2023 Orbea Wild - 5ft 10” sizing advice

[22jeffers]

Hi all,

Apologies as I appreciate this is an age old debate.

I’m selling my 2018 Focus Jam2 to buy an Orbea Wild and am hesitating over the sizing. I’m 5ft 10 1/2” (179cm) with a 30” inside (short) leg. The Orbea size chart for a medium ends at 185cm and the large starting at 170cm.

My Focus Jam2 has a reach of 430cm, effective top tube (ETT) of 602 and a stem length of 55cm and I’m comfortable on it standing and seated.

Looking at the Wild, the medium has 30mm longer reach ‘BUT’ 7mm shorter ETT and a 15mm shorter stem.

The Wild large has a ‘whopping’ 50mm longer reach compared to my Jam2, a 20mm longer ETT and a 5mm shorter stem.

My intended use for the bike is bike parks and trail centres. While I appreciate that I will spend most of my time standing up at bike parks, I will be seated for large chunks (flats/climbs) at trail centres pedalling miles.

I rode both the large and medium around a bike shop car park (not ideal) and was torn between them. I have to say that when seated, I did notice my knees closer to the handlebars on the medium when compared to my Jam2 and I’d say this is down to the shorter ETT and shorter stem.

However, when riding the large I did feel a little stretched when seated.

I tried standing on both lifting the front wheel up but, on flat tarmac, I couldn’t really compare it to throwing it down a trail.

I figure if I bought the large, I could swap the 50mm stem out for a 35mm Orbea OC stem, bringing the whole stretched out feeling (standing or seated) back a bit or is that a daft idea? I guess the same works the other way, I could swap the Wild’s medium 40mm stem for a 50mm, pushing the handlebars away.

Any other 5ft 10” short legged 2023 Orbea Wild riders out there that can share their experience / advice?

 

[22jeffers]

The numbers suggest that the Wild Medium is shorter when seated than my Focus Medium.

Wild: 595mm effective top tube + 40mm stem = 635mm

Jam2: 602mm effective top tube + 55mm stem = 657mm

I noticed the large Wild has a 50mm stem. So I could swap it out for a 35mm bringing it all back by 15mm.

So seated would be: 622mm top tube + 35mm stem = 657mm

Which brings it bang on the same as the Focus.

In theory that would also make the impact of a standing “Reach” feel less severe too. Does that sound logical?

 

[Zave]

5'10" long legged here. Large is perfect. If standover is ok, then with a long torso, large should be better than medium for you. Unless you have short Dinosaurus Rex arms.

 

[22jeffers]

I do have a +2” ape index, so long armed. Thanks for the advice

 

[22jeffers]

I went with the large, please I did, it’s really comfortable.

 

[mrhaboobi]

How do you find the bike? I’m tossing up between this a turbo levo or Rocky Mountain. Generally a large on all bikes ( 180cm tall ). Did you switch stems? Can you also raise the stems up?

 

[22jeffers]

Currently love it. I moved from a medium Focus Jam2 (140mm travel) so the size increase is noticeable but I actually prefer it. Weight wise the focus was about 21-22kg, the wild is 26kg. I do notice the difference trying to lift the front wheel up. Maybe due to weight and length. Not sure I’ll even bother changing the stem. If I do it’ll only be out of curiosity.

 

[Trail Blazer]

I have the Wild M10 large...changed stem to 35 mm but will change to 40 mm. I have the 50 mm rise bar.
183 cm long. Think it is designed for its purpose.