Nicolai Helius CC

[Ypsylon]

This is how I got into bikes. Yep, she's my first born.

I know she isn't very clean right now, but I thought I'd let y'all see her before her (and my) first race on Sunday. She's actually almost 5 years old and I'm really proud of her for having taken all the abuse over that long period of time of trail surfing, alp crossing, hell, she's even ridden up the lifts of some bike parks where I would not have ridden without my full-face helmet and my safety-jacket and always got to the bottom safely, even though I have to admit I was relieved when she got her bigger sister and I didn't have to put her through all that anymore.

Considering this bike was intendend for xc racing, I would say that's really something.

Almost all the parts on her have changed since I first got her, after a really long wait, I believe only the rear suspension, the deore fd, the pedals and the wheelset are still the same. Most parts I got used from a friend with the exact same frame and a little more cash to spend on new parts. I was always looking for reliable and not too heavy parts, so I was really happy to get my hands on some second hand thomson parts and race face cranks. The Vanilla fork is pretty heavy and I wish I could adjust the travel, but it just works flawlessly and looks great on the bike.

[Fibre-Lyte]

Nice looking mtb there Ypsylon, although I really think she deserves to be out in the sunshine for the photo

[Nicolai]

Very nice looking bike. It looks like Nicolai's come and spoiled the party, since everyone has run and left from their chairs. Nothing new then.

[Ypsylon]

I'll need to dig this one back out.

The frame is just a couple of months away from turning 10 years old.

It has seen way more punishment than love over the last couple of years. I really need to take better care of her.

The question is how, though. The first thing I need to change is the fork. This one is dead. Can't blame it after 7 or 8 years that included bashing it down Downhill tracks, which clearly was not it's intended use. The rear has 120mm of travel. The Vanilla has 125 and that worked fine.

The frame is not exactly light and so it wouldn't make sense to try and turn this into a race steed, especially since I don't race. It really should be more of a trail bike.

I was looking at the Fox TALAS that can be adjusted between 140 and 110mm, so 15 more and 15 less than the current one. IMO that makes sense.

Unfortunatly it's sorta expensive and won't work with my current wheelset.

With a new wheelset I'd have to decide if I wanted to keep regular derailleurs or put in a Rohloff speedhub. The frame has cable routing for both. That would put me about where a nice complete bike starts. Finding a deal on a fork seems pretty much impossible, too, since nowadays everything seems to have a tapererd steerer.

Any thoughts?