We don't talk about Nazca much on this site, but we wish we had an excuse to mention them more. Nazca is a small Dutch recumbent manufacturer that is run by the nicest husband and wife team you could ever hope to meet. Their newest offering is the Fuego. The Fuego is a steel framed (aluminium forked and boomed) quasi low racer with rear suspension, designed as a fast commuter bike it would easily double as a capable race bike. If that didn't makes it different enough then it also features adjustable fork rake and seat angle via a simple linkage that doubles as a stiff pivot that makes huge amounts of difference as to how the bike behaves.
The unusual looking centre triangle has 3 positions on the upper shock mount, adjusted with a standard quick release. Rather than just affecting the rate of shock travel this position can also make a difference to the head angle of the bike. In the uppermost position the head angle is relaxed, creating an incredibly stable ride at all speeds. There were a couple of people at York Rally that "couldn't ride a recumbent bike, just trikes" but were very happy riding this bike around the bumpy grass field. If you want low speed agility, maybe even a snappier ride, then drop the setting to the lowest position. It pulls front wheel back a little, drops the boom slightly and pushes the seat up.
Speaking of which… The seat angle itself is adjustable over a range of 22 to 30 degrees via another quick release. It's easiest to undo the shock and seat QRs at the same time to adjust the shock setting. The shock itself is a really nice air unit from “www.kindshock.com.tw” (I'd not heard of these before) with adjustable compression damping. The shock is pretty heavily damped from the outset, which is a good thing in my eyes. I'd rather not ride something that rides like a bucking bronco at speed. There was one occasion only that I felt the rear start to struggle, over a prolonged set of pretty rough bumps on a descent at over 40 mph. I backed off the damping then and the rest of the time the shock did everything perfectly. It disappeared, tracking the road exactly as it should!
The bike is not particularly light, but is designed to be very durable, even those lovely light minimal spoke wheels have stayed perfectly true throughout test period. The Shimano disc brakes, although not a personal favourite worked flawlessly, as did the Shimano 105 drivetrain and the ubiquitous SRAM Rocket shifters.
The very long curved flip up tiller and wide curved bars may not suit every one, but they allow a lot of adjustment. My favourite position with a tiller set-up (the bars virtually on my chest) obviously isn't the only set-up available and there's plenty of scope to fit them exactly how you want.
The very comfortable seat is much wider than the average "euro-seat" but fit my 6' 4" frame happily. I think if it were my bike I'd run a large (however the medium supplied was still good).
One thing that did catch me out at first was the bulb at base of the seat, designed to stop you sliding too far forward, it felt very odd at first, almost got me wishing that I'd worn padded shorts, but disappeared after a couple of miles and whilst descending felt like you weren't sliding forwards at all. In many respects it's similar to the bulb on the ICE trike seats. The pad is a covered mix material one. It has the open cell pad inside but doesn't breathe quite as well. It is very comfortable though.
Being made from steel I was expecting a little bit of flex through the long frame, but there's nothing, not even from the front end. The main pivot is so large that there's no lateral movement at all from the rear.
I did have a slight incident with the prototype carbon seat that came with the bike. During a time trial I managed to snap it. I was going quite well, averaging 28mph and had caught the three in front of me. The replacement, standard issue GRP one has caused no problems whatsoever. If you're heavy, aggressive or strong then I'd stick with the standard seat. It's a non issue for me, and doesn't detract from the bike at all, the weight savings by going to the carbon seat are fairly minimal against the rest of the bike and my bulk.
Playing around with the settings on the seat/shock revealed a snag. In some combinations the tyre can hit the seat under full travel, not too much of a problem, as there are plenty of other combinations to use. For most of my riding I was happy to leave it in the middle setting with the seat back at full recline.
So how did it ride?
If I said I've had to hide it away to stop me riding it too much does that say enough? It's responsive, fast, stable, yet nimble, agile, sure-footed, capable of dealing with pretty much everything I'd want to throw it at, and it's pretty comfortable to boot. Lots of conflicts there, to put it another way there has been no time I felt bored of riding it, yet there was no real time I felt the bike was out of it's depth. Sporty and stable nicely sums it up. For the record, I had it over 100kmh (Yes, you read that right, gps and speedo confirmed it within 1/2kmh of each other) and it still felt good, in fact I had to go back and do the same hill again just to make sure.
The mid pivoting shock took virtually all of the sting out of the rear end and it wasn't too harsh on the front either. I did change the stelvios out for marathon racers, as I've got some on review, and the ride has become so smooth, with no discernible loss of rolling speed. Just a hint of a less snap during acceleration, that sometimes I though I was riding on smooth newly laid “whispering tarmac” rather than the rough worn roads that feature so heavily around here.
There are two iterations of the Fuego. An all rounder, which has mudguards, full chaintubes, a 3x9 dualdrive, seatmounted rear rack and lights with standard spoked wheels. The review bike is a Sports model. It was stripped down which has 105 2x9 groupset, lightweight wheels and the same nice rack with rear light. The main difference is about 2kg in weight and 400 euros in cost. The Sports retails for approx 2200 euros.
There are optional sidebag supports that mount onto the pivot triangle.
Like all of Nazca's bikes, the Fuego is very well made. Just as much art as it is a bicycle. And you can sleep well at night knowing that you're almost certain not to encounter one on the next day's group ride.
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