Kona Bikes, USA. Dearest friends you are. I was introduced to you while wrenching at The Backcountry. I was in the market looking to invest in another sustainable relationship. Something I could both cherish and abuse, suffer with and share laughs together, and ultimately count on not leaving me dead in the water a few years into our bonding experience. It began with the Major Jake. How the cross affair got to the core of my existence and sparked feelings I had yet uncovered. I begged for more out of you and that was when the Dawg Primo walked into my life. My heart went pitter-patter as this was my first double-squisher and opened up a whole new level of riding. It was like having a cheat code to advance to that last stage of Mario Bros. without having to deal with the first 8 levels. Fast-tracking to burly singletracking. I took my aggression out on the trail and not on the body.
I kept my faith consistent and never averted my eyes away from your sexy steeds, Kona. Okay, perhaps I did, but I swear I was only looking. I never cheated on you. Except that one time, but I had no choice. I was drunk….There were a bunch of people around telling me to do it…..So I swung my legs around that dingy blue beach cruiser and pedaled around town on the 4th of July. I hoped you’d understand. And surely you did.
That’s when I chose to take our love to the next level and invest in the Unit. It wasn’t my first single speed; in fact it made it number three. It arrived and how quickly I adorned it with fancyness and gadgetry to make it the “BLING-lespeed of my dreams”. Like a waifish model not wearing make-up in a kevlar suit dancing to reggae in the hot, balmy sun. That’s what you were Unit. #1. Yes, #1 because #2 replaced you when you gave up on me a year and a half after our love expired . Apparently you needed gentler treatment, mellower adventures, and caressing soft hands. I was young, naive, forceful, and learning your ways. Kona, I praise you for understanding the progression of manhood and providing me with #2 in hopes that I’d learn from my mistakes. Love hurts. Love scars. Love wounds and mars. But warranty heals.
#2 was worthy. I tried not to compare it to my relations from the past. I wanted to invest new energy, joy, and passion into this deja vu-esque rekindled affair. I now saw the soul of your being, Unit #2. I respected that forgiving steel ride, your average build that had me content and happy with “what was inside that counted”. We rode, we climbed, we crashed, we cried (okay, only like once), we lived. And then again, out of nowhere, you died. How could you?!?
That’s when the rough patch began. I waited and waited and waited for a decision, Kona. I moved to Oregon and severed my ties with your company. A month or so passed before I heard back from you, which was in the shape of a frame box that arrived outside my door. You tried to smooth things over by including a brown t-shirt with your logo that was 2 sizes too large. I ignored that. Rather, there inside was something I had never expected. You gave me this bi-sexual of a slump-buster, the Explosif. It went both ways and if you looked close enough you could tell. Cable stops, a derailleur hanger, the whole nine. But I was, as I said, in a slump with soft legs and needed to start riding something. So it was assembled – quickly – and surprisingly my first impressions flew out the door as I rallied you around Hood River and Washington’s sweetest trails. E #3 we’ll call her. Not as sexy as Unit #1 or #2, but a fair companion I was hoping to spend my twentysomethings with. Kona, you delivered, yet again, and once more taught me that it’s truly the inside that counts.
But love is a battlefield. And cablestops or no cablestops, E #3 was just as clumsy of a dancer as its predecessors. It failed me yet again after sharing my secret trails, epic races, and introducting her to my closest of friends. It was in the form of a seat tube crack discovered days before a 24 hour race. I said, “No more, dammit! No longer will I be hung out to dry.” But again this was a bluff and thankfully Kona, you served me up with E#4 in a relatively timely fashion.
And here I now sit with E #5. She’s got two rides on her. She’s got a nice dress on in the color of candy apple green. Her eyes sparkle and the shoes she wears attempt to divert my attention elsewhere. Before she arrived a few weeks back I again had uttered the words, “No more, Kona! You’re unreliable, you fail me in the worst of times, and you leave me with a bad taste in my mouth immeidatley after brushing.” Yet somehow, I’m weak and desire you in my life, Mr. and Mrs. Kona Bikes USA. So there she leans against my wall, waiting for me to say the first word after a fierce argument that beckoned silence. I stare, she awaits, and I mumble, “Wanna ride?”
