a 24-year-old suspected of orchestrating a series of brutal kidnappings targeting crypto executives.
One victim, the father of a crypto millionaire, was allegedly held for days in a house south of Paris — and reportedly had a finger severed during the ordeal.
In a separate case earlier this year, a co-founder of French wallet firm Ledger and his wife were abducted from their home in central France in a ransom scheme that also targeted another Ledger executive.
Last month in New York, authorities said, a 28-year-old Italian tourist was kidnapped and tortured for 17 days in a Manhattan apartment by attackers trying to extract his bitcoin password — shocking him with wires, beating him with a gun, and strapping an Apple AirTag around his neck to track his movements.
The common thread: The pursuit of crypto credentials that enable instant, irreversible transfers of virtual assets.
“It is definitely frightening to see a lot of these kidnappings happen,” said JP Richardson, CEO of crypto wallet company Exodus. He urged users to take security into their own hands by choosing self-custody, storing larger sums on hardware wallets, and — for those holding significant assets — exploring multi-signature wallets, a setup typically used by institutions.
Richardson also recommended spreading funds across different wallet types and avoiding large balances in hot wallets to reduce risk without sacrificing flexibility.
That rising sense of vulnerability is fueling a new demand for physical protection with insurance firms now racing to offer kidnap and ransom (K&R) policies tailored to crypto holders.
But Taihuttu isn’t waiting for corporate solutions. He’s opted for complete decentralization — of not just his finances, but his personal risk profile.
As the family prepares to return to Europe from Thailand, safety has become a constant topic of conversation.
“We’ve been talking about it a lot as a family,” Taihuttu said. “My kids read the news, too — especially that story in France, where the daughter of a CEO was almost kidnapped on the street.”
Now, he said, his daughters are asking difficult questions: What if someone tries to kidnap us? What’s the plan?
One of the steel plates the Taihuttu family uses to store part of their bitcoin seed phrase. Didi etched it by hand using a hammer and letter punch — part of a decentralized storage system spread across four continents.
Didi Taihuttu
Though the girls carry only small amounts of crypto in their personal wallets, the family has decided to avoid France entirely.
“We got a little bit famous in a niche market — but that niche is becoming a really big market now,” Taihuttu said. “And I think we’ll see more and more of these robberies. So yeah, we’re definitely going to skip France.”
Even in Thailand, Taihuttu recently stopped posting travel updates and filming at home after receiving disturbing messages from strangers who claimed to have identified his location from YouTube vlogs.
“We stayed in a very beautiful house for six months — then I started getting emails from people who figured out which house it was. They warned me to be careful, told me not to leave my kids alone,” he said. “So we moved. And now we don’t film anything at all.”
“It’s a strange world at the moment,” he said. “So we’re taking our own precautions — and when it comes to wallets, we’re now completely hardware wallet-less. We don’t use any hardware wallets anymore.”
To throw off would-be attackers, Didi Taihuttu encrypts select words from each 24-word seed phrase — then splits the phrases into four sets of six and hides them around the world.
Didi Taihuttu
The family’s new system involves splitting a single 24-word bitcoin seed phrase — the cryptographic key that unlocks access to their crypto holdings — into four sets of six words, each stored in a different geographic location. Some are kept digitally through blockchain-based encryption platforms, while others are etched by hand into fireproof steel plates using a hammer and letter punch, then hidden in physical locations across four continents.
“Even if someone finds 18 of the 24 words, they can’t do anything,” Taihuttu explained.
On top of that, he’s added a layer of personal encryption, swapping out select words to throw off would-be attackers. The method is simple, but effective.
“You only need to remember which ones you changed,” he said.
Part of the reason for ditching hardware wallets, Taihuttu said, was a growing mistrust of third-party devices. Concerns about backdoors and remote access features — including a controversial update by Ledger in 2023 — prompted the family to abandon physical hardware altogether in favor of encrypted paper and steel backups.
While the family still holds some crypto in “hot” wallets — for daily spending or to run their algorithmic trading strategy — those funds are protected by multi-signature approvals, which require multiple parties to sign off before a transaction can be executed.
The Taihuttus use Safe — formerly Gnosis Safe — for ether and other altcoins, and similarly layered setups for bitcoin stored on centralized platforms like Bybit.
Didi Taihuttu during a recent visit to Sierra Nevada, Spain. The family’s lifestyle — unbanked, nomadic, and all-in on bitcoin — makes them outliers even in the crypto world.
Didi Taihuttu
About 65% of the family’s crypto is locked in cold storage across four continents — a decentralized system Taihuttu prefers to centralized vaults like the Swiss Alps bunker used by Coinbase-owned Xapo. Those facilities may offer physical protection and inheritance services, but Taihuttu said they require too much trust.
“What happens if one of those companies goes bankrupt? Will I still have access?” he said. “You’re putting your capital back in someone else’s hands.”
Instead, Taihuttu holds his own keys — hidden across the globe. He can top up the wallets remotely with new deposits, but accessing them would require at least one international trip, depending on which fragments of the seed phrase are needed. The funds, he added, are intended as a long-term pension to be accessed only if bitcoin hits $1 million — a milestone he’s targeting for 2033.
The shift toward multiparty protections extends beyond just multi-signature. Multi-party computation, or MPC, is gaining traction as a more advanced security model.
Didi, Romaine, and their three daughters live largely off-grid, managing crypto through decentralized exchanges, algorithmic trading bots, and a globally distributed cold storage system.
Didi Taihuttu
Instead of storing private keys in one place — a vulnerability known as a “single point of compromise” — MPC splits a key into encrypted shares distributed across multiple parties. Transactions can only go through when a threshold number of those parties approve, sharply reducing the risk of theft or unauthorized access.
Multi-signature wallets require several parties to approve a transaction. MPC takes that further by cryptographically splitting the private key itself, ensuring that no single individual ever holds the full key — not even their own complete share.
The shift comes amid renewed scrutiny of centralized crypto platforms like Coinbase, which recently disclosed a data breach affecting tens of thousands of customers.
Taihuttu, for his part, says 80% of his trading now happens on decentralized exchanges like Apex — a peer-to-peer platform that allows users to set buy and sell orders without relinquishing custody of their funds, marking a return to crypto’s original ethos.
While he declined to reveal his total holdings, Taihuttu did share his goal for the current bull cycle: a $100 million net worth, with 60% still held in bitcoin. The rest is a mix of ether, layer-1 tokens like solana, link, sui, and a growing number of AI and education-focused startups — including his own platform offering blockchain and life-skills courses for kids.
Lately, he’s also considering stepping back from the spotlight.
“It’s really my passion to create content. It’s really what I love to do every day,” he said. “But if it’s not safe anymore for my daughters … I really need to think about them.”
WATCH: ‘Bitcoin Family’ tracks moon cycles to make crypto investment decisions
Tesla’s head of Optimus humanoid robot, Milan Kovac, announced that he is leaving the automaker after 9 years.
It leaves just as CEO Elon Musk claimed that the humanoid robot is going to make Tesla a”$25 trillion company.”
Electrek first reported on Tesla hiring Kovac back in 2016 to work on the early Autopilot program. At the time, we noted that the young engineer had an interesting background in machine learning.
He quickly rose through the ranks and ended up leading Autopilot software engineering from 2019 to 2022.
In 2022, he started working on Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot program.
Late last year, he was promoted to Vice President in charge of the complete Optimus program, as CEO Elon Musk began to tout the program as critical to Tesla’s future.
Musk claimed that Optimus could generate $10 trillion in revenue per year and make Tesla a $25 trillion company. These claims are largely unsubstantiated as the humanoid robot market is still in its infancy.
Most market research firms currently estimate the size of the humanoid robot market to be in the low single-digit billions of dollars, with growth projections through 2032 ranging from $15 billion to $80 billion.
That would represent impressive growth, but nowhere near what Musk is touting to investors.
Today, Kovac announced that he is leaving Tesla for personal reasons:
This week, I’ve had to make the most difficult decision of my life and will be moving out of my position. I’ve been far away from home for too long, and will need to spend more time with family abroad. I want to make it clear that this is the only reason, and has absolutely nothing to do with anything else. My support for Elon Musk and the team is ironclad – Tesla team forever.
Kovac has been regarded as one of the top new technical executives at Tesla, which has seen a significant talent exodus of top engineers.
The company has made progress with the Optimus program over the last year. Still, many have been skeptical, as Tesla has been less than forthcoming about using teleoperation in previous demonstrations.
Kovac is not the only Optimus engineer to leave Tesla recently.
Figure, another company developing humanoid robots, has recently poached Zackary Bernholtz, a 7-year veteran at Tesla and most recently a Staff Technical Program Manager.
Electrek’s Take
This is a significant loss for Tesla. Kovac was one of Musk’s top technical guys and literally the head of the program he claimed would bring Tesla to the next level – although I think most people have been understandably skeptical about these claims.
I’ve been bullish on humanoid robots, and I could see Tesla being a player in the field, but it’s nowhere near the opportunity that Musk is claiming, and there’s also plenty of competition with no clear evidence that Tesla has any significant lead, if any.
In China, Unitree has been making impressive progress, and it is already selling a humanoid robot.
In the US, Figure has also been making a lot of progress lately:
I think it’s a smart space to invest in for manufacturing companies like Tesla, but there’s going to be a lot of competition.
It’s too early to say who will come out on top.
As for Kovac leaving, I’m sure his personal reason is correct. However, we often see people claim that and then they quickly turn up at another company.
If he believed that his product would soon become a multi-trillion-dollar opportunity, I doubt he would be leaving, but you never know. 9 years at Tesla is some hard work and it’s impressive for anyone. Congrats.
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