Posted by: AndrewMajor
Woo with -2° sounds great. Do you ever find yourself thinking you'd want something longer and slacker? Progressive fat bikes seem to be entirely the realm of custom builders.
In it's stock form the Woo has a 483mm reach in a size L compared to my 2019 Commencal Meta TR with a 475mm reach in a L, so it is certainly plenty long enough and I do think the extra ~1cm of reach is noticeable, could also be due to the reach of my Meta being shorter than the stated 475mm given the geo chart is for a shorter fork than the 150mm I'm running. I've heard some discrepancies between the geometry charts and the actual fork length that is specced with the Meta TR. At first I thought it felt too long (compared to what I am used to on the Meta), so I slammed the seat forward and have a short stem and bar with some healthy backsweep to push my hand position back.
Stock rigid fork on the Woo has a 515 A-C vs and a 130mm 29er for runs 541mm, which luckily enough comes out to 515mm at 20% sag. With the 2° angleset it's still not quite as slack as something like the Honzo or some other progressive hardtails, but it seems like it is well suited to my intentions for the bike. I would be very curious to measure what the actual sag comes out to with the fork and headset changes I have made.
I think the trend for fatbikes to err on the side of steeper headtube angles is a pretty valid choice given that the typical fatbike ride is pretty slow going and more XC-like. Riding in snow and riding a loaded bikepacking bike (the uses that seem to be most common for fatbikes) is a much much different experience than riding the fast downhill speeds that have pushed bikes to slacker and slacker headtubes, even when the opportunity is presented to let it rip on the downhills it's still nowhere near the speeds and steepness on most mtb trails. I think the Woo's geometry is a good middle ground that could work well for a pretty wide variety of uses, its long enough to not be considered "dated", the chainstays can be short enough to be playful or long enough to provide a bit of stability, and the head tube is steep enough to provide sharp handling at slow speeds in snow, but can slacken up just enough to be well complimented by a 130mm (or maybe 140mm) fork. And to be completely honest I probably don't even ride enough to make much of a valid opinion on what the best geo for a 4 season bike would be.
Probably voids Kona's lifetime warranty to run an angleset, but I forgot to submit that info when I bought it anyway.