Posted in category: Reviews
Jul 07 2010
As usual we have a pretty sweet stable of bikes under staff and owners this season. One of the standouts so far has been the new “Magic Link” bike from Kona – the Cadabra, and its higher-spec brother the AbraCadabra.
After an impressive first ride on a demo bike provided by Kona back in November, we decided to pick one up for a longer season of testing. The DB Cadabra has now logged around 100 hours of riding on the North Shore, Sunshine Coast, Squamish, Burnaby mountain and more.
Kona’s first version of the magic link suspension design debuted in 2009 on a tweaked version of the CoilAir platform. An interesting idea, using a double linkage that connects the rear air shock to a secondary spring in order to provide additional travel as well as geometry changes throughout the travel. This first version was promising but had its issues. For 2010, Kona heavily revised and updated the magic link concept, best represented on the all-new Cadabra series of bikes.
The Cadabra is a trail bike designed to do a wide range of riding surprisingly well. It has a deceptively light scandium frameset, heavily formed, and with some smooth and modern lines. The bike has 150 mm of front and rear travel, but also an XC and climbing oriented head tube and seat tube geometry. It essentially rides like a long travel XC bike, until you point it downhill, where the magic link starts to work, slackening the head angle and providing lots of confidence.
One of the things that impressed us most on both versions was the high quality parts spec, which combined with a light frameset and a reasonable price delivers one of the best values we have seen for an all purpose FS bike in a while. The Cadabra comes with a Fox 32 150mm fork, with a 15mm axle, Foc RP32 rear shock, Mavic Crossride wheelset, SLX/Deore/XT shifters, brakes and cranks and has a retail price just over $3000! The Abracadabra has the same light frame but has upgrades across nearly all parts for only around $1500 more. Note: remaining stock of both of these bikes is on sale right now at DB – until the end of July, making them an even better value - see www.differentbikes.ca under latest deals!.
The Ride:
While not a bike that is ready to catch big air or hit the gnarliest steep trails on the shore, this bike has impressed us with its versatility and performance. One of the most noticeable strengths is climbing – the magic link action keeps the suspension active and supple and the bike absolutely grabs the trail on the uphills, surprising us by cleaning many uphill lines that are often hard to hit. The light weight helps here, but we think it is mostly down to the suspension. The Cadabra is also a very capable descender, but it takes some getting used to and some trust in the bike. With an XC-oriented geometry and a relatively high BB, it does not immediately inspire confidence on the steeper technical descents the north shore and squamish have to offer. But point it downhill, get the rear end into the travel and the bike slackens out and seems to eat the trail with its 150mm of travel. It essentially feels like a short travel cross country bike except seems to roll through things that would likely lead to disaster on a short travel bike.
Issues – not many. We found the factory cable routing led to lots of frame rub and interference with the feet and legs. Ziptying the cables to the main upper linkage solved this. The Magic link works well, although getting the shock pressure and spring rate set right is a bit fidgety, and takes some trial and error. Once dialled, you’ll love it. More technical lines could expose a little flex in the rear end, but some of this was probably asking more of the bike than it was designed for. The magic link suspension action takes a little getting used to, especially on big compressions or short g-outs, as the geometry change from steep to slack and back is not something everyone may be used to. Once familiar, you can start to play with this feature, lean back when things get steep and rough and let the bike work.
Summary:
Very well executed package, proving the potential of an interesting new suspension design. Nice looking bike, clean modern lines, with an awesome parts spec. Light weight, incredible value, versatile bike for everything from casual XC racing to technical and epic trail riding. A little quirky at moments until you are used to it but will outclimb and out descend many similar “trail bikes” costing 50% more money. Ironically – buy one as designed as your “one do it all bike” and have enough left over to consider another bike!
More details: http://www.konaworld.com/bike.cfm?content=cadabra
