Kona Mahuna Budget XC Mountain Bike Upgrade
This winter I decided to upgrade my 2018 Kona Mahuna mountain bike. If you’re not familiar with the Mahuna it is an entry level XC bike, that back in 2018 retailed for $800. Since then Kona has actually modified their line up a little, and the Mahuna is now the next tier up retailing for $1,000, and the Lava Mountain replaces the Mahuna at the $800 slot. For comparison this puts the 2018 Mahuna about in line with a Trek Marlin 7 in terms of price and components. Right off the bat after purchasing the bike I upgraded the saddle to a WTB Volt, the pedals to Race Face Chesters, and replaced the stock grips with some Orgin 8 lock on grips. For the trails that I rode at that time the bike was great and I really rode the heck out of it. However, I started to ride a little more advanced trails that have some pretty decent rock gardens and ledges. So it soon became apparent that I was reaching the limits of some of the stock components, in particular the coil spring fork and drive train. The riding experience in the rocky sections on the coil spring fork was very “springy”, and the Shimano Alivio derailleur was slapping the chain on the chainstay way too much. So I decided to swap these out for some components that are a little more capable.
There are a couple factors that limited what components I could use to upgrade my bike. One being the bike frame is set up for quick release dropouts and the other being unavailability of parts due to the pandemic. So after spending quite a bit of time online researching I landed on getting a Manitou Machete Comp fork and a Sram NX drivetrain. I did all of the upgrades myself, which is great if you have the time and the funds to buy all the specialty bike tools, etc... It gives you a much better idea of what’s going on in your bike and how everything works. I also replaced the headset, which was a cage bearing headset, for a sealed bearing headset. The cage bearing headset was a FSA 57b. This headset also had other cheap components like a plastic compression ring. I was surprised to see that Kona is putting these same 57b headsets in some of their bikes that cost well over $1,000 on their 2021 bikes. I really like Kona bikes, but I think this is ridiculous at that price point.
I would’ve liked to get a fork with a thru axle, but I would’ve had to buy a new front wheel. There are hardly any wheels available in a price range I’d be willing to spend on this bike and I’d still have a quick release in the back, so what’s the point? The trails I ride are all my local blue trails, so I think I’m fine with the quick releases. Even with the two big limitations of the bike frame and pandemic, I feel like I was able to give my bike a significant upgrade performance.
So here is how I came to the decision of the Manitou Machete and the Sram NX drivetrain. Let’s start with the decision to go with the Manitou Machete fork. The Mahuna head tube is tapered, so I had to spend a lot of time looking for forks that had a tapered head tube and quick release drop outs. There are not a lot of these forks to begin with, and even fewer in stock due to the pandemic. So I got into this vicious circle of looking at forks with a thru axle, and new front wheels, but there are hardly any wheels in stock in the right price range. The wheels available were either waaay to expensive for this bike or cheap off brands. So I’d be back to looking at tapered forks with quick release dropouts which were hard to come by. And when I did find one such as a Rock Shox Gold fork it was always from some sketchy online dealer that had the wrong fork pictured half the time. Needless to say I never really trusted buying a fork from one of those outfits. So that’s why I started looking at other brands such as Manitou. Manitou had the Machete Comp fork in stock with a tapered head tube and quick release drop out on the Hayes website (Manitou parent company).
I did as much research as I could online on the Manitou Machete and I couldn’t find anything bad about it, or Manitou forks in general. The Machete is not as popular as the Manitou Markhor fork, so most of the online reviews are for the Markhor. Having said that, what info I did find on the Machete was positive. In addition, as best as I can tell they're basically the same fork as the Markhor. The Machete is a little beefier with 32 mm stanchions vs the Markhor 28 mm. Given the similarities I also looked at the Markhor reviews and everything was very positive for that fork as well. I figured that since the design and components of the forks were so similar it’d be fair to take those reviews into consideration as well. As a bonus Hayes was trying to get rid of their old stock so they could roll out their 2021 forks. So they were running a great sale on the Machete forks. They had them on sale for $280, which is well below the normal retail of $340. Getting any bike component at this much of a discount during the pandemic is a crazy find, and this was way too good to pass up. I’m glad I pulled the trigger on it, because they sold quickly.
For the drivetrain I again spent an inordinate amount of time looking at different brands such as Shimano, Box, Advent X, and of course Sram NX. My rear hub is a Shimano free hub, so that limited which drivetrains I could consider since I wasn’t willing or easily able (due to pandemic) to change wheels. For a while I had my heart set on the Advent X groupset. I couldn’t find anything except glowing reviews on it. Plus, it was super affordable at only about $160 for the cassette, derailleur, and shifter. Although, I’d still need a crankset. Of course, it was completely sold out for months on end. I also considered the Box 2 Prime 9 groupset, but there were some comments about how it shifted that gave me pause. And it was about a hundred dollars more than the Advent X. Also, when I was looking it was always out of stock. I also looked at a 10 speed set up with a Shimano Deore which had similar stock issues. That brings me to the Sram NX. It fits the Shimano free hub even though it’s Sram. It’s a 1x12 groupset that includes the crankset as well. And maybe most importantly it was always in stock. The reviews I saw for the NX were mostly positive, and the negative comments were not things I was overly concerned about. For example, a common criticism is the cassette is very durable, but it’s made of steel so it’s heavy. One of the things I liked about the NX is that it is compatible with all the other Sram Eagle components. So if I wanted to upgrade the derailleur to GX or even an X01, I could, just not the cassette because of the free hub compatibility issue. I was able to order the NX groupset for $375, which I thought is a pretty reasonable price considering what you’re getting. I also had to buy the Sram Dub bottom bracket and the Park Tool Sram bottom bracket tool.
Here’s the total cost breakdown of the components and tools:
Manitou Machete $280
Sram NX Eagle Groupset $375
Sram Dub Bottom Bracket $38
Park Tool Bottom Bracket Tool $29
FSA HeadSet $53
Bike Hand HeadSet Press $54
Total $829
It should be noted that I already have some bike tools like a crank puller and Shimano bottom bracket tool, etc… that allow me to do this upgrade myself. $829 is pretty pricey, but I wasn’t focused necessarily on the most budget upgrade. Instead, I was focused on maxing out the potential of my current bike. I could’ve easily just traded my in or sold and just bought a new bike, but I wanted to make this bike my own.
So the question is what did all of this investment in time and money get me? Well, right off the bat replacing the Suntour XCR coil for the Manitou Machete saved me about a little over a pound and a half in weight off the bike. I’m not a huge weight weenie, but that was a pretty significant weight savings. Replacing the drive train from the Altus/Alivio 3x9 setup to the Sram NX was about a wash in terms of weight differential. I think that even though I lost the three cogs up front and the front derailleur, the steel cassette that comes with the NX is pretty heavy. I did lose a little bit a weight from this component swap, but it was so small it wasn’t even worth counting it. So if you do have a 3x9 set up and switch to the NX don’t necessarily expect a huge weight savings. That’s not why I upgraded the drivetrain anyways, so it would have been nice to have weight savings here, but I didn’t really care. I knew the big weight savings would be getting rid of that heavy coil fork.
In terms of performance I’ve taken my Mahuna out on a couple of rides and I have to say I’m really pleased with how my bike performs with its new setup. The Manitou performs exactly as I would’ve hoped, providing a much better ride experience over some of the rocky sections I’ve ridden so far. The NX drivetrain has done its job as well. I don’t think the shifting is really any better than the Alivio, however since the NX is a clutch derailleur it has put an end to the constant chain slap. Honestly, I don’t think that 2x or 3x drivetrains are as horrible as the internet says, although they will have chain slap on rough terrain and are a lot heavier than a high end 1x drivetrain. I didn’t get a high end 1x, so weight wasn’t much of a factor anyways.
So I’ve got myself a much more capable entry level XC bike. I have to say that going this route of upgrading is not cost effective and limits your options. I could have traded in my Mahuna for a brand new $1,400 XC Kona Kahuna, Trek X Caliber 8, Vitus Sentier (or any number of other bikes) and basically got a similarly specced bike for less money. However, this way I got to pick the specific components that I wanted and spend some time working on my bike, which I enjoy. One of my big takeaways from this experience is that going forward I might just buy a frame, buy the components, and build the bike myself. When you upgrade a factory bike it’s kind of a chore to figure out what someone else bought and installed on the bike. For example, is the bottom bracket threaded or press fit? Those are the types of things that I had to do some forensic bike research to figure out what I needed for this build. I also really like the idea of designing my own bike by picking and choosing the components I like. In addition, I found some things out about my bike I wouldn’t have otherwise such as the sand and grit in the headset. I also noticed that water had gotten into my bottom bracket despite the fact that I’ve never shot it with a hard spray from the water hose. I think it is probably due to the fact it was a budget square taper bottom bracket. I’ll definitely be taking my headset and bottom bracket apart anually to clean and re-grease.
So that is my big upgrade for now. Going forward, I’m thinking of replacing the WTB Trail Boss tires for a couple of XC tires that might save a little weight, and provide a little less rolling resistance. I’ve taken an interest in XC racing, so I’ve been timing my laps on the trail lately. With these upgrades I’m just starting to dip my toes into the water for racing. I may enter a race with this bike just to see if I like it. If things continue to progress I’ll probably upgrade to a more capable bike. If not, then this bike is probably all I’ll ever need. I hope you enjoyed this article and possibly learned something if you’re thinking of upgrading your bike for the first time. Stay safe everyone, and thanks for reading.
