Is This the Best Drone for Mountain Bikers? We Put It to the Test

The idea of a self-flying AI-powered drone is an interesting concept, and when I heard of the HOVERair X1 ProMax, I was eager to get my hands on one to see if this 192g, 8K shooting, little drone would be able to keep up with the speed and tech of mountain biking.

I’ve seen plenty of videos of the HOVERair drones keeping up with mountain bikers, but I was skeptical of how accurate this drone could be at higher speeds and how durable it would be in the long run. Could this be the ultimate companion for trail rides? After all, 90% of my rides are solo, and it's always nice to capture unique riding footage.

The claims made by the HOVERair X1 ProMax are impressive to say the least, and this powerful little ride companion looked too good to be true on paper. The operation looks really simple if you read the literature on the website, and the form factor makes it an incredibly easy choice for capturing amazing footage. Pairing the small footprint, lightweight construction, and 64 GB of onboard storage (expandable to 1 TB with an SD card) with the AI-powered flight modes and 4K and 8K video recording seems like black magic, but could this little robot buddy really hang on the trails?

HOVERair X1 ProMax Overview

First Impressions and Build Quality

Out of the box, the HOVERair X1 ProMax felt super premium, and for $699 USD, that is to be expected. The user manual and guides that are available through the HOVERair app do an excellent job of walking you through the setup process. It even has a few modes that are locked until you run through a tutorial to familiarize yourself with how the drone operates - a decidedly nice touch, because the manual flight mode can be a little tricky to master.

Despite the impressive weight of this little drone, the build quality is pretty premium, and HOVERair acknowledges the abuse that the drone will likely be subject to and has readily available replacement parts for the propeller cages and propellers themselves. Each foldable wing has two props, and the material that houses them is surprisingly durable, surviving some pretty gnarly crashes during the review. Still, those weren't the points of concern for me; instead, I was more worried about how the folding hinges would fare in the event of a crash… more on that later.

After just a few flights around the yard and even in the house, I was pretty impressed with the HOVERair X1 ProMax and couldn't wait to get it out on the trails to see what would be possible with this new bit of tech.

The first ride went a lot better than expected, because honestly, I was pretty skeptical that the small frame would be able to keep up with me on the trail or handle the wind that is so prevalent in the Boise foothills. Anyone who has spent much time around drones will know just how much noise they make, and in this case, I really appreciated the loud humming that the X1 ProMax puts out, and it serves as a reminder that it's still in tow.

HOVERair X1 ProMax Footage

Using the HOVERair X1 ProMax for Mountain Biking

The HOVERair X1 ProMax is packed with features and flight modes, but the one I was most interested in was the dedicated Cycling Follow Mode, which uses AI and a host of sensors to navigate and follow you down the trail. With an onboard gimbal and active image stabilization, the HOVERair X1 ProMax can capture some incredibly smooth riding shots all from a drone that packs down and fits into your pocket. The X1 ProMax has two different cycling follow modes, one for wide open spaces and one for tighter trails, where there might be narrow sections and overhanging trees or bushes. 

While the drone does a great job in low-speed, wide-open scenarios, I still had my doubts about how it would track faster rides with bushes, trees, and tight turns. I also kept my expectations realistic for the X1 ProMax because this is some pretty new tech, and we can't expect the tracking and line choice to be as precise as a manually operated drone, which are also susceptible to crashing.

I was expecting a handful of crashes and was mostly okay with them, but there were a few collisions that resulted in a solid 30 minutes of hunting for the drone on the hillside. If you do crash the drone and it remains powered on, it's easy enough to locate with the app or beacon, but a number of the crashes were powerful enough to eject the battery. This was a frustrating scenario for a few reasons. When it crashed 30 feet behind me while moving at 20+ mph on a steep trail, I didn't notice for a few seconds, and this meant quite a hike back up the trail and the need to retrace my ride for who-knows how long, trying to find a relatively small drone that could have crashed into a tree or tumbled down a hill for a few feet.

For the most part, the X1 ProMax was able to keep up with me and not lose sight of the subject (me). It was able to dodge obstacles and avoid collision about 70% of the time, but it was the other 30% that really made an impression. 

There were a handful of times that I was sure I lost the drone on the trail, and I wouldn't be able to recover it, resulting in a loss of the footage, but also I didn’t want to leave a battery and electronic waste out in the woods. This meant that on multiple occasions, I spent close to an hour searching high and low for the drone.

That also brings me to the second qualm: If I were out for a ride with a time crunch or the sun was setting, I never felt completely comfortable pulling out the drone because I didn’t want to risk the possibility of adding the extra time hunting for the drone on the trail. There were a couple of times where I actually spent more time hiking up and down the trail looking for the crash site than I did riding.

Although these issues are frustrating, I kept in mind that this is a new technology and would frequently remind myself how incredibly lucky I was to be hiking around searching for a drone that I could carry in my pocket or vest, which followed me, shooting 8K footage. This also gave me the chance to survey the trails at a lower speed while walking around on the hunt, which ended up being a good thing, as I saw new lines and side hits that I hadn’t noticed before - silver linings, right?

Overall, the HOVERair X1 ProMax has been able to keep up with my riding, but knowing it has the tendency to lose sight of me, crash into obstacles, or confuse a tree or bush for the object its supposed to track meant that when I would pull the drone out to use it, I would almost always ride at 50% to 60% of my usual pace. The fear of losing it and needing to hike back up the trail was always in the back of my mind while riding, and I often found myself distracted and constantly checking over my shoulder to make sure it was still behind me.

This tracking issue was ultimately improved with some firmware updates and the use of the beacon ($139 USD), which the X1 ProMax can track more easily than just the rider. After updating the firmware and tweaking some settings in the app, the X1 ProMax had a much easier time keeping up, but still wasn’t perfect.

The nail in the coffin that ended the review period was a particularly tough scene for the X1 ProMax, which involved high speeds, big jumps, and tight turns lined with big trees. I had tweaked the settings to make the drone happier in the tight trails and had already used it a couple of times on the trail, but one unfortunate bonk against a tree cracked the hinge of the right wing, which isn’t a repairable part that HOVERair supplies. This meant I resorted to some less official repairs that didn’t quite work, and I had to retire the X1 ProMax.

Thankfully, HOVERair offers HOVERcare, which is an added warranty program that helps replace and repair damaged and even lost drones. These extended warranties can be purchased as one or two-year plans, and make replacing FUBAR, or lost drones, at a fraction of the cost of a new unit, and in this case, a new X1 ProMax will only run me $259 USD ($359 USD had it been lost).

Final Thoughts

The tech is impressive, and the functionality is industry-leading. Despite all the operational issues I had with the drone, I had double the number of successful flights that captured some great footage that I otherwise would not have been able to capture.

It’s light enough to take anywhere and serves as an incredible tool for on and off the bike. The ability to capture drone shots and unique perspectives with a device that is smaller than my water bottle is absolutely mind-blowing. The HOVERair X1 ProMax flight modes aren’t just for mountain biking either, and there is a dedicated ski mode, dolly tracking mode, follow mode, hover mode, orbit, and many more shooting modes to get the shot you want, and all of them work without a single issue.

My use case is likely somewhat extreme, but as I said before, for every crash, there were many more successful flights, and keeping my expectations realistic made me appreciate the HOVERair X1 ProMax a lot more during my testing on the bike. 

This is an incredible option for anyone looking to document their rides uniquely. Depending on how and where you ride, you're unlikely to encounter any issues with the device, but I would suggest the HOVERcare warranty just in case.