Support road.cc

Like this site? Help us to make it better.

TECH NEWS

Kona launches new bikes, including steel Roadhouse

Reynolds 853 steel Roadhouse, complete with hydraulic disc brakes, is the star of the show + new touring, commuting and cyclo-cross bikes

Kona has released several new models for 2016, including road/all-road, touring, commuting and cyclo-cross models. Here are the highlights of the range.


Roadhouse

The Roadhouse is designed as a bit of a ‘go-everywhere, do everything’ steel road bike with hydraulic disc brakes. It’s built around a custom-drawn Reynolds 853 butted chromoly steel frameset that features a tapered head tube, the idea being to increase stiffness and control, with external headset cups.

The frame comes with 12 x 142mm thru-axle dropouts rather than regular open-ended dropouts and a quick-release skewer, and it takes Flat Mount standard disc brakes. This is the standard Shimano developed and others are adopting, and it appears to be the direction that the market is heading. The full-carbon Kona Road Endurance fork takes a 15mm thru-axle and a Flat Mount brake.

The Roadhouse’s geometry is fairly relaxed, the 56cm model coming with a stack (the vertical distance from the middle of the bottom bracket to the top of the head tube) of 596mm, and a reach (the horizontal distance between those two points) of 383mm. That means you’ll sit quite a bit more upright than on a race-style road bike.

The frame and fork can take mudguards so the Roadhouse could be a good option for year-round riding, and the ability to mount a rear rack adds to its practicality if you want to ride to work or have the odd night away on your bike.

The Roundhouse comes fitted with Shimano’s new RS505 hydraulic brakes and 140mm rotors.

The groupset is a real mix with a Shimano Ultegra rear mech, a 105 front mech and a Shimano non series (meaning it’s not part of a groupset) RS500 chainset. That chainset is compact (50-tooth and 34-tooth chainrings), matched up to a wide-ranging 11-32-tooth cassette.

The wheels are Novatec Road 30 Discs with new Schwalbe G-One tubeless-ready gravel tyres in a 30mm width.

The Roadhouse is available now at £1,699.

 

Sutra Ltd

Kona has added a Sutra Ltd to sit alongside its existing Sutra touring bike.

The Sutra Ltd has the same chromoly steel frame as the regular Sutra , so it has mounts for three bottle cages (the extra one under the down tube), a mudguard and rack. It has the same Project Two Disc fork too, with two mudguard/rack eyelets and bottle cage bosses in the low-rider position. The difference is that the Sutra Ltd is fitted with a SRAM 1x Rival groupset and hydraulic disc brakes.

Go to our previous article for a full rundown of SRAM’s 1x system. In short, you get a single chainring – a 36-tooth chainring on Race Face Aeffect cranks in this case – matched up to a wide-ranging cassette – in this case the smallest sprocket is 10-tooth and the largest is 42-tooth (so the rear wheel uses SRAM’s XD freehub body).

The wheels comprise WTB Frequency Team i23 Tubeless rims laced to Novatec hubs, and they’re fitted with 47mm Schwalbe Mondial tyres.

The Sutra Ltd is priced at £1,699.


Esatto Fast

Kona launched the Esatto disc-equipped endurance bike last year and now a flat-bar option has been added to the lineup.

Kona describes the Esatto Fast as “a speedy commuter bike laden with geometry and components that eat up asphalt for breakfast and spit it out all afternoon long”.

There’s an image for you!

The frame, which the Esatto Fast shares with the rest of the Esatto range, is made from butted 7046 aluminium alloy and it’s built to a relaxed geometry. The 56cm model, for example, has a 565mm top tube and a 185mm head tube. The stack is 594mm and the reach is 383mm, so you’ll get quite an upright riding position here.

The frame takes a 12 x 142mm rear thru-axle while the carbon fork is 15 x 100mm for security and stiffness.

The Esatto Fast is built up with a mostly Shimano Tiagra groupset, Tektro HD-M290 hydraulic disc brakes, and Alex CXDX wheels with 28mm Continental UltraSport II tyres.

The Esatto Fast is priced at £1,199.


Private Jake

The Private Jake is another new model but this one is a cyclo-cross bike – a race bike as opposed to a road-going CX bike.

The 7005 butted aluminium frame is built with short chainstays (420mm) – Kona says that this improves the power transfer and handling speed – and a slack head angle (70.5° and 71.5°, depending on the frame size).

The frame is single-chainring specific and the 12 x 142mm rear dropout is adjustable so you can run the Private Jake as a singlespeed if you like.

The frame features a tapered head tube and a PressFit 30 bottom bracket, while the routing for the rear brake and rear mech is internal.

The Private Jake comes with SRAM Rival 1 shifters and rear mech, Tektro Spyre mechanical disc brakes (160mm rotor front, 140mm rotor rear), and Novatec 30 Disc wheels. The tyres are 35mm-wide WTB Cross Boss, although there is clearance for 40mm according to Kona.

The Private Jake is priced £1,499.

For more info on the whole range, go to www.konaworld.com.

Mat has been in cycling media since 1996, on titles including BikeRadar, Total Bike, Total Mountain Bike, What Mountain Bike and Mountain Biking UK, and he has been editor of 220 Triathlon and Cycling Plus. Mat has been road.cc technical editor for over a decade, testing bikes, fettling the latest kit, and trying out the most up-to-the-minute clothing. We send him off around the world to get all the news from launches and shows too. He has won his category in Ironman UK 70.3 and finished on the podium in both marathons he has run. Mat is a Cambridge graduate who did a post-grad in magazine journalism, and he is a winner of the Cycling Media Award for Specialist Online Writer. Now over 50, he's riding road and gravel bikes most days for fun and fitness rather than training for competitions.

Add new comment

10 comments

Avatar
mike the bike | 8 years ago
0 likes

My Croix de Fer is now two years old and therefore from the era when there was only one model. But I have used 32mm and 28mm tyres without even realising there might be a problem, they just fitted beautifully under the SKS guards.

To be honest the original 32mm Contis were awful. The sucked at the tarmac so much I got off halfway up a familiar climb, convinced I had a flat. I replaced them within a couple of weeks with Durano Plus, a much superior choice.

I paid £980 for mine in Edinburgh Cycles' annual sale and we must remember the Kona is getting on for twice that price.

Avatar
giskard replied to mike the bike | 8 years ago
0 likes
mike the bike wrote:

My Croix de Fer is now two years old and therefore from the era when there was only one model.

I paid £980 for mine in Edinburgh Cycles' annual sale and we must remember the Kona is getting on for twice that price.

Not really a fair comparison when you consider the spec of the Roadhouse - the nearest in terms of spec is the Croix de Fer 30 which retails for £1749, more than the Roadhouse which is better specified than the 30.

Avatar
John_S | 8 years ago
0 likes

I think that the Roadhouse looks like a really nice bike and would definitely be on my future shortlist.

Following the question from doubledex I’ve no idea about Kona’s full 2016 range but looking at the Kona website there are two Big Rove models plus the Rove ST and Rove AL listed. The Rove ST is listed as a 2016 model but has the SRAM Rival One compared to the Shimano set up on the Roadhouse but is cheaper with the Roadhouse listed with a US Dollar RRP of $2,399, the Sutra Ltd at $1,999 and the Rove ST at $1,599

Reading the article above is the UK RRP of the Sutra Ltd correct at £1,699? If so it seems like quite a markup on the US Dollar RRP. Now I’ve no idea about export/import costs and so I don’t know what is a reasonable markup but the US Dollar RRP of the Roadhouse is more than the Sutra Ltd but they are listed as having the same UK £ RRP in the article above.

Examples using the xe.com exchange rate calculator today

Roadhouse US$ RRP = $2,399 which converted to UK£ = £1,535 with the UK RRP listed above as £1,699

Sutra Ltd US$ RRP = $1,999 which converted to UK£ = £1,280 with the UK RRP listed above as £1,699

Rove ST US$ RRP = $1,999 which converted to UK£ = £? with the UK RRP listed above as £1,023

I really like the sound of the Rove ST and I’d love to know the UK RRP because I think that the Roadhouse will be over my budget.

Avatar
fukawitribe replied to John_S | 8 years ago
0 likes
John_S wrote:

Reading the article above is the UK RRP of the Sutra Ltd correct at £1,699? If so it seems like quite a markup on the US Dollar RRP. Now I’ve no idea about export/import costs and so I don’t know what is a reasonable markup but the US Dollar RRP of the Roadhouse is more than the Sutra Ltd but they are listed as having the same UK £ RRP in the article above.

Examples using the xe.com exchange rate calculator today

...

Sutra Ltd US$ RRP = $1,999 which converted to UK£ = £1,280 with the UK RRP listed above as £1,699

Alas there's import duty of 15% (HS commodity code 8712.00.7099) and then VAT on top of that total at 20%. So, if it was a straight import declared at the full US price then the £ 1,280 base price goes to ~ £ 1766 - so not too bad for a UK RRP.

Avatar
doubledex | 8 years ago
0 likes

Are they still going to keep the steel Rove going as very similar? (I have one of those and it is great) This looks similar, just slightly more road orientated?

Avatar
Danzxer | 8 years ago
0 likes

Indd. the roadhouse looks very interesting, would be nice know the tire clearence. Looking at the website the rearwheel clearence with a 30 mm doesn't look all that impressive.

http://www.konaworld.com/roadhouse.cfm

Avatar
nickb | 8 years ago
0 likes

I had an early Jake the Snake (the bright orange one, 2006 I think). It was a great bike but I sold it a couple of years ago.

The Roadhouse looks like a great do-it-all commuter-come-fun bike to replace it with!

Avatar
giskard | 8 years ago
0 likes

For me, the Roadhouse is Kona's most interesting bike since the Jake the Snake, I'd probably have gone for a Roadhouse rather than the 2015 Genesis Croix de Fer that I now have, what with all it's design niggles around frame clearance at the rear.

Avatar
Ush replied to giskard | 8 years ago
0 likes
giskard wrote:

all it's design niggles around frame clearance at the rear.

Interesting. Do tell more please.

Avatar
giskard replied to Ush | 8 years ago
0 likes
Ush wrote:
giskard wrote:

all it's design niggles around frame clearance at the rear.

Interesting. Do tell more please.

Despite the blurb on Genesis website boasting that the Croix de Fer is all set up to take full-size mudguards, it isn't really, unless you replace the stock Conti 35mm tyres with 28mm or 32mm ones. The front fork clearance is fine with plenty of room for an SKS chromoplast mudguard and 35mm tyres, but I've found the rear clearance to be stingy with a lot of care / trial and error needed to fit 45mm or 50mm Chromoplasts with 32mm tyres. I couldn't get any clearance with 35mm tyres and ended up using 45mm Chromoplasts and 32mm tyres. That's on a Croix de Fer 20 - on a Croix de Fer 30 you can forget about full-size mudguards, it's just not possible thanks to the 105 5800 front mech pinch bolt having no more than 3mm clearance from the stock 35mm tyres.

Despite all that, I do like my CdF 20 and have even upgraded the levers and front/rear mechs to the older 105 5700 which are a big improvement on the Tiagra kit.

Latest Comments