Great write up Cam, very thorough and informative, will be interested to hear if you do any more tweaking with the shock and/or a swap to see if that might help the repetitive hits thing. Would be curious to know the actual ESTA at your saddle height and what that height is. Kona seems to like keeping Stack not too high, most likely as you say to accommodate a wider range of riders, but if you're taller, then unless you run a higher rise bar and instead run spacers, you loose Reach.
As to the last changes you made to the cockpit, yeah, when the body's not 100%, especially in that area, you'd feel the slightest "outs" that you don't notice when the body is good and adapts to small stuff.
Curious Cam, have you ever ridden a short travel bike with the right geo on the NS or is that absolutely not your thing? For me speed is a "killer" and the extra challenge of less suspension, keeps speeds down and the challenge up, but once the geo is there, I find you can ride almost anything you can on those long travel bikes, just a slower.
To the specing of that dropper, most likely it was part of the whole drivetrain/suspension package, thrown in at a serious deal to try and help get them out of the warehouse, because as you said, royal PITA and expensive when there's loads of lower priced and better options out there.
Dec. 6, 2024, 7:02 a.m. - Lynx .
Great write up Cam, very thorough and informative, will be interested to hear if you do any more tweaking with the shock and/or a swap to see if that might help the repetitive hits thing. Would be curious to know the actual ESTA at your saddle height and what that height is. Kona seems to like keeping Stack not too high, most likely as you say to accommodate a wider range of riders, but if you're taller, then unless you run a higher rise bar and instead run spacers, you loose Reach. As to the last changes you made to the cockpit, yeah, when the body's not 100%, especially in that area, you'd feel the slightest "outs" that you don't notice when the body is good and adapts to small stuff. Curious Cam, have you ever ridden a short travel bike with the right geo on the NS or is that absolutely not your thing? For me speed is a "killer" and the extra challenge of less suspension, keeps speeds down and the challenge up, but once the geo is there, I find you can ride almost anything you can on those long travel bikes, just a slower. To the specing of that dropper, most likely it was part of the whole drivetrain/suspension package, thrown in at a serious deal to try and help get them out of the warehouse, because as you said, royal PITA and expensive when there's loads of lower priced and better options out there.