Kona 2016

http://www.konaworld.com/?utm_medium=em ... 016%20site

Not my bag of stuff of course, but interesting nevertheless. Some observations:

No Kapu this year so fingers crossed the 2015 get's some cheeky discounts for me :facepalm:
The rear clearance on the Honzo looks interesting!
Not a fan of the under bottom tube decals.
I'd like to try an Explosif and see if it's any good.

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None of it does anything for me at all. The more I look, the more I realise just how out of touch I've got with the newer stuff, and just how pointlessly fragmented it's all become.

The most modern (mountain) bike in our family fleet is my wife's Cinder Cone (itself getting on a bit now... about five years old.) It's the most sluggish pig of a thing I've ridden in years with no redeeming features whatsoever. (OK, the hydraulic disc brakes are powerful and consistent, but they also consistently drag in a way not seen since the cheap old single pivot calipers from the 80s... Vs were fine and a heap lighter.)

Also (and less importantly maybe) - what happened to attractive paint jobs? Gone are the luscious deep metallic colours and instead everything looks like it was attacked by a fifteenth-rate graffiti artist with rattle cans found at the back of their grandad's shed!

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OK, the hydraulic disc brakes are powerful and consistent, but they also consistently drag

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Sounds like a set up issue, hydraulic disks don't normally drag.

I'm still looking at my old Kona catalogues from the 90's in the same way as I did back in the day.

The good old days, never to return

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ajm":365sfyag said:

None of it does anything for me at all. The more I look, the more I realise just how out of touch I've got with the newer stuff, and just how pointlessly fragmented it's all become.



Also (and less importantly maybe) - what happened to attractive paint jobs? Gone are the luscious deep metallic colours and instead everything looks like it was attacked by a fifteenth-rate graffiti artist with rattle cans found at the back of their grandad's shed!

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I agree with both points, and for god's sake whatever you do don't look at Cube's website lol. The paint jobs are vomit inducing.

Putting the RTG's to one side, you've got to move with the times.

Interesting they've gone all out on road bikes (compared to previous years) but don't have a carbon frame (presumably because they don't have a race team). That new one, the Roadhouse looks looks vaguely like a Kapu and looks all purpose and I suspect would be a good ride.



(yeah yeah I know it should be on the other forum)

I'm curious about the sizing changes and the tweaks to the overall geometry that they've run now for a few years. Basically longer top tubes. That rings a few retrobike bells...along with more flex in frames...but hey, what do I know? I've never ridden a modern bike!!

I'd still like to try this out. (I can't get over how silly it looks with the 1*10 set up..."hey put those RTG's away!")

al-onestare":1msb8zqt said:

Putting the RTG's to one side, you've got to move with the times.

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Says who? I'm always sceptical when I hear that statement - mostly because there's nothing new under the sun and pretty much all these brilliant latest ideas are actually things tried in the past (maybe even a hundred years ago or more) and rejected for whatever reason; maybe just because they "had to move with the times!"

The road bike does look nice enough I suppose, at least it's not matte black...

On a slightly different but Kona-related note, does anyone else think that this page ( http://www.konaworld.com/about.cfm ) contains some nonsense, or am I going senile?

As an example - 1993; "Kona Hahanna and Fire Mountain are the first Kona Asphalt models, designated as, "Mountain Cross" hybrid bicycles with 26 x 1.50 slick tires. "

Eh? First I heard of it, and the 1993 catalogue seems to confirm my memory that these were ordinary proper mountain bikes with far from slick knobbly tyres...

ajm":3379vir8 said:

al-onestare":3379vir8 said:

Putting the RTG's to one side, you've got to move with the times.

Click to expand...

Says who? I'm always sceptical when I hear that statement - mostly because there's nothing new under the sun and pretty much all these brilliant latest ideas are actually things tried in the past (maybe even a hundred years ago or more) and rejected for whatever reason; maybe just because they "had to move with the times!"

Click to expand...

I suppose my point is more to do with at least taking a chance with the technology to inform an opinion. We're all guilty of poo-pooing the new, that's why it's RB after-all. Disc brakes on road bikes, when they get them spot on will be a big win I reckon. All the wheel variations on MTB's, less so and IMO not very appealing to anyone getting into the sport / hobby for the first time.

Anyway. I do agree, the schema's leave a lot to be desired. I wonder whether it's down to cost or the style just now. It's probably more of the latter. That said, last years Kapu was spot on - a great mix of retro and new.

I've just taken a look at the Konaworld site and I wonder why modern bikes are just so plain ugly.

Where is the finesse?

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The Roadhouse looks great (Hutch cherry metallic with black components: winner), as do the retro decals on the Explosif.

They posted a "limited run" titanium 29er Humu on Facebook recently, but it doesn't appear in the 2016 line-up. Unfortunately, the geometry is corrected for a gert big fork (or maybe not? That seat tube seems very slack):
http://cog.konaworld.com/get-them-while ... right-now/