Our intent with this bike was to position it as something “more” than just a race bike, because the Hei Hei embodies this incredible blend of sharpness and speed in a broadly capable, trail-friendly package that makes even the gnarliest climbs fun again. But then Cory Wallace went out and won ANOTHER 24 Hour World Championship aboard it, so, yeah. It does just fine as a race bike too. But the new Hei Hei CR is so much more than that. It couples Kona’s trademark long and low geometry with a feathery light but beautifully composed carbon fiber frame, then gets dressed up in a fitting ensemble of SRAM’s finest. Whether you are harvesting KOMs or singletrack saturated smiles, the Hei Hei CR is gonna stack them up fast.
HEI HEI CR HIGHLIGHTS
- Advanced carbon fiber frame
- Swinger rear suspension design, 120mm travel
- Super deep dropper post insertion depth
- Full tube-in-tube internal cable routing
- Nine bottle/accessory mount options inside front triangle
- RockShox PIKE Ultimate 130mm Fork
- RockShox Deluxe Ultimate rear shock
- New SRAM 4-piston brakes
- New SRAM Eagle Transmission
- TransX +RAD dropper post in 125-200mm travel (frame size dependent)
- DT Swiss 370 hubs with torque cap
- WTB KOM i30 TSC rims
- Maxxis Dissector 29 x 2.4" WT 3C tires
Time is a shapeshifting trickster. Cruel and kind. We are always trying to make time, find time–but we keep on spending and wasting it. We count time, mark time, wonder how much of it we have left. It’s slippery like mercury; no matter how we squeeze on, we are always feeling it slip through our fingers. Time drags with drudgery, yet it blitzes by so fast when we are reveling in the good stuff. The climbs seem endless, yet those ribboned turns in the trees are ripped and gone before you can really even remember them. Time doesn’t seem linear in the context of pleasure and pain. Maybe you can squeak in a few more kilometers, next thing you know you’re late for dinner and that dirt crusted grin on your face won’t earn you a hall pass. So pedal harder, damnit. The clock is ticking.
One way around the trap of time is to move faster. That’s where whispers of the Hei Hei come in. Starting life in ‘91 as a titanium hardtail and eventually evolving into a carbon fiber full-suspension machine, bagging podiums and scoring championships by the fistful along the way, the Hei Hei has always been how we at Kona spell F-A-S-T. Now, we’re gunning for warp-speed.
