 It might have been a psychological thing but I found the Magic Link made the frame feel quite flexy and even with a lot of faffing over setup it never felt quite balanced for me. Oh, and before I forget - £4400?!?! 
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| Edited: 13/02/09 14:48 |
 a dedicated Hammerschmidt equiped model could have much neater over the top of the bottom bracket chain stays as well as pushing the price upto £5K
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a £5k Kona - just what we all want
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 No ta. I like the idea, but as Mike puts it, theres too much bike realistically for the UK. You can smash any trail centre to bits on a good 4-5" FS and that will hopefully be light enough to pedal about all day as well. Could be quite a cool bike to have if you lived in the Alps and were able to get it for trade price...
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 I know traditionally Kona have always been a little over priced for their spec, but that's ridiculous. Not for me
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 I'm sure they must have plans for a shorter travel version. They cannot be that stupid, and not especially having gone to the effort to design / perfect this first version. Plus the technology will filter down in better value brands. Got to thank Kona for putting in the R&D effort. I will wait until it is cheaper and easier to use but I'm sure some rich people will be buying it to try out the technology.
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I doubt very much Kona will let their R & D time be taken advantage of by anyone else...
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They may keep it exclusive for a while. Assuming they have a valid patent, and the technology works well, they will surely be crazy not to licence it to others..
Plus, it will inspire others to produce different versions to keep up. Ones they can patent themselves. As we have seen with rear suspension - there are multiple ways to solve the problem.
I see this development as a great move all round.
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| Edited: 17/02/09 01:42 |
 I heard somewhere (I don't where exactly though) that they might be adapting the system for the Dawg... Which would be quite sensible. It would be interesting to see if they do make it where they will price it.
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 Sounds and looks clever, that is a rip off though considering the spec.
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If they really wanted to get it out to the wider market and convince people that is was a good system, they should have sucked it up and possibly made a loss/small margin on the componentry so as to make it look better vfm. They might have got away with it for last year and stepped up the prices with component price increases for 09... but doing that going into next year I think not.
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Something to remember is that top-notch components make less and less of a difference per $ the higher up you go in the range. It's true, bikes at this price have better components, but what difference does it make - compared to having the Magic Link? That's the question. We won't know until we try it. But the bike magic testers here really did love it. So let's focus on that. I think it may well be worth not having the slightly better performance components you would get. And let's not forget Kona have to pay off their development costs in order to bring us such advancements. The money has to come from somewhere so I think it's a fair deal.
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| Edited: 20/03/09 00:55 |
No, if they'd loved it they'd have scored it a 5 insted of 3 overall  I did try it and wasn't impressed. I'm sure there are those who will be but quite aside from the Magic Link this is a bog standard long travel bike. And if Intense / Santa Cruz can design and implement 2 VPP designs in 5 years and offer a better spec'd bike for less money I really think this one will struggle. Lots.
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Good point, I missed the score for some reason. It's interesting how some love it, some don't. Like full sus I guess. Got to credit them for trying though, we need innovation to keep happening.
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Lets hope they keep tweaking it. It's a great idea just horribly expensive right now (although full sus was to begin with, as you say). My main problem (aside from the flex in the frame I rode and the will it / won't it feel of the linkage) is cost of the frame. Complete bike £4499, Components £1975(ish) at retail leaves a frame price of £2524. Turner 5 Spot - £1895 Santa Cruz Blur XC Carbon - £2300 Intense Tracer VP - £1849 Foes FXR - £2499 That's an awful lot of money for a Kona frame (not being a brand snob) when an Intense or Turner would be £700 less for the same build.
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