Having owned the 2008 Kona Sutra for ten months, and just completed the first chain/cassette replacement, I thought it was about time for a long term review, to give other people an idea of what living with the Sutra has been like. My previous post explains why I chose the Sutra - I came up with what I thought was an impossibly eclectic list of requirements from a bicycle, and the Sutra ticked every single box.

Here's some specs, for the statophiles out there:

Frame size C54cm
Frame tubing Dedacciai COM 12.5 Butted Cromoly
Fork Kona P2 700c TB Disc w/Lowrider
Headset TH
Crankarms FSA Gossamer MegaExo
Chainrings 30/39/50
B/B FSA MegaExo
Pedals Shimano PD-M520 SPD - Silver
Chain Shimano HG53 --> Shimano HG93 XT
Freewheel Shimano Deore (11-32, 9 Spd) --> Shimano XT M760 (11-32, 9spd)
F/D Shimano Tiagra Triple
R/D Shimano XT Shadow
Shifters Shimano Bar-Con
Handlebar FSA RD30 0S
Stem FSA OS-190LX
Grips Velo Wrap with Gel
Brakes Avid BB7 Road Disc
Brake Levers Shimano BLR-600
Front Hub Shimano M525 Disc
Rear Hub Shimano M525 Disc
Spokes DT Stainless 14g
Tires Continental Contact 700 x 32C --> Schwalbe Marathon Plus 700x38c
Rims Mavic A 317 Disc
Saddle Selle Italia XO SE --> Brooks B17
Seatpost FSA SL-280
Seat Clamp Kona Clamp
Rear Rack Tubus Logo
Panniers Bikebins
Computer Sigma DTS 1606 L
Fenders SKS Chromoplastic

My primary (i.e. 99% of the time) use of the Sutra has been for commuting. I have covered over 2700 miles (4500km) in the time I have owned it. My commuting route through London is pretty tough on bikes - the roads south of the Thames are awful and full of potholes, through the City there is broken glass all over the place, and further north of the river there are speedbumps everywhere. When I first got the Sutra she was wearing Continental Contact tyres, and they were pretty poor for commuting. They punctured easily and transmitted the bumpiness of the road right up into my forearms. Not much fun. After one puncture too many I replaced the tyres with Schwalbe Marathon Pluses, in their largest diameter, and the difference was marked. The increased volume of air provides a lot more cushioning for the arms, and I have not had a single puncture yet, despite having pulled 6mm long pieces of glass out of the tyre surfaces. The tyres are relatively heavy, but then so is the rest of the bike, and extra weight makes you stronger!

The original rear rack was pretty flimsy, and it did not allow the attachment of the Bikebin panniers I bought to try and add some rigidity. I ended up having to angle grind chunks out of the rack to fit the panniers, which can't have improved their structural integrity. After a month of experiencing the odd sensation of the bike wagging its tail whenever I stood up to pedal hard, I bit the bullet and upgraded the rack to a Tubus Logo. It was a tight fit with the rear disc brake, but the difference was immense. Gone was the sensation of a jelly-like bike, to be replaced by a sensation of rigid stability. Whilst the rack was expensive, it made all the difference, and I would highly recommend it.

Speaking of the brakes, they have saved my life on more than one occasion, usually when a Taxi decides to perform an emergency stop to pick up a fare. The brakes stop consistently in all conditions, and so far I have not had to replace the pads, althoguh I think it will be time to do it soon. Not bad considering I have travelled almost five thousand kilometres in all weathers in the stop-start conditions of London. I was concerned that the brakes might be too powerful, but the modulation provided by the levers and the flex in the arm of the brake means that whilst the power is there if necessary, you have a lot of control over it. There is some disc drag, but this is owing more to my laziness than the brakes themselves, and seems to have little impact on cruising speeds.

Using the bike in all conditions has been excellent. The all-over fenders (something I have never fitted to a bike previously) really keep the rain off and eliminate spray from the road. I had to saw a bit of the front fender off to fit it over the larger tyres, and a little bit off the rear for the same reason, but after the modification they have been flawless.

I had heard reports of spokes snapping, and nothing happened to me until recently, when I noticed a detached spoke whilst replacing the rear cassette. I had no idea how long the spoke had been damaged for, and replaced it myself. The rear wheel is slightly askew, but it does not foul on anything, which is good considering the small tolerance between it and the fender. To be fair, I have been jumping off kerbs and sometimes it is impossible to miss a massive hole in the road when you are in busy traffic. An upgrade I am considering is a stronger rear wheel, although it is not pressingly urgent.

The ride of the bike is super smooth, and certainly not anything like the road bikes I am used to. I use my other road bike for triathlons, and whilst it is a lot more nimble, it is much less comfortable. The Sutra is comfortable all day long, owing in no small part to the Brooks B17 saddle, which took about two thousand miles to properly break in! It was worth it though - sitting on the bike is like sitting in an armchair (albeit a very odd armchair, but an armchair nonetheless). I tend to cruise at about 20mph on her, and my 10.5 mile commute to work takes about 37 minutes. I have started seeking out hills in preparation for some touring of Wales, and the sutra certainly loves to climb. The aggressive, mountain-bike-like frame geometry no doubt assists in this, and is confidence inspiring when climbing and descending. The bar-con shifters were a novelty for me, but they make a lot of sense, especially if replacement shifters were needed on a tour. There are even bosses on the downtube to fit truly old-school shifters in an emergency.

The weight of the bike was a shock initially - weighing in at 15kgs without the accessories, she weighs significantly more than my Specialized Hardrock mountain bike, which is saying something! Over time I have become accustomed to the weight, and now it feels normal. The main advantage of this is that when I ride anything else, it feels super light and goes very rapidly. This makes this bike an ideal training steed.

In conclusion, I have found a lot to love about the Kona Sutra - she's tough, strong and surprisingly fast. There were some niggles about fitting add-ons, but they were all easy to overcome, and the result has been a reliable bike that I think will keep delivering for years.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

I was looking at my flickr stats, as one is wont to do of occasion, and I saw that my photo of a capsule hotel in Tokyo was receiving a lot of hits from a hotels by city's "interesting hotel beds" page. I took a look at the page and noticed that someone else had a photo in a capsule hotel. I took an even closer look and noticed that their photo was taken in the capsule next to mine!

Here's my photo (capsule 406):

And here's capsule 404:

We arrived in China by overnight train from Ulaan Bataar, Mongolia. The border crossing took hours, complicated further then usual by the fact that the bogeys on the train had to be switched to the narrower guage used outside ex-Soviet states. We travelled with a Polish couple, Ola and Wojtek, who proved to be excellent companions.

Once across the border properly, we travelled across China, following rivers and valleys, all of which seemed to contain methods to generate power. The rivers were dammed repeatedly with hydroelectric power stations. The valleys were dotted with coal-fired power stations, which filled them with sooty smoke, and meant that even the countryside was smoggy.

As we neared Beijing, the air became somewhat clearer, and when we arrived the station was full of friendly guides, as it was the time of the Beijing Paralympics. We were struck by how efficient everything was: the underground network was smooth and quiet, with English signage on everything. Clearly if the government had acted to rapidly gentrify the city and make it foreigner-friendly, they had done an excellent job.

We made it to our hostel, dumped our luggage and headed out into Tiananmen Square. It was dark by now, and the square was packed. Despite this fact, we managed to bump into people who we had parted company with on arrival in Mongolia, a week earlier. The area around Tiananmen Gate was filled with people taking photos of each other, including the soldiers, which added a pleasantly camp touch to the atmosphere.

The following day we visited the capital museum, which was also packed (notice a pattern emerging?) to the point of unpleasantness. Some of the terracotta warriors were in there, and it was good to see them in the right country.

Next on our whistle-stop tour was The Great Wall. We looked at all of the options, and decided that the most culturally sympathetic was the one where we would have the opportunity to take a toboggan down from the wall. You may notice the run shooting out of the forest in the photos.

In the evening, we headed to see an acrobatics show, which was truly amazing. That said, part of our amazement came from the awful injuries the young acrobats inflicted upon each other when they made mistakes. One of the boys seemed to take a heavy impact to the groin so badly that he did not appear on stage again until the very end!

As must be de rigeur, we visited the Forbidden City the following day, which is truly immense. The emperor must have felt pretty lonely in there, and probably regretted building it once he had sat there for a week or two, but he had the good sense to realise that he would have looked pretty silly if he said "You know what, I built this thing to get away from you all, but you can all come in now... hello ... helloooooo. Is there anybody there?" It would probably have gone down pretty badly. Still, the interior was impressive.

The Temple of Heaven was also very impressive, not least because it is held up without any form of adhesion between the component parts apparently. It all just fits together really well.

On our last night, we met up with Wojtek and Ola again, in the Muslim area of Beijing, for meat and peanut sauce.

The following morning, we took the bus to the port, and caught a ferry to Korea.

See the photos below:

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Here's a slideshow of the photos from the Mongolian leg of our trip. We arrived in Ulaan-Bataar, bleary-eyed after an arduous and boozy five day journey from Moscow. Initially, our top priority was to get to the hostel, and relish the sensation of not constantly being in motion. Five minutes later, when the novelty had worn off, we went to find out what there was to do. It turned out that there is a lot to do in Mongolia. We signed ourselves up for a trip out to Turelj, where the film Mongol was shot, and then headed into Ulaan Bataar.

Ulaan Bataar is quite a boisterous city, where the vast majority of the residents live in gers: the traditional Mongolian tent-dwelling. It's messy, but a pleasant place to be, especially as the people's warmth contrasts so strongly with the dour demeanour of the Russians. We visited a few museums in UB, and had a meal that was unremarkable, apart from the fact that it might have been cheaper in London. Still, we were tourists in the furthest city on the planet from sea, so it was pretty much to be expected. We had also again made the cardinal error of going with the Lonely Planet's recommendation - always a bad idea.

The following day, we headed out into Turelj: truly a beautiful place. Whilst it is obvious that modern life and tourism are eating into its reserves of natural beauty, Turelj has a magical, calm aura. The prevailing sounds were mainly of Mongolians singing to their animals, and the views were of post-glacial u-shaped valleys, complete with all the features we learned about at school - truncated spurs, roches moutonées, hanging valleys and so on. As an exercise in physical geography, it was unparalleled.

We also had the opportunity to ride Mongolian horses. This was quite a novel experience. Throughout the ride, I was trying to exhort my blue-eyed horse to gallop, but it steadfastly refused. As soon as he detected that we were heading home, he decided that now was the time, and really went for it. This was great, but suprisingly painful. Despite the pain, I thought it would be rather rum of me to rein in the horse, after trying to make him gallop thus far. It was only on our return that I realised why it was so painful - the cushion had come off the saddle, so a piece of steel had been banging against my tail bone all the way back. There is a photo of the bruising, but in the interests of all I have decided not to share it here.

After Turelj, we headed back to the Capital City, and saw an incredible culture show, taking in acrobatics and throat singing first-hand. Throat singing truly has to be seen and heard to be believed: a high and a low-pitched note simultaneously coming out of the same gullet.

I hope you like the photos below. Next stop - China!

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.