We bought a Ute not quite two months ago, and we LOVE it! It's a really solid, smooth-riding, useful bike that can move a lot of stuff. I needed to haul a bunch of things to work this week, and the Ute handled my 13 mile roundtrip commute very nicely. In fact, I don't think I was any slower on the Ute than on my folding bike. Once it gets up to speed, it's surprisingly fast.

We have the 2008 model (it was on sale), and it does have some downsides. It's not a Big Dummy, but for less than $800, that's not what we were expecting. For instance, Kona made a terrible error putting a single kickstand on the 2008 model. They fixed that in 2009, but it's a real pain to load our bike, so we need to upgrade that ASAP. Since the frame is aluminum, the front is very lightweight, and it tends to flop around when it's fully loaded and I'm walking the bike, so that takes a bit of extra attention. I'd also like the option to load cargo lower on the frame, as you can with a Big Dummy or Xtracycle. Still, I'm quite pleased with the purchase, and it meets 95% of our hauling needs (groceries, cat litter, pet food, etc). For the other 5%, we'll use Zipcar.

One of these days, we'll get around to writing a review of sorts, but for now, here are all our blog posts about the Ute so far.