@atrokz: Okay, sorry, my fault, I was to focused on the Ion. It's in the middle of the night here and I just messed up, what I wanted to say. I'm way too tired to comment the rest of that stuff, you're way to personal and arrogant and I won't ever talk about nicolai, because every nicolai rider I know just freaks out. To some poor people these bikes seem to be more addicting than meth. @stooky: You don't want to understand my argument, do you? Just because Nicolais can be light if you just leave out half of the parts or use xc-parts, it doesn't mean the frames are light. The only thing I wanted to say, was that I don't understand the hype they make about Nicolai. But you don't want to understand that, ignore all my points and get insulting. I'm sorry for saying Nicolai does not use a horst-link, but you guys behave really childish and try to impute childishness to me. Good Night.

1) Yeah, but why are they way more expensive than other manufacturers? And you pay extra for everything. 2) As I said, I'm not against Single Pivots, FSR or whatever, just read my upper post 3)Yeah, but it costs even more. If I call..... e.g. Cove and give them enough money they'll probably also do that ;) 4)Yes 5)A friend of mine has an Ion that actually weighs under 17kg. With FR tires, Boxxer WC, no bash and only super light parts. Another friend has a Legend MKII wich also weighs under 17kg. With Boxxer Team, Minions DH tires, bash, normal parts. And the Legend is not a super light frame 6)look at your own #4). I'm studying mechanical engineering. 7)Oh, sorry, I can't remember saying anything opposite. Now you're getting personal. So that makes you an Idiot. Is it possibel that you're taking that way to serious? Yeah, I don't like them. And I explained to you why. I'm not a Nicolai hater, I have 3 friends that only own Nicolai bikes and I accept that. I'm out. It's always the same, I don't understand these Nicolai fanatics. If you ever say anything against Nicolai they just freak out.

hahaha :D

Suspension systems are just one point of my criticism. Your argument is invalid. Nicolai isn't even using a Horst Link system. I'm not against single pivots, they can be great, if designed intelligent. The TR450 is using a single pivot, which has the benefit of allowing the guys from Transition to lower the center of gravity of the bike by putting the shock so low down in the frame. I don't think that anyone at Nicolai ever had that thought.

@kmart14: You're totally right. There're so many good engineers in Germany, but nobody manages to put together a good, modern bike for a reasonable price. I'm not a fan of Nicolai at all, I think they waste their potential, their welds may be good, but I've seen lots of bikes from Taiwan whose welds were just as good. The suspension design on their bikes is from the last century, they look all the same, are quite on the heavy side, and are waaaaaay too expensive. Ok, they came out with the G-boxx, but this thing is damn heavy and ugly. All modern bike companies try to improve their bikes all the time, and come out with new gadges, like a low center of gravity, inner cable routing, new materials, new geometry, better suspension design and and and. I can't find anything like that on a Nicolai.

Oh no, I was really hoping he would get some really good results at the next round of the WC. I hope he's back ASAP!

There's an interview with Chris Tutton about "Race Face 2.0" here: http://www.mtb-news.de/news/2011/05/11/nachgefragt-wer-ist-race-face-retter-chris-tutton/ There is an English Version under the German one.

"Der" just means "the", so writing "the Der Kaiser" means "the the Kaiser" and sounds very weird. :D "the Kaiser" is just fine. Good article, though!

Mike Montgomery for sure!

I love it!