Kona has launched a monster steel gravel bike with a 100mm-travel RockShox SID suspension fork lifted from XC mountain bikes. The LBF is not an MTB with a drop bar, though, with the frame geometry set up specifically for a drop bar.
The Reynolds 520 butted-steel frame bike’s LBF name stands for Legend of the Big Fork, a play on the Big Foot monster native to Kona’s Pacific Northwest home (allegedly).
As with the fork, the tyres and wheels are MTB-level, with a 2.4in Maxxis Dissector tyre at the front and a 2.4-inch Maxxis Forekaster at the rear on Race Face ARC Asymmetric 27mm rims built on Formula hubs with Boost spacing.
If you’re heading into territory where you need the big tyres and hardtail-adjacent suspension, you’ll want appropriate stopping power, too, so Kona has paired the LBF’s SRAM Apex levers with SRAM’s G2 four-piston MTB brake calipers in what it says is a unique but SRAM-approved configuration.
The bike is specced with 180mm SRAM HS2 brake rotors, but you can fit 200mm rotors should you choose.
There’s a SRAM Eagle crankset with a 32-tooth chainring on a 73mm threaded bottom bracket and a SRAM Eagle 10-52t cassette, with a SRAM Apex Eagle derailleur. You can fit a maximum 34-tooth chainring if you want to gear up.
Drop-bar geometry
Kona’s headline geometry numbers mirror those of its mountain bikes, with a 67-degree head tube angle that’s very slack in the gravel world but, it says, lends the bike stability at speed.
The seat tube is MTB-steep, too, at 75 degrees, which Kona claims leads to predictable handling and seats the rider more centrally between the wheels.
The fit of hardtails and gravel bikes is different, though, with drop bars typically extending the reach. So Kona has adjusted the LBF’s geometry to account for the drop-bar configuration, rather than simply clamping a gravel bar to an MTB frameset. The LBF is kitted out with a Ritchey Comp Beacon flared gravel handlebar.
Another feature of the frame is sliding UDH dropouts at the rear, enabling you to set up singlespeed or tweak the rear-end configuration. There’s a full set of mounts, so you could fit mudguards (although probably not with the 2.4in tyres) and a rack, as well as bags above and below the top tube.
An MTB-adjacent gravel bike needs a dropper post, too – in this case, a TransX RAD+.
Kona claims a 14kg / 31lb weight for the LBF, which is available in S, M, L and XL sizes. It's priced at £3,299 in the UK, $3,699 in the US and €3,999 in Europe.
