My latest acquisition:

South African made pre 1989...

Everything felt good on the ride, other than my saddle being slightly too high but that's all good now. And both were lighter than the enve bits that came off the bike. That logo is heavy, ha.

Think I'm finally done with this...other than the bikepacking gear I need to buy for it. This bike is so fun to ride, I'm seriously considering selling my full suspension.





2016 Karate Monkey Ops, everything is stock unless otherwise listed below:
Hope Pro4 hubs, Stans Arch Ex rims, Maxxis Ardent gumwalls
Thomson stem
Deity Saddle
Canfield Bros Crampon Ultimates
Supacaz lock on grips
KS ETen Dropper (cheap, and works just as well as my thomson dropper that was 3x the price)

I would totally ride this.

Truth be told unless you're riding technical stuff, a hardtail is all you need.

****ing love that bike.

i ride plenty of technical **** on my HT, it is all you need

that being said a full squish is in my future. lol

Full suspension makes me lazy. I tend to sit and let myself bounce around more, rather than just ripping it downhill.

As for technical stuff...well, I see a fair bit of that, but I usually end up walking over it anyway, so I don't think the suspension gets used to it's fullest potential anyway. haha.

That saddle is an enduro saddle, but I bought it because it was purple...ends up fitting my butt perfectly. I think it'll work great on the longer rides.

Edit...and I have one more addition that I need to add besides bikepacking gear. I bought a topcap that looks like a cookie. I'm pretty excited about it.

I need full squish cuz I'm getting too old to be hitting the gnar on rigid and HT. Thing is I have never really enjoyed a full squish priced below $7000.

i didnt see a single hardtail in AZ, it was fun having people look at us like we were nuts in sedona

My buddy took out an old school fully rigid stump jumper. Everyone on the trail thought he was crazy.

People usually buy full suspension bikes with the notion of buying 1 and being done, with full squish being able to take everything.

the only reason i want a squish bike is because i want to get into enduro, for anything less then high speed technical DH i dont need any more than a squishy fork

This was my thought too. But then I decided that bikepacking looks pretty awesome and I should try that, so obviously I need a special bike for that too.

A couple years ago I was riding Trail 100 in PHX on my olde '91 MB-3. Someone in one group I met said "Riding rigid on here? Hardcore!"

That's the only way I've ever ridden that trail.

^yeah buddy!

most bikepacking is done on a HT, basically for storage space. secondary reason being less **** to break, tertiary being weight

We were on Trail 100 that day as well! haha.

Yeah, I also looked at the Surly ECR, but figured the Karate Monkey would be more diverse. It's not a true bikepacking bike, but it'll certainly get the job done.

I like it so much you get two gifs.

KM is absolutely a bikepacking bike. everything surly makes has bikepacking in mind

not anymore...thanks to the ogre. same geometry, but all the braze-ons for bikepacking.

So it's got racism on it?

This makes me so happy.

This is pretty awesome. It's pretty much the bike I'd like to build at some point.

I wonder if they're stopping with the braze-ons because so many people are doing without racks and just mounting bags now?

plenty of people still use racks, i think theyre just expanding their range so they have bikes designed specifically for adventure, and ones that have more of a "fun" bent

Is the pic/pose location partially based on the flowers on the ground? Purple+purple?

i'm lowering my standards and posting a **** photo but there's a tropical storm in the area and I can't quite go outside for some fresh pics. Been putting a ton of miles on this bike, a lotta dirt and gravel so I gave it a good wash yesterday plus some new chicane stainless cages from blackburn and giant contact bar tape.