Mostly I’m just surprised by how heavy a Pro 5 front is, how’d they manage that?

I’d guess it’s those big old bearings that can fit a 20mm axle through them and the extra hub shell material required to accomodate them.

@TomZesty

I think when it comes to lifespan you have to factor design and build quality in just as much as the material. On the whole Nicolais are known for being well made and long lived frames. They use 7000 series Alu that’s more fatigue resistant than the 6061 most Alu bikes are made from (and more expensive, more difficult to weld). They’re also willing to make spares for just about any frame they’ve ever sold. I know a chap who got new chainstays for his 2008 Helius a couple of years ago. It took 12 weeks and he had to pay but they made them for him. I don’t own one but I have a lot of time for Nicolai.

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On a different level, for £7500 Geometron can sell you an essentially bespoke bike, with suspension travel and damping tuned specially just for you. This (along with the Atheron bikes’ similar level of custom options) makes spending £7k+ on a Chiniese made carbon bike look really, really silly. I weigh 100kg so saving 2 or 3 on the bike’s not a factor here.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens at Halfords.

I thought Halfords had stopped selling kona some time ago?

Good luck to the new/old owners, they’ve got a hell of a mess to clear up.

Bike thieves, they ain’t the brightest…

I’m fully expecting Nukeproof to continue producing bikes and retaining some key employees. It’s a well recognised successful brand producing cutting edge bikes and with a race team. It must be one of the jewels of Ashley’s purchase. Thoughts?

That’s not Ashley’s business model. He buys the brand name and iconography, but dumps the people, products and support to sell rebadged catalogue products. If I owned a Nukeproof/Vitus/Ragley I wouldn’t expect any support from the new ownership at all, not spares or warranty. Of course we could all be pleasantly surprised, but it would run against his past behaviour.

That’s brutal. From a business viewpoint, why on Earth do they have such a convoluted range? 30+ different models when it should be about 6 (E-Patriot, Alpine, Five, P7, Crush, RX9), that’s a heinous amount of tooling and jigs to be keeping track of and switching between all the time. On the face of it pricing doesn’t look too bad, bit more than a Cotic, bit less than a Curtis, but crikey that’s a lot of models.

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I hope they pull through, way back when I had a Prophet my buddy had a Five, the debates about which bike was the better one were endless. The next 12 months are looking to be just as brutal as 2023.

Why the BB strut?

A bent metal gusset would have to fit between the main pivot, bb shell and ISCG tabs. Doable but a mitering nightmare compared to the tube they’ve gone with. Doing it that way is probably more tolerant of tolerances too, if that gusset was at the bb it would need to be exactly right, if that tube’s 1mm high or low it’s still fine.