Fly Electron BMX Bike - In Depth Review

Welcome back to the BMX Nerds channel. On this channel we review bikes. To answer your questions, we essentially talk about all things BMX

Because BMX is an amazing sport that has changed my life and if you're getting into it, I want to do my best to support you and help you get into the sport as easy as possible

So in this video, it's a Fly Electron review. We're going to be taking a look at the Fly Electron BMX bike, which is a beginner bike that weighs 24.9 pounds and costs $379

In this review, my main goal is to help you decide if this is a good bike for you or if you should buy something else

Now it's important for you to understand that there are like hundreds of different BMX bike options and there are a lot of things that go into deciding which bike is right for you

And if you want me to make it easy for you, I created a BMX Matchmaker service. All you have to do is click the link up here on the screen and tell me a little bit about yourself

Give me your height, your budget, your skill level, your weight. And then I'm going to look. I'm going to take that information. I'm going to find three bikes that are perfect for you

I'll send you an email with those three bikes. It takes me about a day. And then all you have to do is buy your next bike. Super simple process

Okay, so do that. Click the link and do that while after the video. Don't do it right now. Do it after the video

Okay, so let's answer some frequently asked questions that people have about the Fly Electron. The first one being how much does this bike weigh

This bike weighs 24.9 pounds. It's a fairly decent weight. It's not super heavy, but it's also not super light. It's kind of right there in the middle

It is fully upgradable and fully customizable. The parts on this bike aren't super high quality, so you might find yourself wanting to upgrade with different parts

And if you want to do that, it's easy to do. It's simple. And this bike is fully upgradable. Can you grind with the Fly Electron

No. The Fly Electron doesn't come with any pegs or any hub guards, so it's going to be impossible to grind with it

If you want to grind with it, it's possible after you buy the pegs and the hub guards. But as it comes right out of the box, it doesn't have pegs or hub guards, so you cannot be grinding with it

Does it come with brakes? Yes. It comes with stock brakes, and there's an option when you're buying any fly bike, really, of whether or not you want brakes to be included with the bike

And so if you choose yes, the bike is going to be a little bit more expensive and it's going to come with brakes

If you choose no, then the bike doesn't have brakes and the bike is a little bit cheaper. So it's totally up to you. You get to decide what seems right for you and your style of riding

I recommend that everyone starting out gets a bike with brakes because it's important to know how to stop. It's going to save your life until you get really comfortable and then you feel confident slowing with your weight distribution and your shoes and things like that

But right out of the box, this bike does have stock brakes if you choose that option

What kind of hub does it have? The Fly Electron comes with a sealed cassette hub

Now let's talk about the sizing of the bike and figure out if this bike is even the right size for you

The Fly Electron has a 20.5 inch top tube, which is a medium sized option

This 20.5 inch top tube is going to be best for riders who are right around 5'6 to 5'9

If you're a little bit taller or a little bit smaller, you can make it work, but the perfect height is right there between 5'6 and 5'9

Now it also has a 21 inch top tube option. So you can choose between the two different options here, 20.5 or 21

I like it when bikes have two different options because it makes it easier for somebody to get the proper size

Like if you're a taller rider and the bike that you're looking at only comes in 20.5, then you might have to buy a different option

But if you're a taller rider and you're looking at this bike, you're like, wow, it also has a 21 inch option. That's good for me

So that's good to know. Two different size options. The 21 inch option is best for riders who are between 6'0 and 6'3

If you're a taller guy between those heights, then you want to get the 21 inch option of this bike

Now, aside from the top tube size, there are other geometries on the frame

You've got your head tube angle, your chainstay length, your standover height, your bottom bracket height

And all of those angles and geometries just affect how the bike feels

And so the Fly Electron, because of those geometries, is pretty neutral

It doesn't have a super long or short chainstay. It doesn't have a super steep or mellow head tube angle

Like everything is right in the middle. And this bike is very standard

So you can expect it to be balanced between mellow and responsive

Now you understand the geometry. You understand the different sizes and stuff like that

But now we need to talk about quality because without a good quality bike, you're going to be replacing parts and you might be laying on the ground if it broke

I've broken a lot of parts and which has caused me to crash. And so it's just super important to get a quality that's right for you

Usually this goes off of skill level and how much you weigh. If you're a heavier rider, you want to stay far away from high tensile steel and focus on chromoly

But this bike has high tensile steel handlebars. It has a chromoly down tube, which means that that down tube right there is chromoly, but all the other tubings on the frame are high tensile steel

It has 50% chromoly forks. And then it has a full chromoly eight-spline pair of cranks and semi-double-wall rims, which are on most of Fly's bikes under $600, are the semi-double-wall rims

The chromoly eight-spline cranks are solid. That's a pretty good choice. The semi-double-wall rims are essentially single-wall rims with an extra thick sidewall

So they're not like I go ahead and classify them as pretty much single wall

They're not anywhere near the quality of double wall, and they're not going to last for a bigger rider who's doing spins and doing big drops

But overall, the quality of this bike is pretty low. We'll give it a score in a minute, but let's go through the differences between high tensile steel and chromoly

It's important to know what the difference is if you're looking at a bike so that you can make a more informed decision

High tensile steel is much more affordable, but with that being said, it's going to be less durable

High tensile steel is heavier than chromoly, and it's going to bend on impact

Chromoly is more expensive, but it's like four times stronger. It's also quite a bit lighter, and it tends to crack at the welds instead of bending on the tubing

Okay, so let's give it a quality score. This bike scores a 3.57 out of 10

It's not a super high-quality bike because of the primarily high tensile steel frame, the high tensile steel bars

and the 50% high tensile steel forks. It's a low-quality bike. It's a beginner-level bike

So let's talk about some pros and cons of the bike. One of the pros about the Fly Electron is the fact that it has a one-piece steer tube

This is unique, and it's really, really, really, really rare to find a one-piece steer tube on a bike that's under like $500 or $600

This bike is one of the cheaper ones, so it's impressive that it comes with a one-piece steer tube

It's also just going to hold together better, and it's going to make tightening and loosening your compression system much easier

One-piece steer tubes are a game-changer, and they're pretty important, especially if you're not a high-quality bike maintenance guy

This bike is fully sealed, and it comes with a 510 chain, which is a higher-quality chain than most complete bikes

So overall, it's got some pretty good pros. Some of the cons include the low-quality high-tensile steel handlebars, which wouldn't last super long for a rider, especially someone who's riding that 21-inch

It's got the misleading rims, which when you look at that and it says semi-double-wall, you're naturally going to think, oh, wow, double-wall rims

And that's not the case. They are mostly single-wall with a little teeny-tiny chamber that technically makes it double-wall, but it's misleading

That's it. That's it right there. Oh, and it also has a CNC-machined sprocket, and that's a pro because that's something that you don't see on complete bikes under $500

It's a high-quality sprocket. Now, with that being said, let's take a look at the style that this bike is best for and what type of riding you can expect to feel comfortable doing on it

This bike is going to score a 2.81 in street, a 4.64 in park, and a 5.2 out of 10 in dirt

The Fly Electron is going to be best for riding skate parks and dirt jumps due to the geometry and the parts that are on it

It doesn't get a super-high street score, but you can customize this bike and make it better for certain types of riding depending on the upgrades that you buy

For example, if you wanted to make it better for street, you could buy some pegs and hub guards

If you wanted to make it better for dirt, I'd get a bigger sprocket. You could run a 30-10 gear ratio or a 28-9

And if you wanted it better for park, throw a gyro on there. Throw some more responsive, like a front-load stem

Just throw some more responsive parts on there. Now, does this bike have a warranty

Warranties are super important because if you're going to spend a bunch of money on a bike, you want to get one that will be warrantied if you have any issues with it

And the Fly Electron does have a warranty, so that's good. If you have any issues with this bike, within two years of manufactured defects, it's covered with a warranty

So that's really cool right there. Now, my honest thoughts on this bike are the Fly Electron is a lower-quality bike

It's not in the same realm as the Proton or the Scion

It's one of those lower-quality bikes. And if you have the money to spend, I would recommend spending a little bit extra and getting something that's full chromoly, that's not just like�

This has very little chromoly, especially if you're looking for a 21-inch top tube option

If you're looking at the 25-inch option or the 20.5-inch option, you can probably get away with the quality if you're under, like, 160 pounds

But if you're much heavier than that and you're riding your bike frequently, you're going to want to look for something that's better quality

So the Electron, fairly low-quality bike. It's a good value for a lighter rider who's a little bit smaller, but not for a bigger rider who weighs over, like, 160 pounds

Now, if you enjoyed this review and you're wondering what you should watch next, I've got two videos up here on the screen

One of them is the top 11 BMX bikes this year, and the other one is a review of a bike that's very similar quality to this one

Make sure you check those videos out and leave a comment if you have any questions about the Fly Electron