LONG TERMERS

OK, let’s address the price first – this bike sells for one pound shy of 10 grand. That’s an awful lot of money for a bicycle, any bicycle, especially one without an electric motor. But with the ‘Supreme’ tag, Kona has thrown every top-end component at a full-carbon frame to create a ‘dream-build’ targeted at super fans of the brand – where the ‘Supreme’ moniker will switch from one model to another, creating a potential fleet of dream machines for the lucky few to collect. So what does £9,999 buy you? The carbon frame is a mix of svelte lines and burly linkages and it is beautifully finished in a fancy purple/ green metallic ‘Prism’ paint like on an early-Noughties TVR, if you remember those. In most lights it appears to be purple, but catch it in direct sunlight at the right angle and it flips to green – very bling.

For the build, Kona has raided SRAM’s top-drawer, fitting XX1 AXS electronic shifting, AXS Reverb dropper post, Zipp 3Zero Moto carbon wheels, RockShox Pike Ultimate fork, Super Deluxe Ultimate shock and G2 Ultimate brakes. The Supreme build is then finished with a Truvativ Descendant carbon bar and stem, and the only non-SRAM parts: a titanium-railed WTB saddle and Maxxis Minion DHF and Dissector tyres.

Now, I know