Now this is a troubling development: officials in South Wales, UK are warning spectators at this weekend’s Kona Mash-Up at Glyncorrwg Mountain Bike Centre to keep a tight eye on their rigs because organized criminals may be lurking behind the scenes. Apparently at an MTB event at nearby Margam Park last month thieves made off with roughly $45,000 worth of bikes!

Clearly these crooks are organized and they’ve done their homework to know downhill bikes are expensive and easy to swipe in a big crowd. Just imagine, you lean your bike against the outside wall of the restroom – sixty seconds later the bike is gone.

We’ve heard too many stories lately about mountain bikes being stolen – and not just campus cruisers, nice, custom rigs. In fact today I lost my Yakima roof rack and two bike trays in the Home Depot parking lot near my house. Working in broad daylight in a busy parking lot means these guys are pretty brazen! Of course in this case, like many others, I bear most of the blame myself (left the car door unlocked which made it easy to remove the rack clips).

Bottom line: keep your bike stuff locked up tight wherever you find yourself this summer – the bad guys are everywhere!

The 29er mountain bike platform has proven itself in the world of cross-country mountain bike racing and these days the bigger wheels are slowly making their way deeper into all-mountain territory. The Kona Hei Hei 2-9 (pronounced “hey hey”) is the company’s first and only full suspension 29er that’s dripping with XC race cred while dipping its big fat toe into AM waters.

Frame & Geometry

First introduced in 2008, the Hei Hei 2-9 features hydroformed Scandium tubing for a strong, lightweight, and durable frame that looks like a work of art. Scandium tubing is made from an aluminum alloy that’s had its grains aligned by adding scandium to the mix (so no, bike frames aren’t made from elemental scandium – not even close). The upshot is increased strength which allows Kona’s designers to use less material (read: lighter frame) than if they were using regular old 7005 aluminum. All built up my XL test bike weighs in just under 29 lbs. with pedals – not bad for a 22″ frame with big wheels and 4-inches of travel!

The Hei Hei 2-9 frame tubes are hydroformed, a process in which the tubes are precision shaped by blasting hot metal with liquid. This allows the designers to create the beautifully sloped top-tube you see without introducing points of weakness since the metal grains remain seamlessly aligned. At points where the tubes are welded, hydroforming is used to create stronger surfaces for the connections. The 2010 Hei Hei 2-9 also sports a tapered headtube which increases strength and durability of both the frame and headset bearings.

Since 1996, Kona has been honing their 4-bar linkage suspension design and the 2010 Hei Hei 2-9 takes full advantage of this versatile rear suspension set-up. Magnesium rocker plates keep the whole assembly lightweight and extremely stiff with zero noticeable side-to-side movement. On the trail this kept the rear end laser focused on bouncy descents and quick to accelerate coming out of sharp turns.

On trails with short and fast elevation changes (think gully dips) the 4-bar linkage allows the bike to respond quickly, going from full compression back to efficient climbing in the blink of an eye. Of course much of the credit goes to the properly tuned Fox Float RP23 which comes standard on every Hei Hei 2-9 but I gotta say the match between shock and frame is impressive.

While the Hei Hei 2-9 isn’t a true all-mountain bike, it offers just the right amount of suspension to take the edge off all-day epic rides and to smooth out the rough spots on fast courses. I personally like to pedal hard and ride fast and the Hei Hei 2-9 let me do that without needing to slow down for short rock gardens or sharp, rooty patches. As a full-time hardtail rider I have to admit I noticed a bit of pedal bob on the climbs but when I remembered to engage pro-pedal most of the bounce disappeared.

The Kona Hei Hei 2-9 features fairly aggressive head and seat tube angles that are just right for XC racing, yet slack enough to enjoy the flow going downhill. As a point of reference, the Hei Hei 2-9 angles are just slightly more slack than the regular Hei Hei (26-inch wheels) but not nearly as laid back as the Kona Dawg. This turns out to be a nice compromise between climbing efficiency with sharp handling (high angles) and high speed, downhill crushing (lower angles).

Speaking of sharp handling, I was blown away by just how well the Hei Hei 2-9 handled on tight, sinuous singletrack. The wide, 710mm handlebars took some getting used to at first but I soon found the responsiveness of the bike allowed me to quickly juggle the bars through tight spaces without losing the back end. Accelerating out of tight spaces was also a treat thanks to the stiff rear end.

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Kona is sponsoring their 3rd Annual Shoot the Ride Photo contest and they’re giving away $700 in Kona store credits to the top 3 photogs! The contest is pretty simple: email your “tightly edited photo” to photos@konaworld.com and in May they’ll announce the winners. Clearly the shotgun approach to MTB photography won’t work here – pick your shots like a sniper for a serious chance at winning. Get the contest deets here.

If you’re bummed about being shut out from Interbike every year, the folks at Western Spirit in Moab have just the thing for you: Outerbike. From September 30 through October 3 this year, regular Joes can saddle up and demo the latest mountain bikes from big manufacturers like Kona, Trek, Santa Cruz, and Yeti (just to name a few). Perhaps best of all, the event takes place in a true mountain bike mecca, Moab, UT.

Putting on a large scale consumer event like this is an ambitious project but it’s one we’d like to see succeed. Interbike has experimented with opening Outdoor Demo East to consumers and the Sea Otter Classic in California has become the de facto consumer mountain bike show over the years but Outerbike just may have some legs of its own. Who’s in for 2010?

photo courtesy konaworld.com.

Kona is sponsoring a really cool and unique event starting Friday called “White Style” at the Kona Leogang Bike Park in Austria. White Style basically creates a DH/FR course out of snow to challenge some of the world’s best riders including Darren Berrecloth, Cam McCaul, and Sam Pilgrim.

Here are some course deets from Konaworld:

Kona Clump team rider Grant Fielder promises to present a course built out of snow that is even better than last year: A start section with two different parallel drops (a high one and a lower one with a kicker on it), followed by two massive doubles made completely of snow, but also featuring a second wooden kicker for the ones who prefer a shorter transition to throw down big tricks. The second half of the course begins with a decent step up to roller and kicker step down combination, just like a fruit bowl, which is not too big, but provides the perfect speed for a more challenging satellite dish step up step down combo that guarantees some more airtime for big tricks. The most spectacular obstacle is the final big hitter, which marks the end of the course: A huge snowboard big air style kicker shooting following riders into Leogang’s sky.

For those of us stateside, Red Bull will air highlights from the event on March 6th at 11:30 pm CET on www.servustv.com. Click below for last year’s highlight vid.

David Blaine himself would be impressed: a mountain bike with 4 inches of rear travel that can scale to 6 inches when needed and responsive, shifting frame geometry. The Kona Abra Cadabra packs Magic Link technology onto an ultra-lightweight scandium frame for a truly fantastic ride (according to Kona, the scandium frame is as light as titanium, more durable than carbon, half the weight of steel, and five times stronger than aluminum). I got a chance to speak with the creator of Magic Link on Tuesday and not only that – I got to experience the ride myself (and it was sweet!).

First, a bit about Magic Link. Brian Berthold started with a clean slate when he designed Magic Link and asked himself this question: Why can’t I have a plush bike that is just as good at climbing as it is at descending? After many design iterations, Berthold came up with a design that allows the suspension to tune itself depending on conditions. That means the rider doesn’t have to harsh the ride while fiddle with levers and valves every time he crests a hill or starts a climb (perfect for those who ride lots of “rolling” terrain).

The course at Bootleg Canyon was the perfect place to test the Abra Cadabra thanks to the quick dips mixed with moderate length climbs and descents. Now I’m a pretty dedicated XC rider and I typically shy away from mid-to-long travel bikes but this is a plush bike that any XC rider will appreciate. Climbing felt ultra-efficient thanks to steep head and seat angles that kept me more upright than I expected. Pedal bob was virtually non-existent.

On the descents the Magic Link automatically adjusted the bike geometry for a steeper, slacker head angle with longer suspension travel. Bombing down the steeps I felt like a much better rider as the suspension soaked up progressively larger ruts and rocks. The amazing thing is how I could feel the suspension and geometry changes taking place as I bottomed out on gullies and transitioned into short, steep climbs.

The Kona Abra Cadabra is one of those bikes you have to try for yourself to fully appreciate (the demo lines for the Abra Cadabra at Interbike were some of the longest we saw). It’s unlike any other suspension set-up you’ve ridden – it’s like magic!

Note: the Kona Cadabra also features the Magic Link suspension system minus the pricey scandium frame.

Lots of mountain biking news to share this morning.

Kona Naming Contest: A couple weeks ago we told you about the contest to name Kona’s new Magic Link all-mountain bike and one of our readers is a finalist in the contest! Denis suggested “Tanuki” which is “a Japanese raccoon like dog or badger with monster nuts” who, according to legend, is a master of shape shifting and disguise. Whatever, all we know is it sounds cool and we want to see Denis win. Head over to the Kona site and vote Tanuki up…

VHoldR Intros ContourHD Helmet Cam: The helmet cam market is heating up with the introduction of the world’s first HD helmet camera from VHoldR. The camera is said to capture 30 frames per second in full high-def quality or a rockin’ 60 frames per second in standard definition and sports a 135 degree wide angle lens to take in all the action. Pricing is reasonable too – just $299 – look for the Contour HD in stores and online starting next month!

Downhill Camp Held in Lousã, Portugal: This press release came to us in Portugese but the pictures speak a thousand (English) words. Ten riders attended the Team Berg Cycles camp April 8-11 and learned to tackle the toughest jumps and obstacles over dozens of  downhill runs. My favorite part of the camp: the riders trained using spinning bikes (see photo below). Most cross country riders view downhillers as too lazy to ride uphill but this camp shows it takes endurance no matter which direction you ride.

Kona needs your help naming their forthcoming long travel all-mountain bike and there are some pretty cool prizes on the line including a brand new (unnamed) Kona Magic Link Bike! You can submit 5 names and the Kona marketing team will pick their 5 faves after April 15. The names will then be whittled down as one name is voted OUT each day for four days.

Since you can submit 5 names all I ask is this: make one of your 5 suggestions “singletracks dot com“. It won’t win (sadly) but at least we’ll let Kona know where hip bikers get their MTB info

Clearly Kona needs help naming their bikes – Stinky and Dawg are perhaps the worst MTB names ever. More details are posted below, submit your ideas now! (and don’t forget “singletracks dot com”).

KONAWORLD (April 6, 2009) – Over the last few months, the Kona Bike team of designers and engineers have been hard at work developing a new, super-light, long travel all-mountain bike that incorporates our revolutionary 2-bikes-in-1 Magic Link Technology. But, now, due to our fried brain cells from calculating geometry angles and tweaking our new bike to fractions of millimeters we don’t have the creative juices to give our new rig a good name.

That’s where you – the fun-loving, die-hard mountain biker – come into play.

We need your help in giving our new trail beast the right name. If you’re not familiar with our current CoilAir bikes with the Magic Link technology system, then CLICK HERE. Imagine a six-inch travel bike that weighs less than 30 pounds. One that climbs comfortably and efficiently, but then—when all things start to get bumpy and quick—that same bike morphs into a wicked descender, with slacker geometry, better tracking and an additional inch of travel. No switches necessary.