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Thinking about having a 2nd hand Nicolai Helius FR, how can I work out what the rear wheel travel is if the current owner doesn't know?
It will depend on the age.
If it's the Kawa Green one on eBay currently it should be 170mm.
From about 2008 onwards they looked like this and were warrantied for 180mm forks (565mm A2C, i.e. a totem, which is what a lot of people wanted to run them with) and had 170mm of travel:
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If you know what year it is and the number of shock mounting positions on the linkage then I would contact Nicolai UK as they'll probably know.
I would be pretty sus of a seller with a Nicolai who doesn't know as Nicolai owners are pretty anal about their bikes (I ride a CC so speaking from experience).
Earlier FR's had 115-167mm travel later ones only 2 positions - 155 / 172 mm
What if it's pre 2008?
Is 170mm the maximum at the back end for 2008 onwards?
This should also help:
[url=
FR Tech Sheet[/url]
Also point me in the direction of the frame you're looking at and I should be able to help you more specifically.
If it's pre 2008 then it may still have 170mm of travel (max will be 163mm whereas the newer one would be 167mm) but it won't be warrantied for a 180mm/565mm fork. The maximum you'd be able to run is a typical Fox 36/RS Lyrik 170mm/555mm fork.
It will however be lighter and would be a better trail bike in my view than the newer FR, which was always a bit of a beast weight wise. The geometry of the newer FRs was also a bit misconstrued. For a bike with that much travel and a Totem up front, it should have been 15mm lower and 2 degree slacker in the HA (which is basically what the AM became and the Ion 16 that will eventually replace the AM).
Just buy it and stop fannying around.