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I've currently got a Last Herb FR which is 165mm and the first 150mm of travel is bloody sublime for trail/miniDH. Ramps up for drops and the like which is great for the 10ft drops I end up doing in the alps. Its currently 65° HA with 160 forks which is mostly fine but can be a touch too slack at times, super stiff rear end, will survive anything. The [b]only[/b] thing I don't like is the weight, 4.4kg/9.8lbs for frame+shock.
Its set up with 1x9, devilles, hope/flows, reverb and comes in at 33lbs. Have been looking all over the place for something that will cut the weight but still be able to handle itself in the alps and even *possibly* the odd Fort William 6hr DH next year.
The Helius AM seems to be ticking boxes at the moment and I'd swap all my bits over and put a Bos Vipr on the rear. Its main diet will be enduro racing so am I looking in the right place or are there other options?
Was thinking about the 2011 nukeproof mega but want a touch more travel, the new version doesn't do much for me at the moment.
Love mine.
On my 2nd Nicolai and can't see me changing brand for a long while.
Stunningly engineered,hand made piece of kit.
Super Stiff and not as slack as your Herb
No fancy gimmicks or sleek swoopy frames but just awesome performance
5 year warranty without many..if any clauses.
Perfect for my style of riding which is mainly Scottish Highlands..Cairngorms,Torridon,Laggan,Golspie etc
I also took it to the alps this year and it was perfect.
I now have it built up with Bos Deville 170+CTD on the rear,Flow EX on Pro2 Evo and Shwalbe Hans Dampfs,XT,Hope V2's..
I did run it with a borrowed Vip'r and that felt great.
It is not a bad weight and I can pedal it everywhere....
Take a look on mtbr/nicolai forum for some better advice.
Good Luck
Thanks for the tip on the mtbr forum, noticing some STW names on there so will ask further questions there. Ta!
I've got one, love it.
Ride it everywhere, trail centres, all day rides, alps etc etc....
Took a little bit of time to get just it setup just right (It was horrid the first few rides and I was very concerned I had made an expensive mistake). But stuck with it and once "dialed in" it is very confidence inspiring.
It occurs to me that a genuine (and I don stress that) 33lbs for a last herb with flows/reverb/devilles is pretty good. While I am a massive nicolai fan I cant help but wonder that you will get a meaningful weight saving.
I wouldn't doubt that the helius would be better, stiffer, stronger and lighter but lighter by how much? I recently shaved 2lbs off my bike and if I'm honest I struggle to notice it on the trail. I think you'll need to go carbon for tangible weight savings in the frame alone.
Love mine. 4th Nicolai.
My next bike will be another AM 🙂
Handles anything from XC to DH (though does not excel at the extremes of either obviously)
As a Gravity Enduro bike it is on the money.
Bought mine for the Mega this year. Spec'd on the 'robust' end of the scale and is around 32lbs (CCDB with steel spring). May get a Vip'r for my UK riding and keep the CCDB for Alpine trips
muddyfunster - Looks like I could save 2lbs on frame/shock, that's a decent chunk. but I see what you mean by meaningful...
re: current weight - It was 36lbs with 2x9 and air totems. Then went to to devilles, 1x9, lighter tubeless tyres. I think it could be about 32.5lbs. Its been a huge change dropping that weight so far, up/down/everywhere.
The Last is not quite right for my current riding, I seriously love the suspension on it and doubt the nicolai would be stonger/stiffer (the herb FR came out stiffer than a yeti 303DH frame) but it does come closer to my usual riding limits and drops a lump at the same time.
Carbon Covert maybe...
AM being replaced by newest AC and the new ION 16... If your planning to do more DH type stuff I would be thinking the ION as its no heavier that an AM and a bit more grrrrrr. For more trail and Enduro the AC would possibly be the better choice. I love my AM, had it three years and no plans to replace at the moment.
Thanks messiah, you've cleared everything up there. Now I know exactly which frame to buy next.
DB100... if I didn't have the AM I'd be all over the ION16. Much as I love my AM I'd like some of the updates they've added to the ION, and as there is no weight difference I'd go with the new.
My AM is my third Nic... I've not broken one which with my history is impressive... I'd like the light weight of a carbon frame but my experience with the material so far has not been good. I'd like to be proved wrong and discover how ace carbon is but I'm not going to pay to beta test stuff again so I'll stick with what I trust.
Nicolai fan boi signing off 😉
i had an original first batch AM, hated it. pedal strike everywhere and it carried its weight rather badly in my opinion. it was an incredibly stiff and straight frame however and the suspension action is excellent.
i px'd for a helius AC 29er. i love this bike. it's everything the AM wasn't. better suspension action, no pedal strike and a perfect blend of stiffness to weight.
then again, I'm only using mine for trail and XC, not the Alps, etc, but it's capable of just about anything.
Nicolai Fan Boi signing on!
Much as I respect TLR's view, his was a lone (and very much debated on the MTBR forum) view that no one else shAred. He's now a 29er convert and the Nicoali e-community is much happier that he's now (finally) happy with his ride 🙂
Messiah has made most of the comments I would also make. I'm on my second AM now and this one has fully tailored geometry. I ostensibly built a bike that is identical to what a medium Ion 16 will be when it's released. I had been informed of that bikes arrival when I was ordering the AM but chose the AM for its versatility ie the ability to run it in shorter travel settings so that it was more useable everywhere I ride.
The Ion does look like it will be 200g heavier than the AM; 3.3kg versus the AM's 3.1kg. That's not much but if you're looking to save weight over the Herb then every gram is going to count.
Personally I think the AM is an amazing bike. Super stiff, reliably made, fabulously strong and beuatifully engineered and a lovely neutral suspension action that while not super plush is still very effective and very neutral. it is this neutrality that I love so much as it lets so much information pass through the bike to you the rider and tells you what's going on under the wheels. I think the Ion 16 would also do this but it might not be so neutral in pedalling. I was told that they were aiming for the feel of the Ion 20 in a shorter travel package. Having owned and raced the Ion 20 (or the ST as it was then) I can tell you that that bike pedalled brilliantly and in some ways felt like a big trail bike, which was a great thing.
Over the Herb, if that weighs 4.4kg with shock, then you're going to save just under 2lb which is a decent amount. The AC would be the bike to have alongside the Herb but I think you'd miss what the Herb can do that the AC won't if you had one as a replacement. The AM I think will continue being popular with larger framed people like myself who want a burlier chassis than the AC but still want the shorten the travel, which the Ion 16 won't do. The choice of AM for me was about this; I'm 105 kg and I didnt want the AC because I wanted chassis integrity. I almost asked for a beefed up AC but concluded there wasn't much point in that.
If you're local to the south east (unlikely) then you're welcome to borrow mine for a test ride. I'm out with a broken humerus for seven weeks so I won't be needing it. We can arrange a test ride no problem. Mine is set up with a cane creak and weighs 30lbs (it's built as trick as you can get to keep the weight down) so it would be insight into
What a lighter bike feels like. It's between a medium and a large and has more or less the same geometry As the Current Last Herb AM.
Let me know if you're interested.
Hello again. There are loads of threads on here from us AM riders. We tend to fiddle with our bikes quite a lot and answer questions with lengthy replies. Here is a thread from last year about shocks.
[url= http://http://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/bos-vs-fox-there-is-only-one-way-to-find-out-fight ]Bos vs Fox fight[/url]
I'm currently running a CCDB coil and 55 RC3 Ti; very supple and ace at speed but a bit squishy and prone to pedal strike. I'll probably change them to something else this year. As GT says the platform is neutral so changing shock or tune is great fun as you can feel the difference. I've had mine down to 32lbs with a HammerSchmidt but usually it's 34. If I went 1*9 I could hit 30... and that's with no carbon.
Hmmm... perhaps I would still go for an AM over an ION 16?????