Yeah, practically my suspicion is that Nicolai have made something that is exactly par, just that the rest of the setup is so solid and dialed that it becomes noticeable, whereas more lightly built stuff, those effects get fully masked by other flexiness or untoward behaviour.
Horst link with stiff enough seatstays to allow for meaningful side loads on the rear tires necessarily produce loads here, all one can do is reduce the length of the rocker arm that drives the shock so that the overall lateral deflection that emerges from the bearing tolerances on the other end of that rocker - this is the one area where the Nicolai frames with their very beefy arm is still limited by the need for it to move without much resistance, meaning there is some play in the bearings which translates to more lateral movement at the shock... all you can do is accept the kinematic compromises with having a smaller pivot arm for that location which usually results in less mid-stroke sensitivity, but overall slightly better side load performance (see Commencal Meta and Nukeproof Mega, or Rocky Mountain Instinct/Altitude layouts)
Sept. 23, 2020, 9:25 a.m. - Tehllama42
Yeah, practically my suspicion is that Nicolai have made something that is exactly par, just that the rest of the setup is so solid and dialed that it becomes noticeable, whereas more lightly built stuff, those effects get fully masked by other flexiness or untoward behaviour. Horst link with stiff enough seatstays to allow for meaningful side loads on the rear tires necessarily produce loads here, all one can do is reduce the length of the rocker arm that drives the shock so that the overall lateral deflection that emerges from the bearing tolerances on the other end of that rocker - this is the one area where the Nicolai frames with their very beefy arm is still limited by the need for it to move without much resistance, meaning there is some play in the bearings which translates to more lateral movement at the shock... all you can do is accept the kinematic compromises with having a smaller pivot arm for that location which usually results in less mid-stroke sensitivity, but overall slightly better side load performance (see Commencal Meta and Nukeproof Mega, or Rocky Mountain Instinct/Altitude layouts)