“I manage a bike shop in downtown Denver that doesn’t sell Kona. I worked for years at Savagetti (RIP) and am pretty familiar with Kona products. In fact, my very first MTB after coming to bike shops with a lot of road background was the very first Honzo. Over the last ten years, I’ve become primarily a mountain bike rider. Colorado’s steep, loose, long descents are just too good. Our preseason bike boom left me without a trail bike at peak season. Like many of us, bikes are my mental health therapy in addition to being my career. I had a new trail bike on backorder but it was going to be quite a few months out. I dug through my parts bin and realized I had a whole bike’s worth of nice parts and began the hunt for an awesome steel hardtail with progressive geometry that would work with my Lyrik fork. None of our partners sell steel hardtails and there aren’t a ton of steel hardtails that will play with a 150mm fork. The Honzo ESD had just been released, a GX shifter, derailleur, cassette, a headset and a BB later, I had myself a Rippin hardtail.”
And we should probably mention the drivetrain eh? Jon’s ESD is propelled by a set of HT T1 pedals connected to a Race Face NextR crankset with a CINCH PowerMeter and Cane Creek Preload ring, the crankset is sporting a 34t oval Race Face ring. Out back you’ll find a SRAM GX Eagle Lunar cassette and 12-speed derailleur.