ED’S KONA OPERATOR DL £3,799.99

The Kona’s been getting a thrashing, on and off the race track

Thanks to all the recent bank holidays, I’ve managed to get to some uplift days and races and give the Kona a proper workout on some full-on terrain. Hammering out runs of rough and fast tracks like those at Revolution Bike Park is a surefire way to bring the shortcomings of any bike to the surface.

Besides its weight, I can’t find anything to fault with the Operator frame – it’s solid and the geometry is spot on. But there’s definite room for improvement with the RockShox BoXXer fork. Being the low-spec RC model, it has a less refined Motion Control cartridge instead of the latest Charger damper. On highspeed square-edged hits it chokes in its travel, because not enough oil can flow through the damper. Conversely, in big compressions it dives through its stroke, unsettling my position on the bike. Jake at Sprung Suspension has worked his magic with some internal tweaks, which have helped a lot. But a fork upgrade could well be on the cards.

One notable component has been the e*thirteen LG1+ chain guide. At the recent Northern DH Champs at Hamsterley Forest, I attempted a rather ambitious rock gap and came up a bit short. The bashguard took the full force of the impact like a champ, and although the backplate bent in half, I finished my race run!