Troxus is a brand most people reading this have never heard of, and I’d put myself in that group until a few years ago. We originally reviewed a few Troxus bikes 2-3 years ago, and the PR rep for the brand kept telling me that ‘this Troxus brand’ was impressive and that they had serious manufacturing capabilities, as they own their own factory.
However, I didn’t know what to think really until I walked into China Cycle last May and saw that Troxus had one of the biggest booths on the floor, and it was filled with high-end road and gravel bikes, with a sponsored race team attached to it.
That cycling and manufacturing background shows up in the Trax Whim iQ, which is the brand’s upright, laid-back, Dutch-style cruiser.
At $1,599 this is a good buy, and a few things about it caught us off guard in a good way. It is not a hill machine and it does not pretend to be. What it does is roll well, feel light and nimble, go further on a charge than Troxus claims, and comes with a nice Troxus App that lets you adjust the power output to your specific liking.
My Experience Riding The Troxus Trax Whim iQ
Ride Quality Score: 7 / 10
Before I threw a leg over this bike, I had three questions. Does the geometry actually deliver the upright comfort Troxus is marketing? Does a 58 lb cruiser feel light or does the low weight get eaten up by soft parts and flex? And is the power delivery natural enough that someone who hasn’t ridden a bike in ten years will trust it?
First impressions on the Glacier Blue paint: pictures don’t do it justice. There’s a fleck in the finish that catches the sun – making the bike look more expensive than the price tag.
While the bike was a tad small for me, I didn’t mind the combination of a shorter reach to the handlebars with the pedal-forward layout. That geometry left me riding upright, but not fully upright at a 90 degree angle. Instead, I was in a nice middle ground of leaning ever so slightly forward but still in a relaxed position.
At 5’11” and 185 lbs I’m at the top end of what this Medium fits. I’m losing maybe a quarter inch of leg extension at full seatpost extension, which is small, but riders above 6′ / 6’1″ are going to notice it. It’s interesting to me that Troxus went with two sizes, a Small and a Medium, instead of a Medium and a Large – I’d recommend that they change up the sizing a little bit and have a S/M and a M/L.
The 68° head tube angle, 510mm chainstays, and 1,138mm wheelbase on the Medium give this bike a nice, sporty feel. It’s a laid-back comfort cruiser that wants to still go fast and have fun. Part of that is the 58 lb weight, part of it is how stiff the frame is even with a step-thru design, and part of it is the 2.4″ Arisun Beetle tires, which have enough volume to take the edge off but roll like a road tire. At PAS 0 in fifth gear on flat ground I was cruising 9 to 10 mph without working, which tells you plenty about rolling resistance.
The Troxus Trax Whim IQ comes with a rigid front fork, and no suspension seatpost, so you do feel the bumps. On pavement, boardwalks, and neighborhood streets I don’t mind that at all, and skipping the fork is part of why this bike weighs what it does and feels so lively. If your roads are rough, budget for a suspension seatpost to take that edge off.
The extra-wide Troxus saddle is more comfortable than I expected, and I say that as someone who spends a lot of time on mountain bike saddles most people would call punishment. I especially appreciated the extra width at the back that supports my sit bones properly.
Motor (Power and Delivery)
Power Score: 6 / 10
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The ShengYi rear hub motor is rated at 500W nominal with 50Nm of torque. Troxus doesn’t publish a peak figure, but it’s likely around 900-950 given that is the max wattage the display showed during our hill testing.
On flat ground it’s peppy. From a stop on throttle I hit 20 mph in about 12 seconds. Even with the throttle acceleration set to 100% (which you can adjust in the app), the bike was controlled rather than suddenly lurching off the line.
Pedaling in torque mode took 9 seconds to reach 20 mph, and 17 seconds to reach 28 mph. That 17 seconds is a bit slower than some; however, the bike got up to 25-26 mph easily without much effort at all, and then needed some extra push from me to get to the full 28. Overall, the Whim IQ is very quick and fast on flat to slight uphill roads and trails.
Point it uphill and the story changes, exactly as I expected. On our Black Hill test, a 0.35-mile climb with a few steep pitches, the bike did not finish on throttle-only. In that test, it went 0.30 miles in 128 seconds averaging 8.6 mph before it stalled out on the steepest section of the hill.
The pedal-assist run finished the whole climb in the same 128 seconds at 9.8 mph average, and while I had to push, I never had to get off the saddle and was able to let the bike do most of the work still.
For a long steep climb like the Black Hill, if you want to speed up it, then you want a motor with 750W (nominal) and 85Nm of torque. That isn’t what the Trax Whim iQ was built for. However, I would love to see a version with a 750W motor even though it would add a pound or two to the overall bike weight.
One note: I want to make sure that you (the reader) don’t think this bike is underpowered simply because it didn’t make it up the Black Hill on throttle. The motor is fast, and easily powerful enough to climb hills as long as you’re not looking to sit back, do nothing, and have the throttle carry you up.
Motor quality is also not measured by power output alone – you want a motor that is also smooth and has a quality torque or cadence sensor so pedaling feels natural. The Trax excels here, giving you the option for both torque or cadence sensors that both feel natural and incredibly smooth – exactly what you want in a city/urban cruiser.
Range / Battery
Range Score: 8.5 / 10
Min Assist: 86.6 Miles
Max Assist: 39.1 Miles
Troxus claims up to 70 miles per charge. We beat it (I say ‘we’, but really it was the bike that beat it – we are very focused on our range tests and make sure the bike is doing the work and we are not over pedaling to increase a bike’s range).
On minimum assist we recorded 86.6 miles, and on max assist we still got 39.1 miles. Testing was done at 185 lbs riding weight in heat that hit triple digits at times. Yes, this job is amazing…but maybe not so amazing at times during the summer months here in St. George, Ut!
We attribute the good range test results to:
- A 500W motor instead of a 750W motor.
- The 2.4″ Arisun Beetle tires and 27.5″ wheels on a bike that pedals really well.
Overall, we think Troxus did a great job speccing the bike with a 672Wh battery with Samsung cells. Any more than that would increase the bike’s weight, and getting between 40-80 miles on once charge is going to be more than enough for almost all riders.
The one thing we would like to see Troxus improve is the charger. The included 2A charger needs about seven hours to go from empty to full, which is right in line with industry standards at this price point. However, the overall quality of the Whim IQ feels better than a $1,599 e-bike – which unfairly then makes me want to have a fast 3A or 4A charger.
Components
Components Score: 7 / 10
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At $1,599, my hope with components is mostly name-brand parts on the pieces that wear out, hydraulic disc brakes rather than mechanical, and a drive train with good enough range to allow me to both climb hills and not ghost pedal at 28mph. The Trax Whim iQ checks 95% of those boxes:
- Frame: 6061-T6 hydroformed aluminum in a step-thru, pedal-forward layout. It feels stiffer than most step-thru frames, and the finish quality is above the price point.
- Drivetrain: Shimano Altus 8-speed with a 12–32T cassette, a 52T chainring, and rapid-fire shifters. Altus is my floor for a value e-bike and I’m glad to see it here instead of Tourney. However, even with a large 52T chainring, I was still on the edge of ghost pedaling at 27-29 mph. A ninth gear would make the bike pedal better, and while I would like to see that, I don’t think it’s worth an extra hundred dollars – so I’m happy with the current drivetrain.
- Brakes: Tektro hydraulic discs with brake sensors, 180mm front and 160mm rear rotors at 1.85mm thick. Seven hard stops from over 20 mph on a steep grade plus a sustained 30-second drag produced no fade and no sponginess. Three fingers on the lever gives a good bite, and we’re 165 miles in with no adjustment since assembly and no squeal.
- Tires and wheels: Arisun Beetle 27.5″ x 2.4″ that roll fast and quiet.
- Cockpit: Adjustable 90mm alloy stem with internal routing, 680mm bars with 37° backsweep, thumb throttle on the left, rapid-fire shifter on the right. This is pretty basic, but I like how clean the set up is and my only gripe is that the grips aren’t locking and did twist a bit in those 100+ degree temps.
- Saddle and seatpost: Extra-wide Troxus Comfort saddle on a 30.9 x 350mm adjustable alloy post with a quick-release clamp. The saddle actually felt a bit better than average and I think a lot of riders will be happy with it.
- Mechanic’s details worth calling out: cable routing enters the down tube rather than the headset, which makes battery, controller, and cable work far easier than if cables were run through the headset. There’s also a chain slap guard on the rear chainstay to keep the paint intact.
What’s missing on the Whim iQ is a rack and fenders. There are mounting points on the rear chainstay and up front, so adding them is easy, but you do have to buy them separately.
Screen / User Interface / App
Screen / App Score: 8 / 10
The display is a roughly 3-inch full-color unit mounted on the center bar, and it’s easy to read. Brightness ships at 50%, and I’d set it to 100% on day one. Battery percentage lives in the top right corner, and because the bike uses a sine wave controller that reports in real time, you get an accurate percentage rather than the 10% increments that drive me nuts on other bikes.
A “T” tells you you’re in torque sensor mode, and a small blue link icon confirms the Ride IQ app is connected. You also get speed, live wattage, trip distance, odometer, max speed, average speed, and ride time.
The one readout I’d tell you to ignore is the range estimate. In assist level 1 it showed 26 miles remaining, then 37 miles in level 2, 31 in level 3, 27 in level 4, and 26 in turbo. Level 1 is reporting as though the bike is in turbo. That’s a software fix, not a hardware problem, and the bike supports OTA updates, so Troxus should be able to solve this little quirk.
You can do almost everything from the screen itself, which is something I appreciate even though there is a companion app. Holding plus and minus opens advanced settings where you switch between Class 1, Class 2, and Class 3, toggle torque or cadence, change units, set brightness and auto-off, and add a password.
The Ride IQ app impressed me. You can power the bike on and off remotely, arm an alarm with a geofence, toggle the light, and locate the bike on a map. You can also disable the bike entirely, and it will not run until you unlock it from the app, which is a nice deterrent to thieves (or at least it doesn’t let them profit off your stolen bike).
Settings include geofence radius, which defaults to 1,000 miles (and should be dialed way down if theft is a concern), throttle acceleration, class selection, phone proximity unlock, and a crash alert that contacts an emergency contact.
The feature I keep going back to is assist-level tuning. For each of the five assist levels you can set torque ratio and max output, and change the power curve. If you want ECO to be barely there, you can build that. If you want ECO to match Turbo, you can do that as well. Troxus has done good work here and I’m curious what they layer on next.
Bike Model Options
The Trax Whim iQ comes in either small or medium frame size, with 2 color options – Glacier Blue or Natural Slate.
Sizing/fit-wise: At 5’11” the Medium fits me, but it’s a little tight. I’d like Troxus to add a Large, or restructure into Small/Medium and Medium/Large so riders in the 6’0″ to 6’3″ range have an option. My guess is that Troxus built this bike with women riders in mind, which I think is great, but I also know many men who love this model style, too.
Is The Troxus Trax Whim iQ Worth Buying?
Plot spoiler: yes, and it’s the kind of yes I didn’t expect to be writing when the box showed up.
Here’s who this bike is for. If you’re the person who hasn’t thrown a leg over a bike in five or ten years and you want something that feels comfortable and unintimidating the second you sit on it, this is a strong pick.
If you want a bike for neighborhood loops, boardwalk cruising, bike paths, and the occasional errand run, the upright position and low standover make that easy. If you commute and want to keep up with traffic, unlocking Class 3 gets you to 28 mph without much effort, and 39 miles on max assist covers even most long rides.
Here’s who should look elsewhere. If you live somewhere with long, steep climbs, and want a bike that pushes you up the hill rather than asking you to help out – then you will want to find something in the 750W range. Also, if you’re over about 6’1 tall, wait for a size Large or try a Medium in person before you commit. If your roads are chewed up, you might want a bike with front suspension, or at least add a suspension seat post.
We’re also seeing this whole category continue to grow. The Velotric Breeze 1, the Heybike Venus, Aventon Pace 5, and now the Trax Whim iQ are all sub-60 lb (or, as with the case of the Pace 5, just barely over 60 lbs), upright, Dutch-inspired bikes in roughly the same price bracket, and I think that’s a good thing for riders. The Whim iQ is another great, quality option that I feel comfortable recommending to any of our readers.
The Troxus brand isn’t as well-known as the others, but the build quality is there. Everything from the down tube cable routing to the chain slap guard to the frame stiffness and spot-on geometry points to a company that knows how to build a bicycle, not just wire up a motor.
Thank you Troxus for taking the boring stuff seriously. Add a size Large to the options and this becomes a great buy for anyone wanting a dutch-style cruiser. At $1,599, I think it’s a good value and a good bike, and I’m excited to see what they come out with next.
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