Wild One Review
by Bryan Ball, Managing Editor of BentRider Online
Perhaps there has never been a recumbent trike named more appropriately than the SteintrikesWild One. Since moving away from simpler budget-priced trikes and focusing on their distinctive full suspension designs, Steintrikes has indeed produced some rather delightfully insane trikes. The Wild One is one of the craziest yet.
The Wild One is built in Serbia by Steintrikes but is marketed in Europe through their Austrian distributor at Bike Revolution. It was primarily meant for the European market but has also become a hit here in the USA and other parts of the world.
The overall look is very distinctively Steintrikes. The network of thin frame tubes and double wishbone front suspension are all present. On versions with a larger rear wheel, the rear swingarm makes a dramatic swoop up to meet the axle, adding to the Wild One’s mental looks. If you want to add an extra amount of flash, Steintrikes offers the Wild One in basically any color combination you can imagine. Pulling into the trailhead parking lot with a Wild One is like arriving at your high school reunion in a bright green Lamborghini. People WILL notice you and they’ll most likely be very jealous whether they admit it or not.
Closer inspection of the Wild One isn’t quite as impressive. It’s well-made and well-executed, but many of the small details aren’t of the same level you get on something like an ICE, Azub, Catrike or HPVelotechnik. It’s a very handmade bespoke machine and it shows in things like slightly crude seat mounts other bits of metal work. The Wild One (like the Steintrikes Explorer I tested a couple of years ago) is almost completely devoid of quick releases. Adjusting the seat angle sometimes requires lengthening or shortening the frame which in turn requires adjusting the luggage rack. These won’t be deal-breakers to the mechanically unintimidated but it can be frustrating.
The Wild One is available with a wide range of wheelsize choices both front and rear. Anecdotally, it seems that the most popular choice for the last couple of years has been the 18” (355mm) front and 20” (406mm) rear. However, they just introduced a new 29er (basically a wider 700C aimed at mountain bikes) so I chose to pair that with a pair of 406mm wheels for the front on my test trike. If you really want to focus on off-road riding, 24” front wheels are also an option.
No discussion of any Steintrikes model would be complete without talking about the suspension. The Wild One features a frankly ludicrous 100mm (nearly 4”) of suspension travel at all three wheels. It also has an impressive 4.7” of ground clearance. That’s enough to run over almost anything. Whether it be a pothole, a small log when riding off-road, an unruly neighborhood teenager, what have you…
The Wild One’s triangulated tubular frame is primarily made of steel and the total package weighed in at 45 lbs with a fairly middle-of-the-road component spec and the luggage rack mounted. Picking it up and carrying around felt like a lot more than that but in reality, that’s pretty comparable to an HPVelotechnik Scorpion fs 26.
This is definitely not a high-performance trike but the Wild One isn’t a slug either. The suspension is a bit more active when you’re really laying the power down than something like an ICE or HPVelotchnik but my overall average speeds were pretty close to what I experienced on the HP.
The same can pretty much be said about the handling. It isn’t quite as refined as trikes from “the big boys” but it isn’t bad. The turning circle is acceptable. There’s just a touch of brake steer and a bit of body roll when cornering hard. However, I’d still categorize it as “good” overall.
Where the Wild One really separates itself from the rest is when things get rough. When it comes to riding on dirt, there’s nothing better in the tadpole trike market. I rode it on dirt roads, fire roads and moderate singletrack. It performed very well on all of them. The narrow carbon fiber seat let me throw my weight around a bit to make sure all three wheels stayed on the ground and suspension was fantastic. Its only limitation was the occasional loss of traction from the rear wheel on really steep bits of singletrack with roots or rocks on them. This is mostly due to the foreword-biased weight distribution caused by the longer wheelbase of the 29er rear wheel. If I were to use the Wild One off-road regularly, I’d choose the gnarliest rear tire I could find.
This isn’t to say that the Wild One is a one-trick-pony by any means. It’s a very quiet and comfortable ride that would be very welcome on long multi-day tours. The seating position is aggressive but not too extreme and the ergonomics are great. The carbon fiber seat was very agreeable but there’s also a mesh seat option available if you want to enjoy the comfort of that suspension even more.
The boom folds vertically to make fitting the Wild One into a vehicle much easier. There’s also a rear-fold option available. That bolt-together frame design that I complained about earlier is a very welcome thing when you want to really break it down and put it in a couple of boxes for airline travel.
The versions with smaller drivewheels can carry four panniers. The 26” and 29er models can only carry two. Both versions of Steintrikes luggage racks are very well made. You can also get full fenders, dynamo hubs, chainring and disc brake guards and all of the other usual options from Steintrikes.
It’s pretty difficult to get more “exotic” than a Steintrikes Wild One. However, the cost of entry isn’t really that exotic at all. In the USA, the Wild One starts at $4195 from Wildfire HPV. That’s right in line with (or even a bit cheaper) than other comparable full suspension trikes.
As I alluded to earlier, this is the second Steintrikes full-suspension model I’ve reviewed. The Wild One left me with pretty much the same overall feeling as the first. It has its quirks for sure, but damn these things are a blast to ride. They just have a spirit and feel that encourages the rider to do very silly things and that’s good. The Wild One ups the ante just a bit more because it’s lighter and sits a bit lower than the Explorer. I don’t think that Steintrikes does things different solely for the sake of being different but I sincerely hope they never change. The trike world needs a bit more lunacy and these guys are definitely giving it to us in a very useful and fun package.
~August 2015~
