Nicolai Nucleon: Suspension
Suspension Design
The Nucleon is a departure from predominantly FSR / Horst-link style Nicolai bikes from the last decades. Fun fact: Kalle Nicolai worked with Horst Leitner in California before starting his namesake brand.
It’s a single-pivot design which pulls a linkage to drive the shock. A pulling linkage is always preferred to a design that pushes the shock: just think of a car pulling a caravan - it stays inline. But, if you try to reverse and push the caravan it will go off in different directions - the same happens with pushing or pulling a shock, and a shock being forced out of line will create stiction and premature wear.
A single pivot may have some downsides, but using a linkage the shock leverage ratio can be altered and the high-pivot Supre-Drive system can adapt the pedalling characteristics.
The Nucleons’ main single pivot is at the silver bearing cap on the left-hand side. The silver cap on the right-hand side connects to the pull link which activates the rocker and drives the shock.
Kinematics
The shock is attached to the silver mount: this part doesn’t move, but the main pivot goes though it and it’s bolted to the frame. This should move bottom-out forces away from the frame tubes which should avoid any cracks - something common when shocks are mounted to a downtube.
Anti-squat is around 120% in the easiest 5 gears (which are the ones that matter) and it pedals extremely well, almost feeling properly locked out under power, in fact, the harder you stamp on the pedals the firmer it gets. My shock doesn’t have a lockout so this is ideal. The AS increases a lot through the gears which means it sprints well at high speeds, but I find at higher speeds bikes already pedal well as acceleration is less than in easy gears.
Anti-Rise is around 92% at the sag point which I think is ideal. One characteristic of the G1 I didn’t always like was the lower AR figure which is around 45% at sag. I prefer a higher AR to keep the rear suspension sat in the travel without pitching the mainframe forwards under braking: a stable chassis is key to confidence and bike control. If the chassis pitches forward it is unnerving and there is less weight on the rear wheel to grip and brake. This bike is exceptionally stable under braking with my suspension setup as there is no noticeable chassis pitch even when braking extremely hard.
There is some pedal kickback, but it’s not noticeable when climbing techy stuff or heading downhill.
The leverage Ratio drops from just under 3.4 to just under 2.2 at full travel. This is a progressive bike (similar to the G1), which is something I have lost interest in in recent years. My testing and experience show that a more linear bike is much easier to ride as it is more predictable, the suspension is easier to tune, mid-stroke support is superior and bottom-out resistance is actually better with a properly tuned shock (this was discovered with a lot of data testing) and is probably the main reason I built the first steel Aston-A-Tron with Egerie.
The problem with too much progression is you get a harsh ramp-up towards the end of the stroke and more g-force put into your body. It also makes it difficult to find a good balance between the front and rear suspension when the fork’s air spring is tuned to have that ‘coil-like feel’ which is linear and trying to match that to a progressive linkage is tough. This was the only part of the ride that I couldn’t easily tune to my liking as even though my dynamic riding position/sag was spot on, but, the rear would dive more through the mid-stroke than the fork creating an imbalance. You can band-aid this with more and more damping, but then the bike can get too hard and less travel will be used overall.
The benefits of a progressive linkage are that the bike feels more playful, pops easier if you drive it deep into the travel and generates speed well when pumping.
Fork and Shock
Probably the best SC fork money can buy…
…and the shock with the widest range of adjustment on the market meaning extremes can be tested without needing to re-tune.
The frame is only one part of the pie, suspension and setup play a bigger role than the actual kinematics of the frame. This superbike is built with a customised Edge RRT fork (full review here) which has a linear air spring and custom-tuned Manitou Mezzer RRT damper inside.
The rear shock is another special from Rulezman: a classic Cane Creek Double Barrel with some Ohlins donor parts and custom-tuned, of course. We set the bike up with a slightly softer spring than I needed with some added preload to smooth out the linkage progression slightly, and a regressive damping curve to make sure the end stroke travel was usable and avoid harshness.
Flex
The front end of the Nucleon is super stiff, the rear end, on the other hand, is pretty flexy: you can actually make the swingarm touch the seat tube quite easily if you grab the saddle and the rear wheel and push/pull.
I prefer some flex in the rear of a bike, while some like super stiff bikes. Flexy will be less responsive under pedalling, but this ain’t no XC bike, so the flex helps the bike to track across cambers and deflects less of angled rock and root.
The swingarm will touch the seat tube with a push and pull. No evidence of this happening on the trail but that very long swingarm has some flex.
I’m also fairly lightweight at 73kg in riding kit. I’ve heard from another test rider he found the Nucleon to be too flexy, but he is around 105kg kitted up.
Remember, the suspension only works up and down in a straight line, whereas an MTB hits all sorts of objects and gets leant over in all directions. Alloy material is more springy than steel or Ti and I still prefer the flex and grip of my custom Egerie bikes, but this bike plows a beautifully straight line through really rough sections and when leant over will track and grip offering massive confidence. This is matched well with the tracking of the USD fork and the super short offset thanks to the EMRG VPH headset giving a 40mm offset with the 29” wheel.
On Trail
So, how does this add up on the trail? Exceptionally well. This Nucleon is very stable under pedalling and cruises up easily with no lockout switch needed. At the opposite end of the scale, braking in the steep shows no forward pitch when hard on the levers and without leaning my body back at all to compensate. It loves to jump the bumps, but then land hard on the brakes to scrub speed before turning.
Sag was set to 30% rear and 25% when horizontal so closer to an ideal 30/30 when descending. This means a great central riding position giving an easy balance between the two wheels to feel and adjust grip accordingly with subtle body movements.
Small bump sensitivity is fantastic and this bike drives, pumps and pops really well. Bottom-out resistance is also exceptional at both ends even with a lot of sag. As mentioned about the progressive rear and the linear fork, when really nitpicking about the ride the rear of the bike does bog slightly in the midstroke compared to the front, but it’s barely noticeable unless you are hunting for it.
Next Article, coming soon: Supre Drive
Funding
I buy all the products you see on my site at full price or through online sales and these independent reviews are 100% crowdfunded by you guys buying competition tickets. This month, you can this fully custom Nicolai Nucleon dream machine!
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Thanks, Paul.