After seeing David at Mud Cycles’ amazing Ti Honzo in the flesh and spotting a couple of 30th Birthday Honzo ST’s rolling around New Zealand’s capital city, Bevan knew he had to have one of his own. He just loved the “clean and super simple lines”. In January this year, Bevan pulled the trigger and purchased a complete 2020 Honzo St as a second bike, before even riding it, he’d changed a number of stockpiled parts, over the next few months everything on the bike got upgraded. Fast forward to August and the hype-train for the Honzo ESD departed the station, “There was so much hype over the new ESD, but knew it wasn’t for me, I already have a long slack bike. I spotted the new Honzo ST frame on the website the day after the ESD was released and noticed the updated geo changes. I knew I had to have it! The next day I was on the phone to EVO cycles and the following day my 2021 Honzo ST frame started the slow journey to New Zealand.”
Those changes that Bevan referred to are a change from 68º to 66º for the head tube angle, and from 74.5º to 76º for the seat tube angle. The minimum length for the chainstays has grown from 415mm to 417mm and finally, thanks to the availability of 200mm travel dropper posts, the seat tube mast has been shortened by 28mm (on the size large).
Given his earlier 2020 Honzo ST purchase Bevan could pretty much swap every part straight across from his older Honzo, starting with the drive train. A well-worn SRAM X01 crank is mated with an affordable GX rear derailleur, cassette, and chain.
Wait didn’t I just say that Bevan was rocking an XO1 Crankset? After finishing his first Honzo build his drive side crank cracked, luckily a friend had cracked a non-driveside crank recently so he had this XX1 crank floating about.
Bevan had the 140mm Pike Ultimate on his first Honzo ST build but decided to swap out the CSU to a 42mm reduced offset version.
There’s more mix matchiness with the bikes wheels, Bevan was originally sporting a pair of Factor hubs but after the front hub died an ungraceful death it was replaced with the best color match he could find, luckily fo him it was a bulletproof Onyx front hub.
Those mismatched hubs are laced to a matching set of stealthy Stan’s Flow EX3 rims. Those rims are shod with a 2.4″ Maxxis DHR out the front and a 2.4″ Maxxis Dissector EXO+ out the back.
Bevan has opted to go 1º slacker on his Honzo Build and installed a 1.0-degree angle set from Works Components.
Braking is taken care of with a powerful set of Shimano Saint stoppers. There is a 200mm rotor up front and a 180 in the rear.
The cockpit is a OneUp affair, with a 35mm OneUp stem clamping a matching 20mm rise OneUp carbon bar in place, its all finished off with an EDC stem stashed in the steerer and a pair of DMR Deathgrips.
Bike Yoke 180mm Revive dropper post gets that seat well out of the way.
Spank’s Oozy 220 saddle is popping up on more and more dream builds with owners raving about its comfort and support.
Bevan set out to build a solid daily driver that isn’t too flashy but is reliable and we think this sweet Honzo ST has well and truly hit the nail on the head.
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