erwischt und schon fabrizierte ich ungewollt einen schönen Drift. Ich musste also meinen Fahrstil etwas mehr dem Bike und seinem Baujahr anpassen. Im unteren Teil der Strecke hat dann das „Trombone heizen“ schon ganz gut funktioniert und ich fühlte mich fast wie zur WM 1995. Es war echt heftig, wie man damals Downhill gefahren ist. Da hat sich in 15 Jahren schon einiges getan. Für mich war es eine Ehre, diese kleine „Zeitreise“ auf einem Nicolai Trombone unternehmen zu dürfen. Denn dieses Rad und diese Strecke waren ja im Grunde der Anfang meiner Nicolai-Geschichte. Schneidi Photostorywiththe NicolaiTrombone at Rappeneck I can still remember perfectly the trip with my club to the Worlds in Kirchzarten. It was in September 1995. I’d been riding cross for only a year and, even though it sounds strange now, I was in Kirchzarten because of the XC event. Nevertheless I was interested in downhill and went to check out the track as soon as we arrived. Of course I found it sick and totally crazy. Fifteen years later, I had the opportunity to do a bit of ‘time travelling’; old school meets new school. For the magazine Numeric, I was able to ride an original 1996 Trombone on the orginal downhill track at Rappeneck. Shortly before the photo- shoot I was able to do a bit of a tester…”Really rad”, I thought to myself. Nowadays such a bike would pass for a XC fully.Thin tires, a pre-loaded 100mm set-up and rim brakes. “Now this is going to be hilarious” I thought. After one or two stories from the old days, it was all systems go. In many places the track was almost exactly as it had been originally and for those days, really fast. The first spot was chosen. “Okay, at first take it easy at the beginning.” The bars were roughly half the width of my current 780mm Boobar, the set-up was on its limit over the smallest bit of uneven ground and the tires slid out in all directions. Braking procedure…no funny front manual…a small eternity later I came to a standstill. You had to be on these brakes from top to bottom. If you let go just once, you’d never stop. At least that’s how it felt to me. At many seemingly harmless points on the track, the bike, using my ‘new school’ style of riding, was on its limits at limited speeds. Catch the smallest of roots slightly wrong and you’d drift. I had to adjust my riding style more to the bike and its era. On the lower sections of the track with my riding style adjusted, the trombone worked well and I felt like I was back in the 1995 Worlds. Downhill was clearly really heavy going back then. In the fifteen years since, a lot has changed. For me it was a real honour to take this journey through time on a Nicolai Trombone. This bike and this track were the beginning of my association with Nicolai. Schneidi