Ever since I first cast my eyes on a Nicolai bike I have dreamed of owning one. From a design and construction perspective, they are, for me, the best looking mountain bikes on the planet. The quality and precision of the Nicolai engineering process is just awesome. So many bikes (especially the burlier offerings from companies like Specialized) have had so much post-function styling development work that they often lose their sense of purposefulness. The original Demo 9 for instance – quite attractive, but so much of the detail and the complexity in the frame construction is non-functional. I think Specialized actually released a video which demonstrated the process whereby the engineer responsible for designing a functional frame passed his functional (but to the marketeers – dull) design on to another engineer whose responsibility it was to turn the basic frame into something with a wider aesthetic appeal. Wider not necessarily meaning better.

Nicolai bikes on the other hand exemplify the beauty of hard, cold function. Nicolai bikes don’t feature superfluous stylistic additions. The tubes are round section for main frame elements and rectangular section for the rear end. No convoluted hydroforming in evidence anywhere. And while recent innovations / fads (delete as appropriate) such as tapered or 1.5″ headsets are possible, they like to stick to the tried and trusted (and relatively lightweight) 1.125″ standard. Bikes like the Ion ST are designed and built purely for purpose. The images below illustrate the visual appeal of such an approach.

The Helius AM is Nicolai’s popular All Mountain bike. The Helius AFR is more freeride orientated, and probably a bit too burly for what I have in mind, and the Helius AC is more of a tough trail bike.

As far as I can work out, the Helius AM is pretty much spot on spec-wise. 160mm travel (adjustable from 130mm), with the possibility of using a Cane Creek Double-Barrel shock. The head angle is slacker than my Whyte, at 66.5deg (vs 67.7 on the Whyte). Seat angle is steeper, at 73.2deg (vs 69.9). The wheelbase is longer too. As such, the bike should be more stable at speed, but still easily manoeuvrable, especially with Talas forks (if I do choose to swap them across).

Hopefully I’ll get a chance to demo one soon.

As well as being the year of La Marmotte (and all the associated training obsession, dieting and component envy) I have decided that 2011 will also be the Year of All Mountain Action.

This has come about for a number of reasons. I have spent the last couple of years meaning to make the pilgrimage to the Alps to ride downhill, but with the launch of the new business my schedule has really been too busy, and committing to dates far in advance is not that easy either.

Also, though the south east is home to plenty of quality singletrack, mini downhill runs, jumps and other challenging trails, it is not the same as riding at high speed over rocks, big rocky drops and all the other challenges that Alpine DH trails present. As such, when presented with such trails, you have two options. Either take it very easy at first, or jump in at the deep end like your 12 year old self would’ve done. I tend to gravitate toward the latter option, and consequently find myself getting injured. For example, my last trip to the DH area at Cannock ended up with me sporting a snapped metacarpel because I refused to not follow the other guys off one of the big drops, even though I hadn’t touched the big bike (now sold, thankfully) in nearly a year. With the training for La Marmotte already underway, I certainly don’t want to find myself in hospital after a last minute and ill-thought-through weekend of downhilling 4 weeks before I’m due to be halfway up the Galibier.

Now, it’s clearly possible to injure oneself on far lesser trails, but for me the bottom line is – if you’re not riding a big bike down big scary trails with a fair degree of frequency then you’re probably far better off concentrating on aspects of riding that are less likely to cause severe trauma if you cock things up. Because cocking things up is what tends to happen if you’re not doing it every weekend.

All Mountain riding is obviously as much of a marketing term as it is an approach to riding, but out of all the disciplines that I’ve practised over about twenty years of riding mountain bikes, the proper mountain action has left the best memories. Climbing up and then hammering down Mt Toubkal in the Moroccan High Atlas, after having ridden the bikes there from Calais. That was in 1997, and I can pretty much remember every day of the trip. The bikes weren’t really up to the job of getting us down the hill as rapidly or with as much style as could be accomplished with something more modern – mine was a fully rigid Marin Indian Fire Trail. And I didn’t actually make it all the way down – I managed to fly over the bars and smash my nose and wrist into a rock, necessitating medical evacuation by mule. But it was jolly good fun up to that point.

A trip to South America in 2004 re-ignited the big mountain love affair. Dave Hemming at ATB Sales persuaded me that the recently released Whyte 46 would be the best bike for the job. The job being riding up and down mountains and volcanos around the Chilean and Argentinean lake district. The Whyte was amazing – light enough to climb a very long way up Volcan Osorno, and then with enough travel and braking power to turn a whole day’s climbing into the fastest descent that I’d ever ridden.

The Whyte (see pictured above, on the left next to Alex, at 5600m in Ladakhi Himalaya) also proved itself on my 2006 trip to India, detailed at length in Fear and Loathing in Ladakh. The bikes covered about 500 miles on and off road, lung bursting ascents and savage descents. The descent of the Sach Pass especially was viciously rocky and steep, and the 46 (which was loaded, as was I) dealt with it with unbelievable poise and balance.

Since then, I’ve used it for everything from pootling in the woods to endurance racing. The iconic Maverick fork which came to define the 46 in its early years were retired some years ago, replaced with a pair of 09 Fox 36 Talas RLCs. The Mavericks were impressively light, but did have a tendency to deviate at speed, particularly under heavy braking. The Fox forks have been much stiffer and more precise when things get fast and steep.

However, the bike is getting old, and I’m looking for a replacement to take to the hills in 2011. There are so many epic rides around the UK that I want to tackle – big days out like the loop on Snowdon that culminates in the descent of the Ranger Path. Also, some of the big rides in the Lakes, the descent of Rossett Gill maybe. And Scotland too – the West Highland Way is quite high up on my list.

The Whyte 46 has been replaced in the Whyte range with the all-carbon 146. An amazing bike by all accounts, and one I hope to try out soon. However, for the duties that I have in mind, I wonder if it might be a little too racy, and not quite butch enough.  A test ride is definitely necessary.  What I think I’m really after is something a bit heavier, a bit tougher. 160mm travel, with the possibility of swapping in a coil shock. I don’t mind pushing a few more pounds uphill as long as the descending prowess is markedly impressive. I’m not after a mini DH bike (much as I would love to try machines like the Transition TR250) – no, the bike has got to be adaptable and pedal-able. Also, as something of a tart, and with a custom English road bike on the way, I’m not really interested in something off-the-peg. This bike has got to be special. As such, my shortlist at this stage is:

Nicolai Helius AM
Ibis Mojo HD
Intense Slopestyle 2
Whyte 146
Transition Covert
Cove G-Spot

I will put some background info together on each of these machines, and add to it when I get a chance to demo them. Incidentally, as far as Whyte are concerned, I am also really keen to try out the 19C. I’ve never ridden a proper XC race bike (well, not since the Indian Fire Trail I took to Morocco, and that ended up getting pinched in London back in the late 90s) and I’m quite keen on the idea of using some XC racing as pre-Marmotte preparation, so hopefully I’ll get to test one sometime as well.