Orbea Wild M Team Review And Specifications
Electric Mountain Bikes have been the mainstay of the world of mountain bikes now for some time, and in 2020 the organisers of the Enduro World Series (now known as EDR) introduced an electric mountain bike category - meaning that for the first time, electric mountain bikes could be raced competitively on the world stage.
Although this certainly drew some negative attention who believe that the only bikes that should be raced are standard, non-electric bikes, the e-bike category drew plenty of attention for the right reasons. The field in the electric enduro bike category draws in not only some of the old & bold of the world championships and world series, but the category is packed with the youngest, up and coming mountain bike talent.
It did not take long for the world of bike brands to understand that this new area of racing, required the very best and the most competitive bikes - and bike brands have been developing and manufacturing a range of highly competitive electric enduro mountain bikes, allowing their riders to gain every single bit of advantage out in the field.
One such example of an race specification electric enduro mountain bike, is the Orbea Wild M Team.
Orbea Wild M Team Overview
For those not wanting to read this full post, here are the headlines:
- 29 Enduro E Bike with 160mm of travel
- Two battery choices - 625Wh or 750Wh
- Bosch Performance CX Motor
- Carbon & Alloy Frame Options
- Eight Different Models, with prices starting around £5,000
- Orbea Wild M Team Review & Specifications
Suspension & Frame
One of the most distinctive things about this model, is it’s unqiue shock struts. This unusual design includes re-inforcing beams that connect the downtube, to the base of the top tube, where the motor is housed. These mounts also function as the lower mounts for the shock.
The shock is also mounted vertically, and is driven by a rocker link. This maximises space in the front triangle, allowing enduro riders to carry water bottles. There’s also a concentric dropout, which reduces the effects of braking on the rear suspension. Orbea has kept the top tube of the bike really thin, which we think looks great. There’s no geometry adjustment on the Wild, and whilst this may be seen as a downside, we found it actually makes life much easier. The bike comes with a great seating position for climbing, out of the box, and the geometry and suspension also makes light work out of most sections of trails.
Motor & Battery
The Bosch Performance CX Motor needs very little in the way of introduction, producing 600W of peak power and an impressive 85Nm of torque. This motor provides plenty of grunt, and also has an overrun function which is handy for technical climbs. There’s a couple of battery options available, with the larger 750Wh battery weighing 900g more than the 625Wh battery.
On the old Wild, the battery was not fully enclosed like it is on this model. The Bosch Powertube battery now slides in through the base of the frame. The way that the battery is fitted to and sits in the frame, has been coined as the Secure Battery System (SBS) by Orbea, they found that this design reduces size by 32% and is 51% stiffer than the old design. This design, although new to Orbea is found across a number of different electric mountain bike brands.
The charging port of the battery is one of the best we have seen here at Westbrook Cycles, it’s mounted halfway up the seat tube, and is well covered by a sprung cap. It’s a great charging system, which we think will be incredibly durable.
Suspension
The Wild M-Team uses a Fox Float X2 Shock which has four way damping, with 160mm of travel. The forks are the Fox Factory 38 which provides 170mm of travel. Both these suspension components are very well reviewed and perform incredibly well and riding this bike, we did not at any point when riding across country, feel that we needed more travel.
Components
The drivetrain of the M-Team is from Shimano, and it’s their XT 12 speed drivetrain. Brakes are provided by Shimano and it’s their powerful XT four piston levers and calipers, twinned with Galfer rotors which provide all of the reliable stopping power that you need.
Overview
The brief for this bike was simple, but complicated - Orbea needed to make a race capable and race winning electric enduro mountain bike. It achieves this and more in our opinion, the bike has a great frame, a great frame design, top notch suspension which provides all of the travel it needs to, one of the world’s best electric bike motors and a couple of different battery options.
The bike looks great and rides really well, it’s highly manevourable out on the trails and the bike descends and ascends incredibly well.