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Anybody ever had one of the Konas with the Magic Link / double shock thingy? How heavy are those bikes? How do they ride, are they as magical as they seemed in the demo videos? Gotta be honest, I quite like the look of em.
Never owned one, but IIRC their reliability was somewhere between ‘chocolate fireguard’ & ‘80s landrover’
I owned a 2010 Kona coil air fox front and rear suspension, it was on the heavy side around 33lbs if I remember rightly, but suited my bad style of riding at the time. (Was moving from a full DH bike to more enduro riding) the rear shock was ideal as it had 6" for general harder style riding and when I managed to hit things badly it had another 2" of travel to help, I thought it was a clever bit of kit but it always lead to people asking questions.
Sold my old one for £550
Currently own a Sonder Evol 140mm
And I would imagine improved platform technology in shocks rendered them obsolete.
That I also assume as you never see this any more.
Must’ve been good for Yeti to take inspiration for their full sus bike range 😉
It was kind of the precursor to Canyon's shaleshifter, wasn't it? Except self actuating.
And as reliable as you'd expect a prototype automatic shapeshifter made by Kona to be.
I didn't own one to comment on reliability but did briefly ride a Abra Cadabra. It was surprisingly effective and noticeable, from the first pedal stroke. The designer went on to start Tantrum Cycles, which looks to be similarly deceased at the moment. Shame as it offered something different to platform damping or adding loads of anti squat.