A big part of what makes a Kona bike different from all the others is its longevity. We make bikes that last for generations. So when we come across people who still ride bikes we made in the early 1990s, we get excited. Here’s a cool blog post from Steve Behr, who’s now using his ‘93 Explosif to tote his little kid through the park. Atta boy Steve, good daddin’ on ya mate!
Send us stories of your tried and trusted Kona and we’ll share them with the world. Email to mitchell@konaworld.com
Amanda and her brand new Shonky Inc.
It was a cool fall evening, riders were arriving, everyone was getting pretty stoked. Larry from Freeride rolled in with a familiar box labelled Shonky Inc. We were talking about how we could give it away, wow we came up with a bunch of stupid ideas. I told Larry we’d think of one before show time. Ding- A Strip Off.
From the reasoning of the Dawg name to the best comic book authors, from the history of the Hot to a timeline of industrial music, Cory has the trivia, and the opinions to mouth off about it.
Everyone has their favorite bike. My personal favorite bike is either my Big Unit, or my single speeded Major Jake. But sometimes a bike emerges as an institution, and becomes something bigger than the individual bike. The Stinky has done that, and the Africabike certainly has. But for me, the Dr. Dew holds a special place.
It’s been a summer to remember in the Pacific NorthWest. Most summers, my dry weather (non fender) road bike gets out an average of 30 days. Last year being one of the coldest and wettest (remember Junuary?) on record, it was even less.
This year was special. From May until now (late August) the days have been glorious and warm and dry. Until this year, I’ve been riding a 2004 KonaKona that we built in a limited production run at Kinesis USA using Easton Scandium main frame and Easton Carbon stays. It’s been a joy to ride but after listening to our product manager Paddy White rave on about the new lightweight Haole steel road frame, it seemed like the right time to test his statement this was the best road bike he’s ever ridden.
Here is a shot of Kona Product Manager Chris Mandell somewhere in the Pacific Northwest product testing his 2010 prototype Stab. Photo by Brad Walton.
I commute by bike the 13 miles from Bellingham to Ferndale and on the way home one evening I spotted a guy pulled off on a side street with an unfolded map and a confused look on his face. I almost didn’t stop but then I noticed he was touring with a loaded bike and was obviously not from around here. Not even close.
I’ve ridden across the U.S., Indonesia, and Australia with countless people in all three countries doing ridiculously nice things for me along the way (like that one time, in Indonesia, when the volcano erupted…) so I figured this may be my chance to pay back a small portion of all those kind deeds.
Masayuki Ikeo (goes by Masa), is a Japanese college student from Kobe who had just finished a 6 month English speaking course in Vancouver. He was on day 2 of a west coast bike tour that would eventually take him to San Diego, CA.
After putting my CoilAir through its paces last year in the Alps, riding 300,000 vertical feet in 33 days, I came to the conclusion that Switzerland is a great place to test bikes. The combination of epic downhills, all day adventure rides, and generally unforgiving alpine terrain demands everything from a bicycle, and really allows the rider to see and feel the strengths or weaknesses within the bike.
I picked up a brand new Abra Cadabra from the Kona Europe offices in Geneva a couple weeks ago, and was really excited to check out this sweet addition to the Kona lineup, on some of my favorite trails in the Swiss Alps. First off I was pretty blown away by the look of the bike. The linkage is tight and compact, with clean lines and a swanky polished frame to match. I almost hesitated at getting the bike dirty, it looked so good. That thought quickly passed as the urge to dice up some Swiss singletrack overtook me.
It’s black and it’s simple, Kona’s new Lacondeguy Inc. frameset
Andreu Lacondeguy is hands down, tats out, one of the best mountain bike dirt jumpers in the world today. Sweet style, balls out aggression, and no bullshit, giterdone attitude. “I really wanted a bike that was clean and simple,” says the 20-year-old Clump rider from Barcelona, Spain. “Something made specifically for really aggressive tricks.” Yes, Andreu’s English is getting better. Over the course of the last year, Kona designers picked Lacondeguy’s brain to come up with a bike design that could live up to the talent and punishment of one of the planet’s most psycho gifted riders. The result is a bike made entirely of high-grade Reynolds 835 cromoly steel tubing. Embracing the snap and shock absorption of steel, and applying it using a stiff, oversized front triangle design, joined with a short, snappy rear triangle, all in the name of epic standover and premium performance, we’ve crafted a serious gem.
Can you guess what year this Humu was produced before I tore it apart and made it the ultimate bone crushing cruiser?
Look at it! Sexy ass green thing with cream and copper accents. I was inspired by the North American Hand Made Bicycle Show when I began to create my new Humu. I wanted something no one else had, but I also wanted a bike that could plough through almost anything and do it looking trick.
More and more people are getting hip to the variety of purposes bikes can be used for. In Indiana, the Bloomington Pedal Power company operated by Chad Roeder uses Kona Dews and some seriously burly looking trailers to haul tons of recycling and deliveries all over town. Here’s Chad’s report.
Hi Kevin! My friend and former Revolution Bike and Bean owner Brad Titzer gave me your email. He suggested I show you what we’ve been doing here in Bloomington with our Konas and custom trailers…I operate a delivery and recycling service for the downtown utilizing bikes and trailers. I have found that the Kona Dew series is the perfect bike for our purposes. I own an ’08 Dew Deluxe, and one of my riders uses an older “Dew”. Please see the attached pics for some illustration of our operation. Since May of ’08 we’ve hauled about 100 tons of stuff, and the business is growing! Anyway, I just thought you might be interested in how Kona has helped us achieve our goals.
To find out more about Bloomington Pedal Power contact Chad Roeder
