Going One Speed: The Kona Years (2011-2018)

I’ve never been a weight-weenie. By that I mean I’ve never weighted two identical tubes or tires to choose the one that’s a gram lighter, or drilled holes in anything on my bike, or bought some throw-away strength-or-service compromised lightweight part so the scale would display a lower number when I hung my bike on it.

Still, I’ve had a number of rides ended by torn lightweight rubber, broken XC rims, and cracked frames not to mention the sure terror of trying to ride classic XC hardtail geometry and Racing Ralphs down greasy North Shore trails and beyond. I look back now in my days of DH tires, CushCore inserts, four-piston brakes grabbing 8″ rotors, and beefed-up frames and wonder why I ever cared about it taking an extra couple minutes to make it to the top of the hill.

This ’14 Honzo replaced my broken ’13. Toxik Harald painted it a Bianchi Celeste instead of the stock green. The Medium frame was ~8lbs and acted as a mule for tonnes of NSMB.com product tests. It’s still going strong under my buddy ‘Bone Spurs’ Brent.

My second favourite Honzo of all time is The Beast. It combined a short-offset 170mm Durolux RC2, a -2° Works Angleset, and the chainstays maxed-long to chase modern geometry and it was ridiculously fun. It also has ‘the one that got away status’ as having too many bikes for my tiny space led to it moving in with my friend Terry.

The Kona years started not long after my friend Jaclyn led me down Pemberton’s Gravitrout Trail on my Niner One-9 with a 90mm stem and 71° HTA (unsagged). The terrifying experience combined with Kona’s first-generation Honzo frame – a 2012 model that hit the market in 2011 – opened my mind to the potential to use a single speed for more than XC riding. Since then I’ve owned a pile of Honzos, a couple Units, my Raijin, and the mulleted Ti-Explosif that was my last stop before my V1 custom Waltworks.

Being a riding addict, I usually own two bikes so I’m never at risk of equipment costing me a ride and for a lot of the years between 2011 and now both of those bikes were single speed. I’d overlap a Honzo with a more aggressive build, occasionally with a multi-speed drivetrain, and a fully rigid Kona Unit, or a Raijin for a bit, for XC riding. I say usually because I’ve always thought of bikes as adult-Lego, moving wheels and tires and etc back and forth to optimize for different applications.

Kona’s sliding dropout system has been unchanged for years. These SS dropouts came with my first Unit and were still going strong on my Explosif before I finally caved to run 142×12. They aren’t as clean as the swingers on my Walt but they are foolproof.

I tried a number of different 4″ suspension forks on my Explosif mullet before settling on the rigid from Walt matched to 3″ rubber. Aside from the carbon cranks that failed at the spindle, this is almost as good as it got. Magura MT7 brakes, Stealth hubs, SQLab 16° bars, and a 2.6″ ‘Laugher’ squeezed in the back. Just need to swap to push-on grips.

I loved the longer rear-centers of the Units, not to mention the less-gusseted ride quality, but if in doubt about what trails I was riding I would always reach for the Honzo. I would swap a lot of parts back and forth because other than the Unit’s little 27.2 seat tube everything was interchangeable right down to the dropout system. Speaking of the dropouts the consistent Kona sliders are not the cleanest looking setup out there but they’re functional as they come and I never slipped a wheel.

I don’t have a strong opinion on the best vintage of Honzo – and I think the best is still to come – but from a steel XC bike perspective, the 2013 Kona Unit in clear-over-raw is the ultimate example of the breed. It replaced my Ti Raijin after the Raijin frame failed and I sold it when the Raijin was repaired. Then ended up flipping the Raijin ASAP in disappointment because the Unit was a better riding machine.

From an XC hardtail perspective, I think the 2013 Unit is the best example of the Kona breed despite being a touch portly and lacking the Reynolds branded tubing of the later bikes. The geometry worked perfectly rigid or with a 110mm suspension fork.

The Raijin was the second lightest single speed I ever owned with a suspension fork, or later with a rigid fork and carbon wheels. It was a shocking revelation when I figured out that the ‘cheap’ steel Unit frame actually had a nicer ride on the trail if a decent amount more girth, with an apples-to-apples build, lifting into my truck.

I’m a few degrees of headtube angle away from owning a steel Big Honzo, with it’s longer stays and slightly higher BB, and certainly don’t think I’ve owned my last edition of the bike that doesn’t just have a name but a war cry: “HONZO!”It’s the bike that changed hardtails, and single speeding, for me nine years ago and while the geometry is dated these days there are a lot of progressive frames that owe it some DNA.

I hope you enjoyed the trip down memory lane and photos of *cough* some of *cough* the Kona single speeds I’ve owned. It sets the stage for what came after my Ti Explosif Mullet, which is my V1 and V2 custom frames from Waltworks.

[Hope you enjoyed! If you’re interested, check out Going One Speed: Patient Zero]

Going One Speed: The Kona Years (2011-2018)

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