I bought my Kona Phd in 2008, after my Trek 8000 mountain bike got stolen while chained to a secure post outside a busy mall.
Never gave any thought to what I wanted next .... but knew that it should be a bit more nimble for city riding....on paved roads.
All I knew was that it had some decent parts and I liked the name Phd.

Ever since late 2019 Ive been relying more and more on my Kona Phd to get around and I can't tell you how much Ive grown
to appreciate it. It's a hell of a bike. Agility, energy and some great gears that give you some real pace.

It helped that I changed out a few parts to carbon and got the weight down to about 11.25 kg or so.

I recently was toying with getting a new bike with all the latest braking and gear shifting technologies....Canyon Roadlite CF9 Ltd et al...but decided that I would
try making some improvements to the Kona Phd to give it a new lease of life instead. Mind you it still works great as is..... but seeing a little rust around the
V Brake mechanics.... also, changing some parts would make me feel a little safer as its been 14 years or so.

Are any of you still riding your Phds...are they serving you as well as mine is?

Don't have anything to say about the Kona's but I do have quite a bit of experience with the Canyon's you mention. Currently out of commission due to being rear ended while sitting on the rack heading to a trailhead but that's another story and thread. The biggest problem here in the states is that Canyon USA will not import the Roadlite 9LTD anymore.. Have you seen my thread on Well here goes.... a couple of new Canyon Roadlites