All the Van Nicholas frames are named after the four elements of life. The elements provide their names, but not their toughest challenge. That’s where you come in.
Titanium versus the elements
Steel rusts. Aluminium has a fatigue life. And whilst the latest modular carbon fiber will last for years and never corrode, one small knock can cause hidden de-lamination that will weaken it irrevocably. Titanium does not rust. Period. The Titanium we use is mainly seamless 3AL/2.5V tubing - each tube is made with 94.5% pure Titanium (plus a little aluminium and vanadium to improve its ride qualities) with, unbelievably, a wall thickness of just 0.9mm. It does not need to be treated or protected from the elements. In fact, a good Titanium frame will almost certainly outlive you. It will keep going, whatever you and the elements throw at it.
Our names
Our road bikes are named after "air", like Astraeus, Zephyr, Skeiron, Boreas and Ventus. For our touring bikes, you see "water" in the names like Deveron, Pioneer, Amazon and Yukon. Those looking at our mountainbikes you see "earth" in the naming like Revelstoke, Tuareg and Zion. The final element is "fire" you can find these in our adventure bikes Rowtag and Nootau.