Wilde Supertramp Review: Superfluous Specificity

A seemingly simple question that has nonetheless boggled my mind for years is that of use-specific function. Is there a truly perfect, do-it-all bike? Not to spoil the party, but the answer is invariably a resounding “No.” Nevertheless, it’s always fun to see just how close one can really get. Given my penchant for bikes that attempt to exist as a true jack of all trades, my time on a bike that claims a specific disposition for one style of riding yielded some interesting results. With Wilde’s Supertramp, a supposedly bikepacking-specific, fully rigid ATB, I pondered the use-specific question.

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With long chainstays and a short front center, the mere silhouette of the Supertramp presented a puzzling figure. Sporting a bowed, Sklar-esque inner triangle and gargantuan tire clearance, I threw a leg over its careful arcs, half expecting to hate it. As I bumbled along the paths of Pisgah National Forest near Brevard, North Carolina, I was surprised to find that I didn’t. Though the prescribed build was less than ideal, I was able to get a feel for the Supertramp’s handling characteristics pretty quickly. Stable and surprisingly agile, the bike didn’t pedal its weight. The tubing sticker read, “TLC,” a callback to the copy I’d seen on Wilde’s blog describing their careful tubing selection process. From the horse’s mouth:

“TLC stands for Tough, Light, and Compliant which are the characteristics we select for. TLC is seamless double-butted chromoly steel and is an absolutely wonderful high-end tubeset. However, the magic isn’t in the steel, it’s in our choices as you shall see…”

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Irrespective of the quasi-marketing-oriented jargon, the Supertramp felt intentionally crafted. I’m no weight weenie, but I was shocked to learn of its 28-pound absolute bare-bones stock weight, a slight discrepancy from the 26.9-pound (13.2-kilogram) figure quoted on Wilde’s website. It moved well on descents and, despite its drunken tendencies when climbing, never appeared to hold me back on the steep grades just outside of town. After swapping out the swept-back Velo Orange Seine bars, I felt a lot more at home atop this weird and increasingly wondrous bike. With more body weight over the bars and some singletrack sessions spent slowing Logan down, I wondered why Wilde had pigeonholed an otherwise universal template.

Build Kit

The provided build was a modest but entirely functional budget build that Wilde offers as a complete. Featuring 12-speed mechanical shifting, hydraulic brakes, stout but not altogether weighty wheels, the build kit fit the bill for what is a capable all-terrain ATB.

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• Frame Wilde Supertramp M, Wilde TLC tubing
• Fork Wilde Supertramp
• Front Hub Stan’s Flow
• Rear Hub Stan’s Flow
• Rims/Spokes Stan’s Flow
• Tires WTB Ranger 29 x 2.25″
• Crankset Shimano M6100
• Derailleur Shimano Deore
• Shifter Shimano Deore
• Cassette Shimano cassette, CS-M6100 10-51t
• Bottom Bracket Shimano
• Handlebar Velo Orange Seine
• Grips WTB Original Trail
• Headset Wolf Tooth Performance Headset
• Brakes Shimano M6100 hydraulic brakes
• Saddle WTB Volt
• Seatpost Thompson Elite 31.8

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Though I was quick to swap the bars out for my own preferences, the laid-back nature of the Velo Orange Seine opened my eyes to the Supertramp’s flexibility. Although using this bike as a commuter would kind of feel like driving a military utility vehicle to Trader Joe’s, daily grocery getting and errand running is something the Supertramp might actually lend itself to. As a sort of endgame upright bike for a world without roads, this build is a good place to start if you don’t know which way you’re going to take this blank canvas of an adventure machine.

Ride Impressions

For some context, a bike that melted my brain a bit this past summer was Velo Orange’s Polyvalent. My first true foray into low-trail randonneuring bikes, the Polyvalent served exceptionally well in my time touring the mid-Atlantic. Notably, it handled the same, if not better, when loaded. Though that bike has its own eccentricities, the modern-day, bikepacking relevance of low-trail bikes is an idea I’ve been struck with ever since. It begs the question: does it make sense to take the bike you enjoy riding most on a daily basis on an extended tour? Or does the quality of the fun degrade as you add the necessary equipment required for days upon days in the saddle? It seems an obvious answer and something the bike industry has figured out a million times over. Touring-specific rigs are no new concept, but the notion of bike-specific use is nonetheless a consumptive thought that irks me.

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Why can’t your daily driver be your week-long tourer? Why can’t you have it all?

While there are probably a million answers, it’s a question that both requires one and doesn’t. You can ride any bike, anywhere, at any time, doing largely anything. How optimized it is for that experience is a different story, but there’s no shortage of examples to show that bikes are incredible machines—it’s the humans powering them who are a bit more fickle. Piloting the Polyvalent on most roads with clearance for 650b x 2.25” tires and short, 435mm chainstays felt good. Doing much singletrack or technical bike handling was less so. It came as a surprise, then, that the Supertramp was so fun to ride on my first few outings. I’d expected the handling characteristics of a bike intended to be ridden with a load to be less than sprightly or altogether unwieldy without one. What I found was a capable ATB with mild manners and muted but fun tones doing pretty much anything.

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Again, the context for my expectations was predicated on how good something like the Polyvalent felt. I’d assumed the low-trail geo was what allowed for the bike’s largely unchanged handling when loaded and contrasted that with how bad other bikes with higher trail numbers felt when weighed down. For the Supertramp to be such a far cry from my otherwise ideal touring geo was a real shift in expectations. In the setup the bike came with, I thought my preconceived notions had been confirmed. With swept-back bars, I found myself all too upright to get any real weight over the front tire, making the front feel unwieldy and difficult to manage on technical ascents. Alas, when I swapped them out for the Soma Low Dream, a modest riser with a 20° backsweep, the bike felt infinitely better and more shred-worthy. Leaning into loose turns became a heck of a lot easier, and throwing around the relatively long rear end felt more natural.

Wilde Supertramp Geometry

At 5’9″ with a +2 wingspan and a 31-inch inseam, the medium fit me well. Though I’m used to upsizing on bikes, the fit offered here is something that works better if you stay true to size. I never found myself to be stretched out or all too scrunched up, and given where the seat tube angle places the rider on the bike, the Wilde Supertramp lends itself to all kinds of flat and potentially even drop-bar configurations.

A Bikepacking Perspective

Loading up the Supertramp for an overnighter, I used a setup I feel most comfortable with and find to be pretty common: a large Carradice-style front bag, a half frame bag, and a rear seat pack. Despite the larger volume up front, the distribution of weight felt relatively even, as I mixed a variety of pieces of equipment across the frame. Interestingly, I found the medium-sized load to have mellowed out the harsher handling characteristics I experienced when riding a bare-bones version of the Supertramp. It was still a bit unwieldy and needed tending to when climbing, particularly out of the saddle, but the load helped make the handling more enjoyable.

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Mounts are plentiful, as they should be on any bike that claims bikepacking or touring specificity, but the rear-facing fork mounts on either blade are a nice touch that gives users more flexibility and keeps things out of the way. Other extras like the included downtube cable guides are something I always appreciate, in conjunction with the fact that Wilde has partnered with Cedaero to offer a custom frame bag ready for purchase from their site. Even on the medium size I rode for testing, the curved tubes of the inner triangle lend themselves to a larger frame bag. To see a ready-to-rip bag on offer from Wilde and Cedaero is a nicety that simplifies the sometimes overly complex and paralyzing amount of choices at our disposal in the bike bag space.

Load-wise, I struggle to imagine a configuration that wouldn’t work for this bike. With the handling and relatively modular fit, the load could be biased toward either end to great effect. Though the fork is a bit harsh even at low pressures with a relatively large tire, a small pack on either blade could help dampen the less-than-desirable sensations felt off small drops and bumps and wouldn’t affect the handling too negatively. That said, because the fit of the bike allows for both a more aggressive or upright position, one could just as easily rack the rear and keep the front end light and sprightly. While keeping this already burly bike as light as possible would be my recommendation for a feel-good ride, it’s a frame that could handle the weight required for extended trips.

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The best part of the Supertramp is how it takes descents. With relatively long chainstays, the bike holds its line well but is still fun, agile, and quick in handling. I think this is where the odd combination of its short front and longer rear end work best. Aside from it being a serviceable do-it-all commuter, descending with weight isn’t something I’d ever shy away from given just how stable the Supertramp felt. By contrast, if you like to whip your rear end around and get an inch or two closer off the ground, this isn’t the bike for you. As mentioned, I spent a lot of my testing period trailing Logan in Brevard, where he rode the Stooge Scrambler he was testing—a bike with short chainstays, given what it’s meant to handle. While I wasn’t comfortable enough with the terrain to replicate the drifts and tailwhips he was hitting on the bumpy, loose descents of Pisgah National Forest, it wasn’t really an option for me anyway, as the stability derived from the longer rear end kept me firmly planted on this good green Earth. While it kept up just fine, the sensation I felt in tow of Logan’s looser lines was what remained with me.

To return to the earlier question from the perspective of use, the Supertramp can certainly double as a daily driver and week-long tourer. It is more than capable of comfortably getting its rider to and from work, as much as it will across a county, country, or even continent. Still, it wouldn’t be the first bike on my shortlist of rigs to ride on a week-long journey. As it didn’t inspire a supremely interesting ride, I wasn’t frothing to get back out to test its mettle. And that isn’t a demerit that should deter you from exploring the bike if what I’ve detailed above tickles your fancy. In fact, I’d be happy to recommend the bike to anyone who’s looking for a safe, sturdy option that isn’t going to be made redundant by changing standards or even evolving tastes, as the template offered is just about as versatile as they come. But it’s a bike I want for my mom, not for myself. I love my mom. I want her to be safe, I want her to get a good deal, and I want her to experience all the roads I text her pictures of. But I want to ride something a bit more exciting when I’m there, telling her about it.

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Conversely, fat-tired low-trail bikes can shine in the context of bikepacking because of the stability their handling profile provides. Unless you’re out on more technical, challenging terrain, the handling intention of a low-trail bike is that of a mellow, low-input ride. Across hundreds of miles, that stability is something I’ve come to appreciate during seven-plus-hour days in the saddle. Make no mistake, it’s not ideal for technical, exciting terrain, but for road and gravel-oriented tours, it makes a lot more sense than people might imagine. The tradeoff the Wilde offers is a far more input-oriented ride. It’s better for technical sections that test a rider’s ability to worm their way through rocks, roots, and ridges, but it’s something you’re forced to look after in the inevitable mellow sections of any bike tour. Because of this, I’d say the Supertramp is great for riders looking for the most challenging and remote getaways available. If the trip contains more pavement or graded road, however, it might leave you a tad drained.

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Another intriguing aspect of the bike is its gussets. Since I learned of their function, I’ve endeavored to ask anyone involved with frame building what their take on gussets is, and it’s a question I never regret asking. Gussets, while typically used to reinforce areas of a frame that may be susceptible to excess force, can sometimes work retroactively and simply direct the load to another “weaker” area of the frame. In conjunction with this potential design flaw, they add a lot more weight and aren’t all that aesthetically pleasing. With that in mind, I don’t really understand the decision to gusset the bike. Although one could argue the intended purpose may create circumstances where the upper limits of its tubeset are tested, there are plenty of worthwhile tourers that forego the arguably unnecessary reinforcement. I’m no weight weenie, but with the stock build sitting anywhere between 27 and 28 pounds, you’re starting your loadless ventures toward the upper end of what some consider a relatively heavy bike in today’s carbon fiber world. It’s a minor qualm considering that if they work as intended, it’s a heck of a lot more durable, but even then, I’d wonder if the same could be accomplished with a slightly burlier tubeset.

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All that said, the quality of the ride was solid but largely uninspiring. It stood up to the abuse hurled at it by the washed-out and partially destroyed gravel roads of western North Carolina, but it never truly sang. Not every bike finds its perfect pitch, but there’s usually a moment or section of any ride where the tubes synchronize in perfect harmony. Reciprocating the power received, joining in a chorus of kinetic potential that usually rewards riders with the planing effect some have spoken to. I’d be lying if I said that was present, with the closest moment of that sacred harmony felt during the chunkiest of Pisgah descents. The bike does well to mute the rougher sensations of any ride, but perhaps in doing so, it also quiets the exciting notes that might otherwise endear its rider.

Design qualms aside, the bike’s finish is pretty exceptional, and the curved, cyclocross-inspired nature of the tube shape makes it a heck of a lot more comfortable to shoulder. I also appreciated the ample tire clearance, with the stock build featuring a 29 x 2.25” tire that had plenty of room in regard to both axle-to-crown and stay clearance.

• Model/Size Tested: Medium
• Actual Weight: 26.9 pounds (12.2 kg)
• Place of Manufacture: Taiwan
• Price: $1200 Frame / $2,750 complete as tested
• Manufacturer’s Details: Wilde Bikes

For more on Wilde Bikes’ Supertramp, visit WildeBikes.com.

Further Reading

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