2006 Kona Dr. Dew : Commuting and More - One Year Later
 

I purchased a 2006 Kona Dr. Dew in June 2006 and wanted to share my thoughts on the bike, commuting, and what I’ve learned as a bicycle commuter approximately one year and 2,300 miles later. When I was totally clueless about bikes, I searched high and low for user-experiences on particular models (the Dr. Dew being one such bike) and thought this might prove useful to people like me in the future.

Why a Kona Dr. Dew?

I had been riding a mountain bike for about a year and found myself doing more and more street riding – errands, light commuting about town and that sort of thing. The trouble was, it was work pushing those fat tires on asphalt and I was limited to carrying whatever could fit in my backpack. I wanted something designed for easier use on the road which would also let me carry more cargo.

For some reason, I was fixated on a hybrid bike with disc brakes. I just loved how the disc brakes on my mountain bike bit and held and I thought of it as such a safety issue at the time that I was insistent that the bike I bought have them. Well… this restricted my bike choices quite a bit and caused further headaches down the road as I’ll discuss later.

Again, for some reason unknown to me at this present day, I wanted a bike with flat handlebars. I guess I was convinced (in my newbie mind) that drop bars were going to be murder on my back and would otherwise present a very uncomfortable bicycling profile. I found out that quite the opposite would be true. Again, more on this in a bit.

I narrowed down my choices to the Marin Point Reyes, the Novarra Buzz and the Kona Dr. Dew. I couldn’t locate a Point Reyes within 100 miles and I didn’t like the fact that the Buzz only had two chain-rings, so I test-rode the Dr. Dew and found it enjoyable.

Here’s what a stock 2006 Dr. Dew looks like:

http://www.dietrologia.net/photohosting/kona/kona1.jpg

Here’s what my Dr. Dew looks like these days:

http://www.dietrologia.net/photohosting/kona/kona2.jpg


Racks

The first thing I went about doing was getting racks on my new bike. I got it to commute and do errands around town and I needed to be able to lug stuff to and fro! Here’s where my newb ass got its first dose of reality as I attempted to get racks on a bike with disc brakes. Yeah, yeah, I hear everyone going, “Well, duh!” but I just didn’t know at the time. ;)

So… off to peruse the limited selection of racks available. In the back I went with the Topeak rack with the MTX Quick Track system so a Topeak rack bag could just slide and lock in.

Here’s the rack:

http://www.dietrologia.net/photohosting/kona/kona3.jpg

Here’s how the rack attaches down at the axle:

http://www.dietrologia.net/photohosting/kona/kona5.jpg

Here’s a shot from the back. You can see how the rack kind of “juts out” at the bottom to go over and around the brake-pad assembly.

http://www.dietrologia.net/photohosting/kona/kona6.jpg

And here’s a shot of the rack with the bag on it:

http://www.dietrologia.net/photohosting/kona/kona4.jpg

It was pretty difficult finding a good rack that would fit the front of my bike. Although I didn’t have shocks up front, the Dr. Dew doesn’t come with any kind of braze-ons to help out with racks and, of course, the disc brakes add further complications. Old Man Mountain came to the rescue and I purchased their top-of-the-line rack for the front:

http://www.dietrologia.net/photohosting/kona/kona7.jpg

Old Man Mountain sent some special hardware and an extra-long skewer for the bottom attachment:

http://www.dietrologia.net/photohosting/kona/kona8.jpg

Here’s what it looks like up where the rack attaches at the forks:

http://www.dietrologia.net/photohosting/kona/kona9.jpg

That’s the setup I run with when I want to bike “light.” I was really pleased with this bike in this configuration for the longest time. It was certainly more agile on the road than my mountain bike(!) and I put quite a few happy miles on it this way.

But…

Panniers

There soon came the time when I wanted to haul more stuff -- hit the grocery store, cart books, gym clothes and shoes, you name it. I also wanted to do some light touring. Yes, it was time for panniers. And with the panniers, my real problems started.

http://www.dietrologia.net/photohosting/kona/kona10.jpg

When deciding what bags to get and how much to spend, I decided to split the difference: I went with inexpensive ones up front and pricier ones for the rear. So, up front I have a set of Delta bags that probably cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $30 and a set of Arkels in the rear that ran about $150.

http://www.dietrologia.net/photohosting/kona/kona11.jpg

I chose these particular Arkels because I was worried about possible heel-strike and these bags were described as narrow, but tall.

http://www.dietrologia.net/photohosting/kona/kona13.jpg

As you can see from these photos, heel strike is not an issue for me. I wear size 9 shoes, by the way.

http://www.dietrologia.net/photohosting/kona/kona14.jpg

Are spokes supposed to go “Ping!” like that?

The instant I started carrying any decent weight (nothing outrageous though) I began breaking spokes. Being completely new at this, I didn’t think to research this part of the bike, but my rear wheel has 32 spokes and my front has 28! I learned an expensive lesson, which is that this is not a high enough spoke count when things get heavy. Again, “duh.”

I guess part of me thought I could get away with it as I weigh 160 pounds, but as another experienced poster on this board pointed out, it was those darned disc brakes I insisted on that add an additional level of stress on those poor spokes. As you brake, torque is applied against the spokes from the center with tension radiating outward. Or something like that. I guess this isn’t good for the spokes. Well, it wasn’t good for me and no, I couldn’t get away with it.

Too many spokes broke and I took both wheels in to get them refitted with heavier-gauge spokes (and I think a different pattern, if I’m not mistaken). They’ve held up fine since the rebuild *knock on wood*, but I can’t really ever fully trust them and I’m really gun-shy about travelling with a decent load once again.

Now I’m faced with a decision which is to have new, stronger wheels built for this bike or to use the money towards the purchase of a bike designed to tour and haul heavy loads. Again, I find myself limited to one type of hub (a 36-hole Shimano) due to my earlier insistence on disc brakes. I’m beginning to sound like a broken record. Oh, there are higher-count hubs out there ,like the Phil Wood among others, but that sort of equipment is pricey enough that I’d just go with a new bike at that point.

Comfort

First off, I ditched the stock seat ,which was murder on my poor backside, for a cheapie Planet Bike gel model. It isn’t fancy, but it’s comfortable.

I quickly found the flat handle bars to be a figurative pain in the ass. I guess they were literally a pain in my palms. During my long commutes to work, I’d be dying for additional hand positions. Yep, good thing I insisted on flat bars! And yes, because of those disc brakes I absolutely had to have, I couldn’t put drop bars on the thing. Sheesh.

Solution: I bought a set of trekking bars from Nashbar for $19 and I love them! They look funky as all get out, but it gives my bike character and they really offer me quite a variety of hand positions. I’m really enjoying riding with these.

http://www.dietrologia.net/photohosting/kona/kona12.jpg

Oh, I should mention that when I purchased the Dr. Dew, I had the LBS swap out the stock pedals (the kind you had to wear bike shoes with) for run-of-the-mill ones with toe-clips.

Safety

First, A BIG THANK YOU to everyone on this forum who have offered a wide variety of safety tips!

To make myself more visible, I purchased black reflective tape and put it all over my bike. It’s a glossy black color during the day, but at night under light reflects a brilliant white:

http://www.dietrologia.net/photohosting/kona/kona15.jpg

Here’s from the front:

http://www.dietrologia.net/photohosting/kona/kona16.jpg

I have two inexpensive Cat-Eye LED headlights which can be set to blink or steady. Two lights really seems to capture peoples’ attention. I think just one of these is too easy to miss. If both are set to blink, they’re really tough to ignore.

On the rear end of things, I’ve had a variety of blinkies. Usually they have a 4-month life before they fall off or fall apart. I like to ride with two of those flashing in the back rather than just one.

Additionally, I ride with a neon-yellow ANSI vest with reflective strips sewn into it. And I ride with a helmet.

Performance

The 2006 Dr. Dew came with 700 x 37 Continental Country Ride tires. I thought these rode pretty fast – but remember that I only had my mountain bike to compare it to. Ha!

The single greatest performance enhancement I made to my bike was to replace these tires a month ago with 700 x 32 Panaracer Urban Max tires. I really don’t think it’s the model that made the difference as it was going from a 37C tire @ 60 PSI to a 32C @ 95 PSI. Wow! The speed difference is incredible! I really feel like I can fly now with these tires. Yes, I do feel a bit more of the road now, but honestly, it’s not too bad and hasn’t affected the enjoyment of my ride.

The other thing I did was replace my third chainring. The TruVative Elita GXP cranks that came with the Dr. Dew for this particular year came with 30/42/52 chainrings, which were probably fine for 85% of the riding I was doing, but there are a lot of hills on the routes I take and when I was heavily loaded or facing a headwind, the 30 just wasn’t cutting it and riding wasn’t fun. I didn’t have to walk, but I had to stand and strain pretty hard at times. Replacing the 30 with a 24 has made a world of difference in this department. Hills are fun again. Well, okay, “fun” is a strong word. How about “no problem?” ;)

Final Thoughts: Square Pegs and Round Holes

I’d like to say that the 2006 Kona Dr. Dew is a great bike for what it is. The trouble is that I’m somewhat unsure what its intended use is. As a hybrid it wants to be both a street bike with mountain bike aggressiveness, but I’m afraid it brings with it the weaknesses of both those rather than the strenghths. Though relatively light, it doesn’t have the speed of a road bike (flat bars, wide tires) nor does it have the traditional ruggedness of a mountain bike (i.e. low spoke count, high-ish gearing).

I can see this bike working very well as a light commuting bike or in a light messenger capacity.

Most of the problems I’ve encountered with the Dr. Dew is my simply trying to make the bike into something it was never intended to be: a touring bike… or at least a bike capable of hauling some decent weight. These problems are not of Kona’s doing but are of my inexperience and, yes, ignorance, at the time I went shopping.

Hey, don’t get me wrong, I love my Dr. Dew! I’ve had a lot of fun with this whole learning process, but now I’ve learned that this bike may not have been the best choice for what I intended to do with it.
And now, I’m at that point where I get to decide whether new wheels will solve my problem or if I should just cut my losses at this point.

Oh, and hey, those disc brakes? They're freaking awesome! For all the pain the in the you-know-what they've been, their performance has been fantastic. Hayes So1e models... they've been super-easy to adjust, they've never given me any problems mechanically and I trust them absolutely to stop me when I'm screaming down a hill in the rain. So... there's that, right? Heh.

I guess that's all.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading.

good post, thanks for all the info on the bike. i too was very stubourn on what i wanted for my next bike, and my original feelings were the same as yours when you bought this dr. dew. i wanted disc brakes, flat bars and all such things, but after reading this and other posts similar to this on here i have vastly changed my mind. i still have plenty of time to make my decision, but this has been some awesome food for thought.

I bought a Big Buzz a few years ago and had many problems with broken spokes on the rear wheel, which had 32 spokes. I also weigh 160 and frequently carry heavy loads of groceries in a very hilly city. Last year I gave up trying to keep the wheel fixed, and built a new wheel set with XT hubs, Alex Adventurer rims, and 36 DT Competition spokes per wheel. I have had no problems since building the new wheels.
Does the Dr. Dew have Shimano M-475 hubs ? If so, be prepared for early failure of the freehub.

Nice review. Think weight/direct pressure over/on the wheel is the cause of the spokes breaking not necessarily the fault of the disc brakes. Those that use their bikes for shopping or touring are well aware that they can't be weight weenies for those components....stronger wheels and (more) spokes are pretty much a given.

I love my Dew Deluxe,but for what you're doing I think you would've done better on my Novara Safari. Trekking bars FTW! ;)

I've never broken a spoke on any of my bikes. I weigh about 180(down from 190 when I started riding),all but one of my current bikes has discs,DC roads are terrible,and I've used several bikes for polo(read:abused the crap out of them:rolleyes:). The only bike I've carried heavy weight on is my Safari(which is built for it),but I'm wondering how much intitial setup of the wheels has to do with spoke breakage. I've purchased a couple bikes new and had the wheels trued by a different shop because right off the showroom floor they weren't perfect. All bikes need their spokes tensioned properly when they're built out of the shipping box,but most shops don't have the time when building stacks of bikes and wait until the customer buys it. If they don't check the tension before they send the bike out,you wind up with weak wheels.

Before carrying a bunch of weight on your bike,I'd recommend getting the wheels checked by an LBS you trust,or doing it yourself if you have the tools/skills.

Thanks for the great review. I am seriously thinking of upgrading to disc brakes or getting a bike with those already on. Good to know about the stress disc brakes put on spokes. I had not heard this before. Thanks, again.

good informative post. i went through some of these issues. my first real bike in years was a cannondale f5 mountain bike for many of the same reasons. we purchased the topeak quicktrax system to go from bags to basket. it was a good choice. topeak makes a big bag with built in panniers also. for the flatbar, it was chopped down to 23", shorter stem put on, ergonomic grips, and ergonomic bar ends. fits much better now. bought some durable crossroads tires but should have gone with slicks. it is what it is, a commuter with the ability to go on dirt and jump curbs when called on. it's not fast, it is durable and wheels have been fine.

Great post! Very informative and well written. :beer:

I commute on a road bike but have thought of building up a touring bike with racks but it is so hilly around here I'm afraid that if I did I just wouldn't want to carry anything on it because of how slow it would be. Also, it almost never rains here so I've never had a desire or need for disk brakes.

Great post! I had very similar issues with a Cannondale 50/50 I bought for my commute. I was "new" and "knew" what I wanted. Long story short, I now ride old touring bikes. For anyone reading this who maybe "new" to commuting. Go to a shop if possible and try a touring bike before buying a hybrid/mountain bike etc. as a refernce point.

The bike was a good fit for me when I started light commuting for the first time. It wasn't until my commuting needs gradually changed that I discovered the bike was no longer the best choice for me.

In a way, this was a positive thing as I began commuting longer distances and I had fun learning about riding along the way. Again, not the fault of the bike, but of the rider's demands and expectations changing.

I bought a new bike this spring too and more bike gear over the last several years. I don't think you really know what you truly want and what's going to work for you until you jump in and try stuff. These forums are great to help you make better decisions and fewer mistakes but sitting here reading threads can give a guy paralysis by analysis. It seems to me that some people who have been doing this for awhile go through a progression of bikes. My current bike, a Novara Safari, works good for me now and is much better than my old MTB. But before I had this bike, I never thought I would want a road style touring bike. Now I am starting to see some benefit to it.

Thanks you very much for putting the time in for such a useful post.
I appreciate it a lot and I'm sure a lot of other people do to!

Thanks so much for sharing one awsome ride. I love the handlebars and I will be ordering myself a set tonight. Your Kona rocks!!!!

You are probably right in that you want this bike to be your everything bike even though it will never be. Many/most of us on the forums have learned through experience that, like most things in life, you need a specific tool to do a specific job. I still think that a rigid hybrid with disc brakes, fenders, rack & panniers is the ultimate commuter. I have one (Jamis Coda) and it is probably the last bike I'd part with for commuting.

But on a nice, dry day when I'm not carrying much, I like to ride either my cyclocross bike or my vintage converted single speed. Both are faster and lighter than the hybrid, but neither is as utilitarian.

On weekends, those 3 are always silenced and I ride either my road bike or the mountain bike, or both, hopefully.

Yep, that's 5. I think I'm good for now. Got all of the bases covered.

Great review, thanks for the post. You've given me a lot to think about with my commuter (see my sig).

Thanks again!

I too am a 06 Dr. Dew owner. I have done the following mods to mine.

1. Saddle: Brooks B17
2. Handlebar: Riser bar (stock stem) with bar ends
3. Tires: Schwalbe Marathorn XR 700x32
4. Rear rack: your basic Axiom brand
5. Bags: Arkel XM-28s (yellow) and soon to be installed Carradice Barley

I think as a commute bike, the Doc is amazing. The only major issues I have had are:

1. The cold forge between by drive side crank and the spindle became loose. Truvativ warranted the crank and, now I have new (black) cranks.
2. The wheels needed a good truing after a few month of riding - after that all spokes have been behaving (touch wood)
3. My drive train inexperience maintenance resulted in a chain/rear cassette/middle ring replacement, after about 3500kms.

This has been my first committed attempt at commuting (nearly a year with over 4500kms), and the Doc is my first decent bike.

If I had to do it again, with what I know now (and that is still limited), I would be tempted with Surly's Cross Check or LHT or even Kona's Sutra. Apart from durable frameset, steel comfort, and loading options, the drop/trek/moutache bar option would go a long way in over all comfort for commute/tour bike. You never know, I am keeping my eye out for another ride. My justification is that I can always make the Doc a winter specific bike (disc brakes being most valuable in such weather) :-).

thanks for the post. You may have saved me an expensive mistake or two on my next bike.

When I started reading your review I thought "that could be me!". I bought my bike a year ago and have put 2400 miles on it. I wanted a mtb type bike with flat bars and disks. Luckily, I got a Scott Sub10: comfortable seat, disk brakes that are tucked in so they don't interfere with fenders or racks, mounting points for fenders and racks, no wheel issues (180 lbs). I love the disk brakes and would not change them. I didn't shop around much so I just got lucky selecting the Sub10. If the bike is designed right there is no downside to disks.

Regarding handlebars:

I was never a fan of drops. Although they do offer more options than plain ol' flat bars, I found myself either on the hoods, or the tops, and only rarely (and for short periods of time) on the actual drops.

So a few years back I started experimenting with bar-ends and a flat bar and came up with the "Antler Bar"

It's changed a bit since its inception, but is still the most comfy set-up I've ever ridden.

Awesome write up, this is one of a couple bikes I'm considering getting next spring.

Great write up!!!!

FYI, I have an Old Man Mountain rear rack on my Salsa Las Cruces with disc brakes. It's a STUD of a rack for sure. It almost makes you forget how expensive it is! :)

... Brad

Nice job! Enjoyed reading it. Learned something too (disc brakes can be hard on spokes).

I was fortunate enough to find this forum before I purchased my commuting bike. I almost made the same "mistake" (doesn't really seem like a mistake if thats what you wanted) regarding disc brakes. Cool how you worked around that tho and got it how you like it in spite of the brakes. Also this forum convinced me not to get a bike with suspension. In the end I got a Trek FX 7.5, I was able to get fenders and a rack on it easily.

I am concerned about the low spoke count of my rear wheel, I guess the Trek FX's Bontrager SSR wheels are "weight weenie" wheels, something I was ignorant about when I bought the bike. So far I haven't busted one. I really haven't loaded it up yet on a heavy grocery run, I suppose that's the test. If it happens, I will get a different wheel for the rear rather then try to fix it with a rebuild. I am happy with the flat bars so far, I did put some Ergon GC2 grips on them tho, which are really comfy for 'resting' my palms, and gives me another hand position.

Interesting set up! I bookmarked that thread for ideas in case I ever decide to do some long distance riding/touring, and find I need to modify my bars a bit more.


When I first started reading the thread, I thought maybe "antler bar" was a brand, so did some searching and came across this photo:


http://www.razorapple.com/wp-content...f-the-road.jpg

:lol:

Obviously after reading the entire thread I learned you made them yourself

So there's my answer. I was just looking at those (specifically the "Cold Spring" I think it was called -- and I'll assume that's named after Cold Spring, NY in Dutchess County, which is beautiful) last night, but thought I'd post the Question before I spent the big bucks. Looks great though.

Do you happen to also know if I can expect to get that AND the SKS/Esge fenders (45s?) on the La Cruz?