2019 Kona Honzo St (Steel) Review
Pros and Cons
Pros:
Cons:
- Great value
- Long reach
- Sliding dropouts
- Steel construction
- Seat tube gusset too long
- Not much room for a long dropper
Cons:
- Not as supple as expected
- Head angle too steep
- Vanilla ride
Who it's for:
- Die-hard kona fans
- People wanting to build a frame up
- Hardtail fans on a budget
Who it's NOT for
- People looking for a supple ride
- People looking for a modern geometry
- People looking for a high build quality
My full thoughts on the 2019 Kona Honzo St
today we're in sunny Sedona reviewing the 2019 kona Hanzo st i got to give a big shout out to my buddy Kenny for letting me borrow his bike again this is his personal size medium kona Hanzo st i did a first look video at this go check it out if you haven't seen it already to get all the specs today we're gonna take it out on some trails in Sedona for an on the bike ride to see what it rides like I'm here riding with my buddy Dave he's on his carbon chameleons let's go ride axis this trail spawns both directions
ooh feelin that steep heading already even though we have a 144 con here which slackens it out a degree 267 still feels twitchy to me although their reach is spot-on I like their longer reach but that steeper head angle man you feel it immediately it's just a little twitchy on the front end it's nice and quiet Mike even though it's steel it's a stiff bike I can already feel it in my tab it reminds me a lot of the middle child steel feel it's not Ziyi and harsh like you hit a bump and it just seems through the frame to steal deadness out a little but it's still too stiff if it transfers energy to your calves into your feet man I'm holding back I don't have the confidence to charge this part of its stiff rear end and part of it is that steep head angle and it's not like this is super technical terrain
it's just a blowy blue
the whole reason I talked about stiffness and geometry and ride feel and all that on my reviews because that's the one thing a geo chart can't tell you and that's the huge value of reviews especially for those that shop online site on seeing that haven't written a whole bunch of hard tails you don't know if the frames gonna ride stiff or not and that's why Mike reviews about them yeah even with the cush core and the soft that's thirty five wheels which I like it's transferring a lot of energy to my calves and ankles accelerates nice though yeah it doesn't feel aluminum you can tell if I are blindfolded I could tell this is steel but it's not compliant in the slightest you can just feel the property of the steel not resonating everything through the whole frame and I would even say the new specialized views is slightly more comfortable than this despite being aluminum
I like coma short chainstays you know if they slacking this out to 66 degrees just two degrees slacker they would have a modern heart tail there'd be a lot of fun on most trails you should go a little bit faster it removes a little bit more of the chatter but it's still a stiff frame but they're nice and cheap six hundred bucks for a frame and for a lot of people that puts it in their budget and makes a hardtail possible for them you have a higher chance at being able to run into a Hanzo in the wild then like a chrome AG or an RS D or something like that so it's cool that Kona is in shops and that you can find them and that they're accessible to people that's a little bit nervous feeling down that that's a blue pretty flowy I can charge on that on my middle child and my Banshee but that head angle is just a little bit off I love the short rear end I love the adjustable chain stays we don't even have them very short right now I don't love this massive gusset so this has good stand over clearance with that small front triangle but it's got a longer seat tube than I like and for short writers or writers with short legs that's a bummer C tube angle feels a little flock for a modern bike this bikes due for a refresh hasn't changed much in years it's a good little climber on mellow flat trails like this it does well
don't get me wrong this isn't a bad bike it's a good bike it's not a great bike that just stands out above the rest I'd really like to try the big Hanzo al aluminum one a lot of people probably think I hate steel bikes I don't I just hate how everyone assumes it because a bike steel it's gonna ride supple and be comfortable cuz these days most steel frames are stiffer than they used to be but it's still a good bike and if someone had one they could still have fun on a hardtail and still love it there's a lot of people out there that shred on these themes but if you're looking to buy a bike I think spending a couple hundred dollars more on something with the more comfortable and more modern frame is definitely worth the money don't be sucked into the cheap price of these frames and just say oh I'll just put a bit of bling build on it and then it'll be good one cool thing about these is you can run an angle set so you could get one put a negative two degree angle set on there and get it to 66 degrees that's how I'd run it if I had one I'm curious how the aluminum one rides compared to this who knows we'll have to see stay tuned I like the versatility of this bike that it can be around the single speed that you can adjust the chainstay to what you want pretty fun all right I'm gonna try and stop talking about the skip frame and the state Pettingill they are completely influencing the character of this bike and the ride feel better let's focus on the rest
I'm nervous to really let her dance
it's playful it wants to pop off with every little thing I like that that shorter taste is cool and I don't even have it this short
she's fun it feels really good for than 2.5 tires 35 mil rims
yeah that's a fun section if you own one of these bikes don't feel bad my job is to review these and tell you what's different between this and most other hard tails so people looking can have something to compare it to so don't feel bad if you love yours and I say there's better ones out there that's okay if you love your bike that's all that matters but I wouldn't be doing my job if I just pretended like everything's great I made every hardtail to sound fantastic
nice and quiet I got quiet this bike is and it does feel a little bit more supple than most aluminum frames so or a steel frame it's harsh I still think the specialized fuse is a little more comfortable vanship paradox a lot more comfortable the back end kind of wants to bounce and shatter across stuff whoo that was tight
I'm having fun though this is a playful bike it wants to dance around and have fun and not just it doesn't ride like a cross-country bike other than the way it steers I take this over comments all met at any day despite his heavier weight we've got to give a big shout-out to my buddy Kenny for letting me take his bike that's awesome I got a few friends who let me demo their personal bikes so you guys can see it give them a thumbs up and tell them thanks in the comments if you enjoy that I really like this longer reach this is the first time I've written a long reach bike with a steep head angle and the long reach does help tame it down some
this bike ride reminds me a bit of the carbon chameleon not quite as stiff in the back almost but the chameleon delivers more vibration to your feet
yeah that is twitchy on the front end I'm sorry to keep saying it it keeps impacting me
not a beautiful day
I'm tired I'm fatigued from this frame
morning that was fun I wouldn't want to take this on much earlier trails that front end is nervous I feel like the timber jack is less nervous I like the long reach on the downs and on steep climbs morning thank you but I wish the seat tube angle was a little steeper on the climb so that the effective top tube was shorter this would be fairly comparable at the middle child steel with an angle set compared to the ioniq Johnny Rotten oh I take the Johnny Rotten in a heartbeat even though they have similar Geo but that bikes also four times the cost of this despite being steel so the cost is a real appeal on this bike if you don't get a hardtail frame new for 600 bucks that's appealing to a lot of people and this would be the right bike if you're heavy rider if you're someone who isn't particularly easy on parts you want strength over everything and the heavy rider is gonna be able to get more flex out of this than the lighter rider anyway man I really want to ride the aluminum ones to compare because if it's not much stiffer the aluminum one might be the one to get this does have a bit of flex in it but it's not supple that ionic Johnny Rotten and I think this magical that has set the bar for what a steel heart deal should feel like and we're starting to see kind of two categories of Steel hardtails the over built burly super aggressive enduro style hard tails and more the XC trail stuff that tend to be a little bit more supple and this one it's geometry puts it in the XC trail category but its construction feels a little more like the burly enduro style ones just have to get great commuter I will say this is a playful frame you want some goop around and I like that a lot
feel on the way to the cush core and the aggressive tires that can you put on this but I don't blame him for riding Sedona on a bike like this makes a lot of sense I probably have 19 20 psi in here and the cush core keeps it from doesn't suit the aggressive people that are gonna want a slack head angle it doesn't suit the XC guys that want a light snappy XC like its kind of stuff in the middle so all in all I think this bike has an identity crisis it's not sure what it wants to be it's like the kid who secretly is in the school play but he's also trying out for the football team and he doesn't want either group of friends to know he's dabbling in the other not the the lead role in the drama play and he's not the starting quarterback on the football team it wants to keep one foot in the cross-country world and the other foot in the aggressive hardtail world and because of that it doesn't do either really great the head angle is cross country land and maybe a little bit trail and because of that it's twitchy and nervous on the downhills but because it's a heavier burlier frame it doesn't it's not light enough to be snappy on XC stuff it doesn't ride like a great light steel XC frame it kind of rides a little bit dead a little bit heavy the rear ends playful though so it's got a playful rear end a good aggressive hard tail middle reach and a steep head angle now the good news is this can be fixed easily with an angle set put an angle set on there slaking that out to 66 degrees I think this bike would start to find its true identity I will say this is a very versatile bike though it could be built up single speed it's nice and cheap it gets a lot of people into the hardtail game cheap but man that head angle kind of ruins it even with the seat post slammed all the way that's too tall for me on a 150 dropper on a size medium and in this day and age with so many droppers that go up to 210 plus we need shorter seat tubes there's no reason to have that much gusseting there and there's no reason for it to be that long it simply doesn't need to be I think a lot of bike companies want a straight line from the head tube to the rear dropout and they think the seat tubes need to be as long as they used to be they don't I don't love the look of a straight line from there to there but I know a lot of people do I think that seat tube gusset is hideous but it's also way too big there's no reason needs to be that big that could easily be an inch or two shorter and it would change the the way this bike feels all that's this is a good bike you can have a lot of fun on it and if you own one don't feel bad like I'm dissing your mom here that's not what this is about my job is to review bikes and tell you how they compare and help you know if it does get better than this or if it doesn't it definitely does I would not put this in me great bike category or the exceptional bike category I'd put it in the good bike category it's durable it does have a little bit of the steel is real feel to it but not as much as many people think it's still as fatiguing despite the pinch seat stays here it still doesn't offer the compliance of a good steel hardtail I'm sad because this bike has so much potential and if they got it right if they slacking that out to 66 degrees built it a little softer so it's a little more of a supple ride and if they lower that seat they could have one of the best budget hardtails on the market it wouldn't take much to do that but it would take effort and it would take some redoing and I hope we see that on the new generation of the Kona Hansa one day until then it's a good bike but not a great bike if you learn something and you find these reviews valuable consider supporting this channel by becoming a patron for as little as five dollars a month you can make a big difference on this channel and help me make more of these videos more often thanks for watching there's a party in the mountains and you're invited
ooh feelin that steep heading already even though we have a 144 con here which slackens it out a degree 267 still feels twitchy to me although their reach is spot-on I like their longer reach but that steeper head angle man you feel it immediately it's just a little twitchy on the front end it's nice and quiet Mike even though it's steel it's a stiff bike I can already feel it in my tab it reminds me a lot of the middle child steel feel it's not Ziyi and harsh like you hit a bump and it just seems through the frame to steal deadness out a little but it's still too stiff if it transfers energy to your calves into your feet man I'm holding back I don't have the confidence to charge this part of its stiff rear end and part of it is that steep head angle and it's not like this is super technical terrain
it's just a blowy blue
the whole reason I talked about stiffness and geometry and ride feel and all that on my reviews because that's the one thing a geo chart can't tell you and that's the huge value of reviews especially for those that shop online site on seeing that haven't written a whole bunch of hard tails you don't know if the frames gonna ride stiff or not and that's why Mike reviews about them yeah even with the cush core and the soft that's thirty five wheels which I like it's transferring a lot of energy to my calves and ankles accelerates nice though yeah it doesn't feel aluminum you can tell if I are blindfolded I could tell this is steel but it's not compliant in the slightest you can just feel the property of the steel not resonating everything through the whole frame and I would even say the new specialized views is slightly more comfortable than this despite being aluminum
I like coma short chainstays you know if they slacking this out to 66 degrees just two degrees slacker they would have a modern heart tail there'd be a lot of fun on most trails you should go a little bit faster it removes a little bit more of the chatter but it's still a stiff frame but they're nice and cheap six hundred bucks for a frame and for a lot of people that puts it in their budget and makes a hardtail possible for them you have a higher chance at being able to run into a Hanzo in the wild then like a chrome AG or an RS D or something like that so it's cool that Kona is in shops and that you can find them and that they're accessible to people that's a little bit nervous feeling down that that's a blue pretty flowy I can charge on that on my middle child and my Banshee but that head angle is just a little bit off I love the short rear end I love the adjustable chain stays we don't even have them very short right now I don't love this massive gusset so this has good stand over clearance with that small front triangle but it's got a longer seat tube than I like and for short writers or writers with short legs that's a bummer C tube angle feels a little flock for a modern bike this bikes due for a refresh hasn't changed much in years it's a good little climber on mellow flat trails like this it does well
don't get me wrong this isn't a bad bike it's a good bike it's not a great bike that just stands out above the rest I'd really like to try the big Hanzo al aluminum one a lot of people probably think I hate steel bikes I don't I just hate how everyone assumes it because a bike steel it's gonna ride supple and be comfortable cuz these days most steel frames are stiffer than they used to be but it's still a good bike and if someone had one they could still have fun on a hardtail and still love it there's a lot of people out there that shred on these themes but if you're looking to buy a bike I think spending a couple hundred dollars more on something with the more comfortable and more modern frame is definitely worth the money don't be sucked into the cheap price of these frames and just say oh I'll just put a bit of bling build on it and then it'll be good one cool thing about these is you can run an angle set so you could get one put a negative two degree angle set on there and get it to 66 degrees that's how I'd run it if I had one I'm curious how the aluminum one rides compared to this who knows we'll have to see stay tuned I like the versatility of this bike that it can be around the single speed that you can adjust the chainstay to what you want pretty fun all right I'm gonna try and stop talking about the skip frame and the state Pettingill they are completely influencing the character of this bike and the ride feel better let's focus on the rest
I'm nervous to really let her dance
it's playful it wants to pop off with every little thing I like that that shorter taste is cool and I don't even have it this short
she's fun it feels really good for than 2.5 tires 35 mil rims
yeah that's a fun section if you own one of these bikes don't feel bad my job is to review these and tell you what's different between this and most other hard tails so people looking can have something to compare it to so don't feel bad if you love yours and I say there's better ones out there that's okay if you love your bike that's all that matters but I wouldn't be doing my job if I just pretended like everything's great I made every hardtail to sound fantastic
nice and quiet I got quiet this bike is and it does feel a little bit more supple than most aluminum frames so or a steel frame it's harsh I still think the specialized fuse is a little more comfortable vanship paradox a lot more comfortable the back end kind of wants to bounce and shatter across stuff whoo that was tight
I'm having fun though this is a playful bike it wants to dance around and have fun and not just it doesn't ride like a cross-country bike other than the way it steers I take this over comments all met at any day despite his heavier weight we've got to give a big shout-out to my buddy Kenny for letting me take his bike that's awesome I got a few friends who let me demo their personal bikes so you guys can see it give them a thumbs up and tell them thanks in the comments if you enjoy that I really like this longer reach this is the first time I've written a long reach bike with a steep head angle and the long reach does help tame it down some
this bike ride reminds me a bit of the carbon chameleon not quite as stiff in the back almost but the chameleon delivers more vibration to your feet
yeah that is twitchy on the front end I'm sorry to keep saying it it keeps impacting me
not a beautiful day
I'm tired I'm fatigued from this frame
morning that was fun I wouldn't want to take this on much earlier trails that front end is nervous I feel like the timber jack is less nervous I like the long reach on the downs and on steep climbs morning thank you but I wish the seat tube angle was a little steeper on the climb so that the effective top tube was shorter this would be fairly comparable at the middle child steel with an angle set compared to the ioniq Johnny Rotten oh I take the Johnny Rotten in a heartbeat even though they have similar Geo but that bikes also four times the cost of this despite being steel so the cost is a real appeal on this bike if you don't get a hardtail frame new for 600 bucks that's appealing to a lot of people and this would be the right bike if you're heavy rider if you're someone who isn't particularly easy on parts you want strength over everything and the heavy rider is gonna be able to get more flex out of this than the lighter rider anyway man I really want to ride the aluminum ones to compare because if it's not much stiffer the aluminum one might be the one to get this does have a bit of flex in it but it's not supple that ionic Johnny Rotten and I think this magical that has set the bar for what a steel heart deal should feel like and we're starting to see kind of two categories of Steel hardtails the over built burly super aggressive enduro style hard tails and more the XC trail stuff that tend to be a little bit more supple and this one it's geometry puts it in the XC trail category but its construction feels a little more like the burly enduro style ones just have to get great commuter I will say this is a playful frame you want some goop around and I like that a lot
feel on the way to the cush core and the aggressive tires that can you put on this but I don't blame him for riding Sedona on a bike like this makes a lot of sense I probably have 19 20 psi in here and the cush core keeps it from doesn't suit the aggressive people that are gonna want a slack head angle it doesn't suit the XC guys that want a light snappy XC like its kind of stuff in the middle so all in all I think this bike has an identity crisis it's not sure what it wants to be it's like the kid who secretly is in the school play but he's also trying out for the football team and he doesn't want either group of friends to know he's dabbling in the other not the the lead role in the drama play and he's not the starting quarterback on the football team it wants to keep one foot in the cross-country world and the other foot in the aggressive hardtail world and because of that it doesn't do either really great the head angle is cross country land and maybe a little bit trail and because of that it's twitchy and nervous on the downhills but because it's a heavier burlier frame it doesn't it's not light enough to be snappy on XC stuff it doesn't ride like a great light steel XC frame it kind of rides a little bit dead a little bit heavy the rear ends playful though so it's got a playful rear end a good aggressive hard tail middle reach and a steep head angle now the good news is this can be fixed easily with an angle set put an angle set on there slaking that out to 66 degrees I think this bike would start to find its true identity I will say this is a very versatile bike though it could be built up single speed it's nice and cheap it gets a lot of people into the hardtail game cheap but man that head angle kind of ruins it even with the seat post slammed all the way that's too tall for me on a 150 dropper on a size medium and in this day and age with so many droppers that go up to 210 plus we need shorter seat tubes there's no reason to have that much gusseting there and there's no reason for it to be that long it simply doesn't need to be I think a lot of bike companies want a straight line from the head tube to the rear dropout and they think the seat tubes need to be as long as they used to be they don't I don't love the look of a straight line from there to there but I know a lot of people do I think that seat tube gusset is hideous but it's also way too big there's no reason needs to be that big that could easily be an inch or two shorter and it would change the the way this bike feels all that's this is a good bike you can have a lot of fun on it and if you own one don't feel bad like I'm dissing your mom here that's not what this is about my job is to review bikes and tell you how they compare and help you know if it does get better than this or if it doesn't it definitely does I would not put this in me great bike category or the exceptional bike category I'd put it in the good bike category it's durable it does have a little bit of the steel is real feel to it but not as much as many people think it's still as fatiguing despite the pinch seat stays here it still doesn't offer the compliance of a good steel hardtail I'm sad because this bike has so much potential and if they got it right if they slacking that out to 66 degrees built it a little softer so it's a little more of a supple ride and if they lower that seat they could have one of the best budget hardtails on the market it wouldn't take much to do that but it would take effort and it would take some redoing and I hope we see that on the new generation of the Kona Hansa one day until then it's a good bike but not a great bike if you learn something and you find these reviews valuable consider supporting this channel by becoming a patron for as little as five dollars a month you can make a big difference on this channel and help me make more of these videos more often thanks for watching there's a party in the mountains and you're invited