My next bike?

I really like my hardtail, but on some rides I have been wishing for a little more suspension and slacker angles, without going full enduro. A few weeks ago we did a really huge ride up two mountains (sheep and mineral) over some very rough terrain and on the descents I was basically just trying to survive. Once they got to the top, the people on the big bikes were bombing down and having a blast, but the two of us on xc hardtails spent a lot of time waiting on the climbs. I think the right bike is something in between, so I've been checking out the full suspension XC rides like the Cannondale Scalpel and Orbea OIZ. I'm basically limited to Kona, Cannondale, and Orbea bikes if I want a discount, and the old Kona hei hei is pretty goofy looking so I had ruled that out.

This year, Kona came out with a new Hei Hei:

Yesterday, Kona and Missoula Bicycle Works had a demo tent setup near some local trails. I stopped by skipped the process line of bikes, and went straight for the hei hei trail dl, taking it out as long as I dared on a fun short loop to lower fenceline and ewok.

While plenty of them exist, this is the first time I've been on a full suspension bike that pedals so well, even with the shock open and a little softer than I'd like. Standing up and pedaling it was pretty responsive, especially when I closed out the shock, and compared to that precept I've ridden a few times it's practically a hardtail. I ended up doing most of the ride with the shock in trail mode and would have preferred a few more psi in it with less air in the fork.

The head tube angle is 68 degrees vs I think 71 on my King Kahuna, plus it has a 120mm fork and a Maxxis Ardent front tire so it is much more stable at high speed than my bike. I nearly blew through a corner because I was going faster than usual and the XT brakes don't feel quite as good as my guides (probably because it's a demo bike). Then you also get a rear end that doesn't bounce around. Funny how much faster you can go down with those things. I'm Kicking myself for not bringing the garmin along because I rode the same trails later on my own bike and would like to have compared times.

So in conclusion, I really like it and it will probably be my next bike. The DL has a pretty good spec sheet (there's a race version but it's not available yet) and out the door it would cost me something like 2600. Not quite a replacement for the carbon hardtail race bike but is a way better every day ride for fun and big adventures. The hardtail would still be the race bike, and even get a lot of use outside of racing because it is faster uphill and I like going fast uphill.