Lightweight Rigid Frame
The Quickie Nitrum Rigid Wheelchair is the successor to Quickie's best-selling Helium, and features a number of incremental improvements that make it a much more impressive chair. It retains the same ultra low 7.5 kg chair weight and 5.2 kg transport weight of the Helium, thanks to the oval tube 7020 aluminium frame. This oval tubing uses just 71% of the material of a round one with the same diameter, and also means that accessories clamped to the frame won't rotate, so need less material.
The redesigned backrest bracket and follow forged castor forks reduce excess play, further rigidising the frame, so less of your energy is wasted to flex.
There are 2,880 frame configurations available on the Nitrum, compared to 1,536 on the Helium - ensuring it provides a customised fit optimised to you. This can then be fine tuned with a wide range of adjustments, including COG, castor height and angle, footrest position, front and rear seat heights, and more. The end result is a super-light, high-performing chair with a perfect fit that can adapt to changing requirements.
Nitrum Hybrid
A "Hybrid" version of the Nitrum is also available (pictured in red, and in silver), which features a dual-tube frame for enhanced rigidity and a higher weight capacity of 140 kg (compared to 125 kg on the standard open frame). The lower tubes are raised to reduce the size of the Nitrum Hybrid when transporting it compared to traditional box frames.
The Hybrid version is 3.5kg heavier than the regular Nitrum - we would recommend it in two circumstances. Firstly is when the additional weight capacity is needed. The second is if you are exclusively using your wheelchair with a power add-on, which means the additional weight is not such a problem. The Hybrid frame is even stronger than the regular frame and is better able to cope with the rigours of using a handbike off-road.
Transport
The draw-string release mechanism on the old Helium has been replaced with a rigid and sturdier backrest release bar. However, we would recommend upgrading to the twist to lock backrest that can be operated with one hand - a flick of the wrist is enough to release and fold the backrest. This makes the Nitrum one of the easiest chairs to lift that we have come across, and is perfect for car transfers. This is further enhanced with the optional fold-in sideguards, reducing the transport size and helping ensure the sideguards aren't lost.
Options
The standout new feature available on the Nitrum are the integrated LED lights. While these may initially seem a gimmic, they are useful when going out late at night, or in the early morning, and provide a much neater solution that trying to attach third-party bike lights to the frame. They are ultra-light, and the powerpack can be removed for recharging and to save on weight when not needed.
All the other options you would expect on a premium wheelchair are available on the Nitrum - including a range of carbon upgrades such as sideguards, footplates, axle and castors that keep the wheelchair weight as low as possible. Industry standards such as Spinergy wheels, Schwalbe tyres and Ellipse handrims allow you to further upgrade and personalise your Nitrum.
Style
Quickie are renowned for their head-turning style, and the Nitrum is the pinnacle of this development. It is available in a choice of 32 frame colours, with a wide range of accents and highlights, so your Nitrum can be sporty, sleek, elegant, flashy or understated monochrome. Our demo Nitrums are both in the ever-popular matt black, one with bright orange highlights, and the other a more sleek blue.
Our Verdict
The Nitrum is not a revolutionary upgrade on the Helium - instead the accumulation of 10 years' of experience, resulting in a series of incremental improvements that make the Nitrum a much more refined all-round chair. Quickie have also been able to reduce the cost on it through manufacturing improvements, so despite being a better chair, it is also cheaper than the Helium!
Quickie boast that the Nitrum is the lightest adjustable aluminium on the market, with a mere 5.2 kg lifting weight (7.5 kg total weight). While there are other adjustable chairs out there (notably the Rogue 2) that boast a slightly lower weight, manufacturers measure weight in different ways, so the numbers aren't always clearly comparable
We feel that the Nitrum is a highly impressive chair for those after a top-end aluminium adjustable model. It is worth trying alongside Ki's lighter equivalent Rogue 2, Progeo's Joker and Joker R2, and TiLite's titanium ZRA to see which works best for you.
