94 kona aa finished full XTR 97 kona a'ha singlespeed cruzR

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Really nice bike the AA. I had one - very stiff and positive ride; with the Middleburns it just goes forward with every pedal stroke! If it helps, I played around with 80mm travel forks but settled on the original spec of 51mm travel Marzocchi with a 110mm 7 deg stem & flat bar - made a big difference and was much sharper but still stable enough on flat-out fire roads. I think the rigid fork equiv. would be about 390 / 400mm axle to crown.
 
Thanks for that mate, aim in a bit of a quandary with the forks, unfortunately I let the OE zocchis go, dis you just refit them? Ian currently at the afan forest in wales and really struggling downhill fully rigid! Uphill and flat singletrack and fireroads are a dream, moves very fast indeed. Note to self don't bring a fully rigid xc bike to rocky downhill areas of wales! I'd have been better off riding my singlespeed
 
I spent a small fortune on some very nice near mint XC700 with Enduro seals, upgraded the steerer with an Easton Alloy 1 1/8th tube and tuned the forks with a mix of 5wt and 15wt oil. Dead easy fork to service too.....

Originally, I got the Kona AA with some Manitou 1 (or 2) but managed to royally bu**er the elastomers with WD40. Not really recommended since they can hit the cable guides on the downtube. Then Manitou Magnums with 63mm travel which were pretty shoddy (just a spring and elastomer damper in one leg), then some 80mm REBAs which just destroyed the whole bike handling. Kona geometry really hits the sweet spot and IMHO they merit a shorter travel to preserve it. Perhaps an early Marzo Bomber may be a burlier option.
 
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