Mikolo Falcon Functional Trainer Review - 1:1 Pulley Ratio, Multi Grip Pull Up Bar, and Much More!
Introduction
As you guys know, there are a ton of options for home gym functional trainers. I can imagine for companies it can be really hard to differentiate what makes their product unique or special and why you should choose theirs within that greater overall like-for-like category. This right here is the newly released Mikolo Falcon functional trainer and Mikolo figured out a way to do just that. It has dual 176LB weight stacks, a sweet knurled multi grip pull up bar, a bunch quality included cable attachments, free shipping, and (emphasis) best of all, the ability to turn each sides individual weight stack into a 1:1 ratio meeting you can utilize that full listed weight of the stack to do things like lat pulldowns and seated rows just by connecting two cable carabiners together. Let’s check it out!
Overview
Hey guys this is Michael with The Jungle Gym Reviews. Today we are reviewing the recently released Mikolo Falcon functional trainer. For those not familiar with Mikolo, they make everything from the budget offerings in the lighter duty plate loaded and functional trainer power rack combos, similar to like a Major Fitness or Ritfit, or some other Amazon brands, but then Mikolo also offers all the way up to your big boy 3x3 racks with 1 inch holes, and additionally even offers products like this full size functional trainer which competes with all the other big companies offerings like REP, Titan, Bells of Steel, etc. I’ll get into some more details later, but with the unique features this has and the free shipping Mikolo offers on all products, I think potentially provides even a better price per value and versatility than those name brands.
Price and Features
So at the time of filming this review, the Falcon functional trainer is $2279 but there is a $100 off launch coupon available on their website, and again that prices includes the shipping so you don’t have to pay extra. When ordering a product that is so heavy and has so much weight, that is huge benefit of included shipping so you are not docked for distance or weight. I think this crate that showed up at my house weighed over 800 LBS according to the freight shipping receipt I received.
As I mentioned before there are quite a few reasons why this Mikolo Falcon functional trainer differentiates itself from all the other weight stack functional trainers of this price range. Almost all functional trainers, including commercial ones, utilize a 2:1 pulley ratio which simply means that the configuration of the cables and pulleys effectively cut the perceived weight in half, so if you have 100LBS selected, you are only feeling 50LBS of resistance. The reason this 2:1 pulley ratio is typically used is because it allows for a lower overall starting weight, more weight increments for adjustability and progression, and longer cable travel, all of which are things people want in a functional trainer for various reasons.
The biggest feature of this Falcon functional trainer is the ability to switch between this typical 2:1 pulley ratio, and also a 1:1 pulley ratio, which allows users to utilize the entire listed weight of the stack, so if you select on 176LBS, you get 176LBS of resistance. What this means for a functional trainer is that you are essentially getting bonus functionality for the already existing price and footprint of a dedicated functional trainer and now you also have this additional 1:1 pulley ratio to utilize the entire 176LB weight stack capacity and capability to feel 176 pounds for lat pulldowns, lows rows, belt squats, etc. anything where you need a really heavy single sided movement.
The best part about this feature is that this transition from 2:1 to 1:1 pulley ratio is literally seamless, all you do is connect the two cable carabiners together and you are now ready to go. You don’t need to find a creative way to connect the separate weight stacks together to do a lat pulldown, or go buy some attachment like a Gym Pin, or Bare Steel weight loading pin (although both of these objectively are sweet for adding weight), but the point is you don’t have to find out a way to add more weight unless you truly need more that 176 LBS, but even in that case you don’t have to lug around 2-3 weight plates and should only need minimal weight added, so this really is a great plug and play feature.
Some of the other things this trainer specifically offers is this modular pegboard storage baked into the rack. I am now seeing more companies start to do, like with the Rep Fitness Arcadia and I really like this idea because everyone eventually ends up with so many cable attachments and you can either throw them on the floor, are limited to like 5 pre attached hooks, or have some sort of wall storage option like Wall Control which is located elsewhere in the gym. But this integrated pegboard storage idea, which coincidentally derived from people retrofitting actual pegboard to their trainers, allows for more user configurable storage and hypothetically endless options to store your attachments until you run out of room. I will mention quickly though, this pegboard Mikolo is using isn’t your typical round or standard pegboard holes, and it is square holes instead. Also the hooks that come with them are fine but don’t really stay in place easily and for some attachments that makes it hard to store them, because the hooks fall out very when you are taking of and on the attachments, so just don’t expect these to be as nice as some other true dedicated pegboard solution.
The last big unique feature of this rack besides some of the height and dimensions, is the multi grip pull up bar. This is super nice addition and reminds me exactly of a multi grip Titan cambered barbell I used to own, where the inner grips are angled for chin ups and then the next sequential grips are all for neutral grip pull ups. The knurling on this is perfect for just an attached power coated pull up bar with just a nice medium knurling. Its more aggressive than just the typical passive powder coated knurling that I have on my Inspire SF3 for example but not so aggressive like my Rogue Ohio power bar where it will rip up your hands from the twisting and rotation. So overall I just think this was a nice extra that allows you just more versatility and creativity to do whatever you want to do with this machine, which highly valued in home gyms that have limited space.
Rack Specs
So Mikolo has a full list of specs on their website, but I will list a few of the most important ones here. This trainer about 89 inches tall, which is nice height and equivalent to some of the more popular power rack heights. Being this tall allows for more height adjustment options for the cables and therefore also ability to do things like pullups or hanging leg raises better range of motion and not hitting your feet on the ground as much.
This machine is also a pretty wide as far as home gym-oriented trainers go, because the calbe uprights are 62 inches apart. This obviously allows for more room inside the trainer for various exercises and moving around, but more importantly a much better range of motion especially with dual cable converging movements like chest flys, rear delt flies, or cross arm lateral raises. I really really appreciate the width and it is hugely noticeable for me after 5 or so various home gym functional trainers over the last 4 years. This one really made me realize just how much I missed a nice wide commercial gym trainer for things especially like chest flys which just feels fantastic on here either standing or laying from a bench. The only downside to this cable width is that naturally the frame of the trainer itself is wider and is a pretty long 82 inches wide. However I will want to be clear, I personally like this footprint much better than my Inspire SF3 for example, which is much narrower but deeper, this one is only 33 inches deep which is perfect for my gym configuration where I have the lateral width to spare but more importantly the machine then doesn’t protrude into my active lifting floor area. Again, due to the width and height this trainer it feels much more like the ones at the gym where there just is plenty of space and you’re not forced to make a tradeoff into a small, little, cramped, corner machine.
Moving on to the weight stacks, as I mentioned before they are 176LBS on each side, start at 11LBS and moving up in 11LB/5KG increments when you use that 1:1 pulley ratio. If you are using thel 2:1 pulley ratio configuration you are using just half the aforementioned weight so rather than 11-176 LBS in 11 pounds increments you are going from 5.5LBS-88LBS in 5.5 LB increments.
Lastly, I wanted to mention the cable height adjustments. The highest pulley height setting is listed at 78 inches and the lowest at 11 inches. However, these are the locations of the cable slider trolley or carriage and not the exact cable height location where you pull from. The two cables are mounted closely in proximity together, again for when you want to make it a 1:1 ratio. However, when you are using just 1 cable, if you are pulling down you need to use the bottom most cable and when you are lifting up you need to use the top one so that they don’t hit and rub on each other. You can use the highest and lowest cables respectively, but what happens is the ball ends stoppers and carabiners of the cable will actually hit each other and cause some minor friction unless you use the one closest to you. This is totally not an issue at all, but want people to be aware that this then makes the actual usable pulley height, I measured, 14 inches at the lowest usable setting to 73 inches tall at the highest, so just keep that in mind in case that impacts your specific use case. It know it does make a difference if you are really tall or really short, or you want to do some movements like a triceps pushdown which typically is started from highest height setting or a belt squat which you would want the lowest, so again just food for thought.
Alternate Options
So as far as alternate options go, the problem with direct comparisons is that to my knowledge, not really any other mainstream functional trainer only options have this ability to switch from a typical 2:1 to a 1:1 ratio and do it this seamlessly. Because if this, you are really end up comparing apples to oranges rather than a parallel comparison to a standalone functional trainer like this. The only 1:1 cable options I have seen are the more all-in-one options like the Force USA G12 which has a smith machine and is twice the price, or a Jacked-Up Fitness Power Rack Extreme which is a power rack with a smith machine and a functional trainer, but is also still more than double this Falcon’s price.
If we were going to compare on a similar size profile and weight stack alone, I assume most people typically look would consider something like a Rep Fitness Arcadia Max functional trainer, their wider version, and it’s $2600 but only has a 2:1 pulley ratio. So then if you want to do heavy lat pulldowns you need probably want to purchase the additional $320 weight stack upgrade which makes it to a whopping 270LB weight stack per side, but then you still only have 135LBS of actual weight being used at each side because of the 2:1 ratop, which means if even if you still want to do these heavy single side movements, you need to purchase a weight stack pin like I mentioned earlier and load on some weight plates to add more weight. I’m guessing though just based on photos and reviews I have seen however, something like Arcadia Max is probably a slightly better functional trainer option, with a nicer fit and finish, more pegboard storage, etc. But for a $700 more and less out of the box functionality, that would be a hard pill to swallow.
Overall Rating and Thoughts
Functionality: 8
Features/Design:8.5
Fit/Finish: 7.5
Value: 8
Overall: 8
So overall the Mikolo Falcon functional trainer is a really solid option for those who have the width and height room for a “full size” home gym functional trainer and especially those who might not already have a lat pulldown, low row, or heavy singular cable movement option. I think that the ideal width of the trainer and the 1:1 ratio are really the selling point here, because if all you need is a functional trainer to get the job done, and don’t care about width or 1 sided heavy movements, then you can explore one of the endless small profile and more entry level options that exist in the $1500-2000 range from almost every manufacturer under the sun. I would say though, for just slightly over $2000 something like this lets you unlock all of the functionality and weight that most people will ever need in a functional trainer.
The overall smoothness of this machine is what exactly I would expect, it feels completely normal and what I consider average for a selectorized trainer. You go to use the trainer it feels as you would expect and boom, transaction completed. As I mentioned in prior reviews it doesn’t feel as snappy as my Inspire SF3, nothing does that I have tried so far, but this is directly comparable to my REP PR5000 selectorized weight stack lat pulldown. Some of the other things I liked again is the overall narrow depth is of this machine since it doesn’t invade the rest of my lifting area directly. They also include some pretty nice what I consider medium duty cable attachments that with some decent knurling, unlike the cheaper hollow or plastic attachments I have received with the previous budget all-in-one racks I have reviewed. The weight stack itself look very sleek and professional with included aluminum magnetic weight selector pins. Even the labels on the weight plates look very commercial style and aesthetically pleasing, and the weights themselves have built-in plastic dampers integrated into each weight plate so you never have direct metal on metal contact, so that is another design feature that has been well thought out.
Improvements
Some of the things I thought could be better is the overall quality control and some of the attention to details that you inherently miss at this more affordable price range. Absolutely nothing that would be a deal breaker for me, just more minor annoyances. The overall quality and fit and finish is just average. There were several things I had to fix out of the box like two pulleys that were rubbing against an internal cable guide inside the shroud, which resulted in a plastic grinding noise that I had to spend 15 minutes finding and adjusting to resolve. The plastic side shroud covers were annoying to assemble with just some self-tapping screws going into some floating plastic frame mounts. The decals were also hard to install as you had to take them off a little wax paper sheet thing peel this big flimsy Mikolo name sticker and trying to line it up and center it yourself which resulted in some minor bubbles and imperfections. The last minor issue is that the left carriage upright slider has noticeably more friction and is harder to slide up and down than the other side, so either the upright itself or the carriage tube is just a little too tight or maybe even not completely straight in all areas.
My biggest complaint out of all of them, is actually that considering this machine is featured to be able to do heavy one sided movements, there is no OEM option made by Mikolo for a lat pulldown seat or a low row footplate like you will see from other companies and/or rack attachment. So to me that’s a huge, missed opportunity since in my opinion the main use case for this 1:1 pulley is to be able to do both these movements specifically. You can for sure do them, but need to get creative with where you put your feet or how to keep torso on the floor during lat pulldowns. As I mentioned there are other brands that make these attachments that will fit this post and hole size, but I didn’t want to spend $300 for the sake of proving that point, but just know you do have options, albeit not from Mikolo.
All of these considerations I just mentioned are relatively minor in scale because the overall price per value for those who want this functionality and size on a functional trainer, is still just a no brainer. Also, for what it’s worth, even though this machine is it’s slightly less smooth than my Inspire SF3 trainer, I am definitely considering selling the SF3 because the width and other features this Falcon functional trainer offers just are more appealing to me personally as a user.
Signoff
Alright guys so that’s it, thank you for checking out this review of the Mikolo Falcon Functional trainer, as always if you have any questions please comment and I will be happy to answer or at least try. Please subscribe to the channel if you haven’t already and if you are interested in purchasing the trainer, please use the link in the description to support the channel. Thank you for tuning into The Jungle Gym Reviews, we will see you next time, take it easy, peace.
-Michael @TheJungleGymReviews
