In the end I found myself going away from the Karate Monkey as I felt it was just too ‘big’ for what I was after. The majority of riding I will be doing is commuting via fire trail, choppy singletrack and bike path. Some days it will just be bike path. I do have a few other goals with this bike, riding to the coast and doing a few other longer rides but I doubt I will be doing rides like The Hunt etc.
The other bike on my hitlist was the Endpoint Hunter Gatherer. But unfortunately due to the house renovation my spendings account is a bit low at the moment. I sold a lot of things to be able to afford this bike - I would have had to sell a lot more in order to get the Endpoint. Things that I will know I will need down the track. Anyway…
The Sutra LTD kept coming up in peoples suggestions and it wasn’t really until I read about them a bit more online that I felt that this was the right sort of bike I should be looking at. I got in touch with Morgan Taylor who had owned a few of the other bikes on my list (Straggler, Wolverine, Rove) and there was one comment that really cemented it for me. “The Sutra is definitely more of a touring bike than any of the others… it is also more of a mountain bike than any of the others”
So the next step was to wait out for the 2018 Sutra, or save some money and find a 2017 - the only upgrades the Sutra 2018 has is thru axles and flat mount brakes. Not really worth an extra $600-800 in my opinion. That could be spent on racks, bags, bits for overnighters etc.
Anyway, I will take some pics and update with thoughts once I give it a good few rides.
Functional az. I had a minor internal debate about the Polygon bend RIV a little while back, which I guess is their aluminium version of this. This looks more capable and adaptable.
I also just realised that what I thought was the pie plate is actually the big cog.
Yup, the bike arrived just before lunch yesterday. Saddle is at the incorrect height, pie plate is still on just in case you didn’t notice, I took the reflectors off, Cables are a mess, handlebars are at a shit angle. I will be giving it a going over and the bike will be getting a few donations from my other kona until the new pedals arrive.
