Posted on January 1, 2014 by Bryan Ball

It’s time!!! The votes have been tallied and the winners are in! This year was a sort of weird one. We had a smaller-than-usual but excellent class of nominees. Despite the more limited choices, we easily surpassed previous vote totals. Over 2500 of you cast your ballot for our Readers’ Vote. More than 1,000 came in the first 72 hours! The decisive winner of the overall award wasn’t the one I expected but I cannot at all argue with the choice. Yes, a trike still one the overall award this year but a two-wheeler I didn’t see coming also did extremely well. Okay… Enough teasing… Here are the winners!

2013 Recumbent of the Year

HPVelotechnik Scorpion fs 26 – This fully-suspended German juggernaut absolutely ruled the reader voting by netting almost 50% of the tally. It’s not hard to see why. The fs 26 is available in several flavors to satisfy almost any taste. There’s the “basic model” (if you can possibly call this very impressively-equipped trike basic), there’s an off-road version called the Enduro, a Pedelec version with an extremely well-integrated electric assist and a Pedelec Enduro. Voters said they loved the Scorpion for its super smooth ride, rock solid build quality and great handling. The fs 26 also won both of our dealer votes and one of the journalist/blogger votes. That gave it four out of the seven available votes and a pretty easy win. Congratulations to HPVelotechnik!

Honorable Mention

Catrike 700 – If we still did an Editor’s Choice award, it would have narrowly been the 700. It also finished second in our reader voting. The old version of the 700 was getting a bit long in the tooth and Larry and Bryan were both shocked at how much the seemingly small improvements made for 2014 improved the trike. It’s much better than the outgoing version in every measurable way and it’s still the biggest three-wheel performance bargain available. Well done, Catrike!

Honorable Mention

Cruzbike Silvio 2.0 – The Silvio 2.0 was by far our leading vote two-wheeled vote-getter. Much like the 700, the Silvio 2.0 may not look much different than the outgoing model, but one ride will reveal just how good a Moving Bottom Bracket Front Wheel Drive (MBB/FWD) bike can be. It’s very fast while still remaining fairly easy to master and somewhat practical. The fact that it has just a touch of suspended comfort just makes it all the better. Hoozah, Cruzbike!

Just as a recap to how these awards were decided… We use a 7-Vote system to decide Recumbent of the Year. One vote goes to the winner of our reader polling. One vote each goes to the two editors of BentRider Online. One vote each goes to two prominent recumbent dealers. These dealers will change every year. We don’t release their names but they’re free to reveal who they are if they choose to. One vote each goes to two other recumbent journalists or bloggers. Again, these change every year and we don’t release the names. Here’s how the votes broke down this year.

Reader Vote – HPVelotechnik Scorpion fs 26

Editor Vote #1 – Catrike 700

Editor Vote #2 – Catrike 700

Dealer Vote #1 – HPVelotechnik Scorpion fs 26

Dealer Vote #2 – HPVelotechnik Scorpion fs 26

Journalist Vote #1 – Azub Origami

Journalist Vote #2 – HPVelotechnik Scorpion fs 26

Thanks for your participation everyone! The 2014 class is already shaping up to be a very crowded one! Looking forward to it!