Is Kona Bikes good now?

jacklim

Is Kona Bikes a good brands? because I didn't see any Kona Bikes brand in the magazine I mean totally no. I wanted to buy a good bikes and some of the people said that Kona bikes are good but when I read the magazine I didn't see any Brand of the Kona bikes

cooldad

I ride a Kona, so they are obviously awesome.

But it kind of depends on the model, spec, what you intend to ride, and possibly the magazine.

Some more info would be useful, where are you? What kind of riding do you want to do? Budget?

Sackface

I've had a kona cindercone which I bought brand new in 2008, it's been a fantastic, very solid bike, did me proud on the London to Brighton off road last year, learnt so much from riding it and only recently upgraded to a full sus Canyon.

Will still keep the Kona and use it as my work hack as I don't think I can part with it.

cooldad

Being relatively small, they're not always the best value, and they have tried some strange suspension set ups, presumably to avoid having to pay royalties, but when they get it right they make lovely frames. Especially the scandium ones.

rockmonkeysc

The Process and Operator bikes are extremely good.
Just because magazines haven't tested them doesn't mean they aren't good.
Maybe Kona dont spend enough on magazine advertising.

cj11

I have had a scandium Dawg Deluxe since 2009, several other bikes have come and gone but nothing has really matched it. So in my completely unbiased opinion i would say yes Kona are a good brand. The process has had a lot of good press and i would probably invest in one if i could convince the wife we dont need a car.

paul20v

Kona here too , great bike love riding it allthou im using it at the moment as a road bike

Kowalski675

RockmonkeySC wrote:

Maybe Kona dont spend enough on magazine advertising.

There's a lot of truth in that. A lot of people don't seem to relaise that magazines (in any field) depend on advertising revenue, they could't survive on sales alone, so they're never truly impartial. Which means that you can't necessarily trust a glowing review completely, but you can pretty much always trust a terrible review, 'cos they don't like pi**ing advertisers off without good reason.

Northwind

Yeah, except that the Process has had stacks of positive press coverage, which is probably one of the reasons the 153's completely sold out.

Angus Young

These guys seem to think it's a bit special...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3JjsjA5u8w

(and there's a dog in the video)

Not to mention that 3 Konas made it into the dirt 100.

By the way, don't believe that old conspiracy theory about advertising.

Ryan Jones

Not to mention the uk national enduro series was won on a kona process 111. The 153 was categorically named as the most fun 27.5" bike ridden by dirt and is being tested solo against the top spec lapierre spicy which says a lot......just demo'd a spicy and that is some bike!

mattl80

not sure what the OP's been reading but kona have had more press in the last couple of years then ever.

Anyway kona are back and making some great bikes.

Kowalski675

Northwind wrote:

Yeah, except that the Process has had stacks of positive press coverage, which is probably one of the reasons the 153's completely sold out.

Hence why I said "you can't necessarily trust a glowing review completely". If press coverage for a particular model (of MTB, car, motorbike or whatever) is unanimously glowing, then it's probably true, but magazine reviews do need to be taken with a healthy dose of scepticism, whereas if they all say that something's shite, then it probably is.

Ryan Jones

Still scratching my head with all this "advertiser influence" malarky, I mean Whyte Bikes have the current WMTB bike of the year accolade, yet that magazine is hardly brimming with Whyte adverts. I also seem to recall the Specialized Hardrock getting a battering in a test a while back, and we know the companies make most of their money out of entry level gear, so why upset possibly the biggest boys in the business by slating it's big seller ?

It's largely irrelevant anyway, get a demo of the bike you like, if you can, as it's your opinion that counts most of all !

Northwind

Course, if you read a certain ex-Future staff member's furious tweet when one of his products got a mediocre review, you'd be forgiven for thinking some people expect good reviews from their mates

rockmonkeysc

Northwind wrote:

Course, if you read a certain ex-Future staff member's furious tweet when one of his products got a mediocre review, you'd be forgiven for thinking some people expect good reviews from their mates

I saw that one! To be fair, I have ridden that bike and thought it was very good.
There's also the personal opinions of the testers. Not everyone likes the same bikes.