I kinda fell into this bike through a series of strange events, my originalKona Jake The Snakedestroyed its derailleur hanger (and a nice Chorus 10S derailleur) on a muddy ride through the woods, necessitating a trip to the Kona dealer, Ozone Bikes. While at Ozone, I saw this bike on display and took a nice long look at it when the owner of the shop told me he would “Make you an AMAZING deal on that bike”. That deal turned out to be over $1000.00 off retail, as it had been a demo all through SXSW, and had seen a few hundred miles. Since I’m traditionally a rather frugal German, I liked that idea, and bought it a week later.
It’s still set up mostly as it was purchased other than swapping the narrow 42 cm Kona branded bars and short stem for my 46 cm/120 mm 3T setup from my previous bike. I’ve fooled around with a few different tire setups, even running the original Challenge Grifos tubeless for a while, but right now she’s shod with Gravel King SKs of the 35c variety.
I use it for everything from commuting and adventure riding, to just roaming around and of course, this fall she’ll be my race bike.
Cogito, ergo, zoom 