My First 100km on the Michael Blast Outsider — A Toronto Rider's Log

The first thing people notice about the Michael Blast Outsider is the way it looks. Parked outside my apartment building on a Tuesday evening, it drew three separate comments from neighbours before I'd even taken it off the elevator. That kind of attention is something you either want or you don't, and if you're reading this, you probably know which camp you're in.

I'll get the practical part out of the way first: I live in Toronto, east end, and my regular routes take me through the Beaches, up to Danforth, and occasionally west toward downtown when I'm feeling ambitious. I commute by bike maybe four days a week, and I've ridden everything from a beat-up hybrid to a proper road bike. The Outsider is unlike anything I've ridden before — not because of the motor, but because of how it makes you feel on the road.

The scrambler geometry puts you in an upright, commanding position. You're not bent over fighting wind resistance, and you're not leaning back in a lazy cruiser stance. You're sitting like someone who is actually paying attention to where they're going. That sounds like a small thing, but it changes everything about how you interact with traffic. I found myself reading intersections differently, noticing more, feeling less stressed about the cars around me.

Day one: 22km. I took the long way everywhere because I wanted to see how the battery held up. The Bafang motor is smooth in a way that proprietary systems often aren't — the assist ramps up predictably, and you can feel it modulate based on your pedal input rather than just switching on and off. By the end of the day I'd been on the road for nearly two hours and still had more than half the battery left.

Day two: 31km. I tackled the Bloor Viaduct approach, which is the kind of urban hill that used to have me standing on the pedals and regretting my life choices. With the motor running, it became genuinely enjoyable — I was actually looking at the ravine view instead of staring at the asphalt four feet ahead of me. The Shimano 7-speed gearing gives you real options on a climb; I dropped to third gear and let the motor do the work I didn't feel like doing.

Day three: I didn't ride. My legs were fine, but it was raining and I'd promised myself I'd test the weather sealing before I trusted it in a real downpour. The answer is that the Outsider handles light rain without drama. I wouldn't ride through a monsoon, but the integrated cable routing and sealed connections mean that a wet commute isn't the end of the world. The disc brakes perform identically in the wet — no fade, no drama.

Days four and five brought me to 100km. The final stretch was a Saturday morning loop through Rouge National Urban Park, which is the kind of off-road riding the Outsider was genuinely designed for. The wider tyres and relaxed geometry felt completely at home on the packed gravel paths. Other riders on road bikes looked at me with what I can only describe as envious confusion.

What surprised me most wasn't the performance — I expected the motor and gearing to be good, and they were. What surprised me was how quickly the bike changed my relationship with getting around. I've owned cars, I've owned bikes, and somewhere in between I'd started to think of commuting as something to be endured. The Outsider made me want to take the longer route. It made me look for excuses to be outside. If that's not worth whatever it costs, I don't know what is.

One hundred kilometres in, here's where I am: the Outsider is not a toy. It's not a fashion accessory that happens to move. It's a genuinely capable machine that rewards riders who want more from their commute than the shortest possible distance between two points. The scrambler heritage shows up not just in the styling but in the riding — it wants to be ridden hard, over varied terrain, by someone paying attention.

My car keys are still on the hook by the door. I haven't needed them since Tuesday.