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Firstly apologies for
the self-indulgent nature of this article, but like most people when
they get a new bike, I like to show it off! It also doubles as a
confession / apology of sorts to my long suffering wife, for a situation
that many of our customers will find themselves all too familiar
with!…
With our first
year under our belts and no signs so far of imminent bankruptcy, I
decided that with the summer approaching it was a good time to treat
myself to a new bike. I’d been riding all our demos over the last
year, and the one that suited my riding best and I enjoyed the most was
the Nicolai Helius CC, so that was the obvious one to go for. As a
custom build it also gave me an excuse to spend lots of time planning
the build and putting it all together, which I’ve always enjoyed –
so the project was underway.
A tense negotiation
process for a budget was then undertaken with my head of finance, but
Sarah finally gave in when I agreed to use as many of the spare bits I
already had to keep the cost down. That’s probably my last clear
memory, as with dull inevitably things then rapidly spiralled out of
control, in a haze of giddy ‘shiny new bits’ excitement.
It started when I put
aside a pair of the silver limited-edition Minnaar Formula brakes we had
in stock. Along with the silver anodised frame, suddenly the aesthetics
of the bike would have been ruined with my old bits. This justified a
silver Chris King headset, which in turn required matching silver King
hubs. A silver Race Face Deus stem then followed, and finally the silver
Deus chainset to complete it. With magpie-like glee I surveyed my wares.
With all those new bits though, it wouldn’t make sense to put on old
bits, so one thing led to another and suddenly there wasn’t a single
old part left – oops!
Reeling a little from
the guilty pleasure of it all, I reassured myself that there were sound
justifiable reasons for each of the parts, and started putting it all
together. Then as a final flourish, at the last minute I switched from
X9 to XO mechs and shifters. Ostensibly for the added performance
benefit, but admittedly probably mainly because the red detailing on the
logos matched all the other stuff better. And they make a much more
satisfying clicky noise.
I guess it’s probably
worrying and reassuring in equal measure that after a year of standing
the other side of the counter, I’m still a sucker for shiny bits of
bike kit. Much to my relief I still also really enjoy building them,
especially when it’s my own.
Put more importantly,
how does it ride? Well, it’s the best bike I’ve ever ridden, but
then I was always going to say that!
Dan
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