Kona: Satori
You might be tempted—if you looked only at the Satori’s remarkably short, 17.3-inch chainstays—to conclude that this 130mm-travel 29er was built to carve turns on tight singletrack. But this is no racy cross-country bike.
If, instead, you looked farther forward, to the ISCG tabs for mounting a chain guide, the 68-degree head angle, and wide 2.4-inch front tire, you might have logically concluded that the bike wants only to blast downhill. That would also be a mistake.
So what is this category-bending 29er? To find out, we tested the Satori on the playful trails near Kona’s U.S. headquarters in Ferndale, Washington; on a rugged, daylong ride near Tucson, Arizona; and on the technical trails near our office in eastern Pennsylvania. We sailed down jump runs, rolled along singletrack, dropped a few steep chutes, and crawled up rocky climbs.
Through it all, the Satori proved to be a versatile ride that handled almost anything we threw at it. It’s not perfect in every situation—of course, no bike is—but the Kona has a wide sweet spot, making it an appealing entry in this growing category.
The Satori’s short stays and slack head-tube angle complemented one another best on rough trails ridden at moderate speeds—slashing around berms, plowing through rock gardens, or floating down rocky ledges. With front and rear thru-axles, a relatively stiff frame, and stout wheels, the Satori tracked true. We noticed flex only in sharp, fast corners.
The four-bar suspension, damped by a Fox RP2 shock, is tuned to match the bike’s aggressive-trail-riding sweet spot. Its travel felt stiff off the top and supple through the midstroke, before ramping up slightly as we came close to bottoming it out. The bike’s simple suspension platform, less sophisticated than designs found on other bikes—Kona calls it a Swing Link four-bar linkage—let us pedal smoothly when the terrain allowed. Any unwanted suspension≠ motion can be tamed with the shock’s platform-damping feature.
The Satori is available in only one model, built with a mix of dependable and high-value components, for a 30-pound package—about the same weight as some pricier competitors. We appreciated the Satori’s versatile character. Because the bike is too nimble to be classified as an all-mountain bike and too burly to be called a trail bike, we started thinking of it as an enduro machine: It’s designed to be ridden all day, across any terrain, but it feels most at home on long, spirited descents. —Lou Mazzante
Buy It If: You love ripping down wide-open trails.
If, instead, you looked farther forward, to the ISCG tabs for mounting a chain guide, the 68-degree head angle, and wide 2.4-inch front tire, you might have logically concluded that the bike wants only to blast downhill. That would also be a mistake.
So what is this category-bending 29er? To find out, we tested the Satori on the playful trails near Kona’s U.S. headquarters in Ferndale, Washington; on a rugged, daylong ride near Tucson, Arizona; and on the technical trails near our office in eastern Pennsylvania. We sailed down jump runs, rolled along singletrack, dropped a few steep chutes, and crawled up rocky climbs.
Through it all, the Satori proved to be a versatile ride that handled almost anything we threw at it. It’s not perfect in every situation—of course, no bike is—but the Kona has a wide sweet spot, making it an appealing entry in this growing category.
The Satori’s short stays and slack head-tube angle complemented one another best on rough trails ridden at moderate speeds—slashing around berms, plowing through rock gardens, or floating down rocky ledges. With front and rear thru-axles, a relatively stiff frame, and stout wheels, the Satori tracked true. We noticed flex only in sharp, fast corners.
The four-bar suspension, damped by a Fox RP2 shock, is tuned to match the bike’s aggressive-trail-riding sweet spot. Its travel felt stiff off the top and supple through the midstroke, before ramping up slightly as we came close to bottoming it out. The bike’s simple suspension platform, less sophisticated than designs found on other bikes—Kona calls it a Swing Link four-bar linkage—let us pedal smoothly when the terrain allowed. Any unwanted suspension≠ motion can be tamed with the shock’s platform-damping feature.
The Satori is available in only one model, built with a mix of dependable and high-value components, for a 30-pound package—about the same weight as some pricier competitors. We appreciated the Satori’s versatile character. Because the bike is too nimble to be classified as an all-mountain bike and too burly to be called a trail bike, we started thinking of it as an enduro machine: It’s designed to be ridden all day, across any terrain, but it feels most at home on long, spirited descents. —Lou Mazzante
Buy It If: You love ripping down wide-open trails.
