Amflow PL Carbon Pro E-bike Review – Lightweight, High Torque, and Built to Rip

When news broke about the launch of the Amflow PL Carbon Pro E-bike, featuring the groundbreaking DJI Avinox M1 motor, it sounded almost too good to be true. The reported performance numbers were so impressive that many doubted their authenticity, questioning whether this was simply a marketing gimmick. After all, most leading e-bike motor manufacturers typically offer motors with a peak power of 600W, and lightweight e-bike models generally sport motors with peak powers around 300W.

While 300W is certainly adequate for long, steady rides, the DJI Avinox M1 motor takes e-bike performance to a whole new level. With a peak power output of 850W, and a boost mode capable of reaching 1000+ watts, this motor is a force to be reckoned with. Add to that an incredible 105Nm of torque (120Nm in boost mode), and it’s easy to see why some were skeptical about the early news surrounding the Amflow and DJI Avinox M1.

But after testing it, I’m here to confirm that the hype is indeed real.

This is undoubtedly the most powerful e-bike I’ve ever ridden, and it’s time to dive into what makes the Amflow PL Carbon Pro an industry disruptor. Whether you’re looking for high-performance e-bikes or seeking the best e-bike motors on the market, the Amflow PL Carbon Pro is a game-changer.

First Impressions of the Amflow PL Carbon

The Amflow PL’s carbon frame weighs just 2.27kg, excluding the shock and hardware. This is incredibly impressive, especially considering the bike uses a tried-and-tested Horst link with a yoke-driven shock rather than flex stays. The bike comes set up with 160/150mm travel front and rear, with a Fox 36 Factory fork and Float X factory rear shock smoothing the bumps. The Pro model has options with either a 600 or 800Wh battery.

Assembling our directly delivered Amflow PL Carbon Pro was simple and straightforward, thanks to thoughtful packaging. The only modifications we made from stock were a tubeless setup. The stock tyres have EXO+ casings but we found them a bit light for our trails, so I also added a Tannus tubeless insert in the rear wheel. Our PL Pro model came kitted out with SRAM XO Eagle AXS componentry excluding the cranks which are a DJI Avinox SL crank in 155mm in the two smaller sizes offered, medium and large, and 160mm in the two larger ones, extra large and extra extra large.

Amflow branded components also rounded out the cockpit, with a 800mm, 25mm rise Amflow carbon handlebar, Amflow grips and their own 35mm stem. Amflow carbon rims and alloy hubs also make an appearance, adorned with Maxxis Assegai/Dissector front/rear tyre combination, a solid choice for trail riding. A size-specific Fox Transfer seatpost with an Ergon SM Pro saddle finishes the build, with the medium frame speccing a 150mm length dropper (up to 210mm for the XXL size).

Once assembled, when looking at the Amflow PL Carbon from the drive side of the bike, there’s little indication of the hidden powerhouse within. The DJI Avinox M1 motor is low-slung, muting the massive 800Wh battery housed in the slender downtube. The Amflow PL’s silhouette doesn’t resemble that of a full-powered e-bike, nor does it resemble the current generation of lightweight e-bikes. Instead, its aesthetic blurs the lines between genres. 

Perhaps this marks the start of the next generation of e-bikes? What we can be sure of is that the Amflow is something very special indeed.

Looking over the frame, I noticed plenty of neat, well-thought-out features. The hardware is high quality, and the flip chip to change the bottom bracket height for 27.5″ or 29″ wheels is conveniently located on the yoke. But our favourite feature? The magnetic self-closing and self-sealing charge port. It’s a sturdy clasp, reminiscent of other DJI products we use regularly, and something other motor manufacturers could take note of.

Within the Amflow’s top tube lies the DJI Avinox system’s 2-inch OLED touchscreen. This allows riders to easily access real-time riding data, including estimated range, and adjust settings with a simple tap. Riders can also use the two Bluetooth-enabled wireless controllers on either side of the handlebars to change modes while riding. These controllers can also be programmed to control other tasks, such as operating functions of a DJI Osmo 5 action camera or DJI drone.

There are five ride modes on the Avinox motor, including eco, trail, turbo, auto and a boost function that delivers over 1000W and 120Nm of power for a short 30-second duration. Throughout my time on the Amflow, I’ve come to appreciate the auto mode the most. But more on that later.

The Avinox M1 also features a built-in anti-theft mode. It includes a passcode, alarm, and push notifications to the rider if unauthorised movement is detected. The bike’s location can be tracked via the owner’s phone, which is seriously impressive. The alarm is loud enough to ensure no one ignores it.

On the Trail

The Amflow PL Carbon Pro is incredibly quiet and rides naturally, with minimal resistance in eco, trail and auto mode. With the Avinox M1’s claimed output, however, it’s the turbo mode that I’m really excited to explore. 

First impressions? This bike is a game-changer. The Avinox M1 motor offers a level of power, torque, and features that’s far ahead of the competition. In fact, even the figures quoted on Amflow’s website feel conservative compared to its actual performance.

While a claimed 850W peak power and 105Nm of torque sounds impressive, our conversations with an Amflow representative revealed that peak power is actually over 1050W. Torque exceeds 120Nm when engaging the Boost function. This power surge lasts for 30 seconds and significantly boosts the already class-leading 850W Turbo mode. Thankfully, Amflow equipped our size medium review bike with 155mm cranks, as the rate at which you cover terrain on a climb could otherwise result in hitting rocks and obstacles without that extra clearance.

Dialling in the correct sag is crucial on the Amflow PL Carbon Pro, as you find yourself climbing much faster than usual, increasing the potential to impact rocks and debris along the way. For our 74kg test rider, we’re working with approximately 28% sag and an air pressure of 160psi. After the first ride, we’ll either increase the pressure or add volume tokens. During our initial test, we felt the bump stop and lost the sag indicator (the o-ring off the body of the shock) multiple times. With 30% sag, the bike felt poppy and playful, but we may have gone a bit too deep—after all, we bent the cranks on the first run.

We launched a support chat via Amflow’s website, sent a few photos of the issue and the bike’s serial number and we had a new crankset dispatched the next day, arriving the following day from Amflow’s office in Melbourne. 

The replacement crankarm provided was an updated model with additional reinforcing material latticed on the back of the crank arm. This made for a stiffer and more robust arm to weather harsh conditions and terrain and showed great customer service from the team at Amflow.

Our demo PL Pro is a medium with a 452mm reach and is the smallest of the four sizes. This is a slightly shorter reach than I am used to, but it is not too cramped in the cockpit to be able to reliably put the Amflow through its paces. 

While the geometry is a little conservative for today’s standard, the PL Pro is a highly capable trail bike with a 64.5-degree head angle, dipping its toes into Enduro territory. The geometry can be compared with other major players in the trail bike industry, with very similar numbers on paper to the Specialized Stumpjumpter 15. To complement this playful trail bike geometry, the Fox Factory Float X and Factory 36 perform flawlessly, and highlight how balanced and lightweight the PL Pro is. 

Quality components and a carbon frame mean that the Amflow PL Carbon Pro is easily as light as the lightest SL e-bikes I have reviewed…while providing over twice the power of an SL e-bike…but this does lead me to one of my only criticisms with the handling: the Avinox M1 motor is so powerful that you will find yourself entering sections of trail faster than you ever have, pushing the usually sure-footed trail bike well beyond trail-bike capability. If you’re an aggressive rider thinking of purchasing this bike, adding more robust tyres and a stiffer handlebar may be worthy upgrades to the PL Pro.

To combat this, I tweaked the support modes a little to combat the excessive speed in tighter singletrack by using the app, beefing up eco mode and turning down trail mode to a minimum. This meant we could keep the front end down in tight turns. But I found myself defaulting repeatedly to the Avinox M1’s auto mode. 

Positioned as a mode that lies between their eco and trail, auto mode gives between 200-400% assistance, automatically adjusting power delivery based on feedback to trail conditions. Using some fine-tuning via the Avinox App, I manually adjusted the auto mode to optimise clearing those features where you usually need to stomp hard on the pedals. Instead, auto mode allowed me to easily ride these challenging sections, allowing gentle, natural assistance when cruising on a climb or traverse. Manually adjusting to an assistance range between 7– 9 (the assistance ranges from 1–15) and a max torque of 80Nm, brought the Amflow back into a sensible realm. It allowed me to conserve power and maintain traction…and the torque certainly felt like more than the 80Nm advertised. 

One of my favourite features of the Avinox system is the motor’s overrun, or the duration of motor assistance after you stop pedalling. This feature has 4 settings ranging from a near instant shut off of power to what feels like a full second of power after you have stopped pedalling, the over run is incredibly handy for getting up and over features, and I found it useful for popping off lips and features where typically you aren’t able to pedal over. With some experimentation throughout the testing period, I found using the middle setting was my preference, allowing me to clear features with ease.

Unlike most other e-bikes that use a magnet for a speed sensor, the Avinox system uses a 42-point steel plate fixed to the rear rotor (much like an ABS system). It picks up what the wheel is doing seemingly instantaneously, resulting in the most natural feeling motor I have ridden to date. 

After some initial set-up adjustments, I landed on 210psi and an additional token in the Fox Factory Float X, giving me closer to 25% sag and a far more supportive feel with no obvious bottom out. To keep things balanced, we landed on 85psi in the Fox Factory 36 with the addition of three tokens. These changes not only resulted in a more supportive ride feel, but also helped tackle some of the gnarlier terrain that the DJI Avinox M1 motor begged us to play in.

In the end, I actually rang the editor to talk about how bonkers this bike is. Just nuts. No word of a lie, the power of the Amflow PL Carbon Pro felt like all other e-bikes I have tested were stuck in eco mode. Amflow’s combination of an ultra lightweight frame, motor and component build combined with the pure brawn of the DJI Avinox M1 is an experience that simply defies written expression. In fact, the only downside is that the motor is so powerful that the Amflow PL Carbon Pro seeks bigger, chunkier terrain than perhaps the trail built is suited to.

Final Thoughts on Amflow PL Carbon Pro

Having been out and about on the Amflow PL Carbon for a few months now, I can confirm I’ve given it an absolute thrashing in order to uncover any possible issues. As an industry disruptor, the Amflow PL Carbon has significantly shaken up the e-bike industry. Apart from some loose and creaking linkage hardware (requiring some cleaning), fresh grease, and  tubeless tyre plugs and cranks, the Amflow PL Carbon had dealt with the abuse admirably, redefining what I think an e-bike could or should be. 

The Amflow PL Carbon Pro represents arguably the biggest advance in motor capability, weight and power in the e-bike world to date, but it’s not just about brawn; the smarts and software driving the Avinox M1 are brilliant. With some tweaks to the support modes, I was able to drastically extend my riding range and optimise my ride experience on the Amflow. Changes I would make? Simply a few tweaks to the cockpit and consumables such as burlier tyres and a stiffer handlebar and crankset would make this bike a solid ‘one bike to rule them all’ contender.

We are very excited to see what is next from Amflow, how the rest of the e-bike industry responds, and what brands jump on the freight train of the DJI Avinox system. If you haven’t yet experienced the Amflow PL Carbon Pro, you’re missing out on what this new generation of e-bikes can do.

Watch the full review from Ryan – here.