Kona Coil Air with Magic link.. natural anti squat

Got a Kona Magic link frame cheap as an experiment... It's my new favorite!

View attachment 1




Even in just shakedown mode at med power it feels great. My heavy drag style bike is super, but it's fun to do power wheelies off curbs again.
The point of the magic link is the chainstays are mounted on a swing link driven by the shock. During hard hits, the link swings back, pushing the rear wheel backwards, lengthening the wheel base and slacking the steering angle at the same time.
But when the rear wheel is driving forward it stiffens the link. So under pedaling, and now motor too, it is naturally anti bob and anti squat under power, but then instantly goes to full travel as soon as pedaling or motoring stops, automatically!
I'll have to see what increasing power does to the link geometry, but so far it's crazy good for a random frame.

Better pics to come as the wiring gets tidied up... Lol.

A better pic of the linkage.. the actual pivot is on the main frame hidden behind the floating chain stays. When the link flexes backwards it takes the stays backwards during big hits.. but chain tension and power from the motor pushes into it keeping the link upright so the bike doesn't squat..

That's a rarity there. Not made for very long. I rode one years back. It's sort of like riding a URT (unified rear triangle) frame. When out of the saddle, your suspension stiffens considerably. Not really what you want, but you can adapt your riding style to it. I'd never put a mid drive on one (not that you really could). The rear ends are very, very flexy. Should be alright with a hub motor though.

As far as I can tell so far it's about the same standing, as the cranks are mounted on the main frame, not the subframe, so the leverage doesn't change like with URTs.
It's def flexy but the pivots on this one are still good, good enough for a knocking around bike anyway. Better for hub motor than crank drive for sure...

New motor in, and things cleaned up a little... the old motor had a single speed freewheel, now with 7 speeds. Took a while to get a good shifter combo, but the all left hand shifting for the front and rear really worked great on the test rides.




The link plates on this one are pretty compared to the normal Kona ones, with the nice radiused edges on everything.

With the shorter stem and the longer rear section on the monster SDG couch saddle, and the more powerful motor, its really easy to manual up into a power wheelie now too.
A little longer fork is on the menu, to keep up with the 7.5 inch travel in the back...

Awesome to read a review of the suspension characteristics, IMHO review of squat characteristics is missing from a lot of build reviews. Interesting linkage setup, seems over complicated but I suppose the proof is in the riding. Besides who doesn't love a controllable power wheelie

It IS overcomplicated! The work that went into the castings and the welding must have been something. Totally been passed by with the new generation of VPP type linkages and whatnot, but I have a soft spot for wacky rare suspension bikes, so this one was impossible to pass up.