2025 Kona Hei Hei CR Review: A Mountain Bike – John Watson | The Radavist | A group of individuals who share a love of cycling and the outdoors.

This year, Kona announced the tenth generation of its lauded Hei Hei full suspension bike. Known for being a playful, shorter travel sibling to the brand’s all-mountain offerings, John was intrigued if the bike would be able to hang with his favorite backyard terrain. Read on for his thoughts on the platform…

Kona first rolled out its Hei Hei model in 1991 as a titanium hardtail frame, which, at the time, was a common fixture among the fledgling mountain bike brands. Merlin had proven that mountain bikes could be made from titanium thanks to Gary Helfrich’s obsession with sourcing larger tubing diameters. Shortly after, more and more titanium hardtails began to surface.

The Hei Hei transitioned in 2007 to a full-suspension frame that was marketed towards XC racing. But the latest model has a playful disposition that feels drastically different from its Lycra-clad Zone 5 racer past. The 2025 model has proven to be a more than capable platform in the Southern Rockies.

2025 Kona Hei Hei CR Quick Hits

Size Reviewed: XL
Frame Material: Carbon fiber
Bike Weight: 30.7 lbs on my scale without the bottle cage, frame bag, or pedals
Sizes Offered: S, M, L, XL
Wheel Size: 29”
Suspension Travel: 120/130 mm
Headtube Angle: 66°
Chainstay Length: 435 mm (all sizes)
Pricing: Complete $5,299 or $2,950 frame

Who’s the Hei Hei For?

Before we dive into this two-thousand-plus-word review, it’s essential to clarify who this bike is intended for. Unlike its racing pedigree predecessors, the 2025 Hei Hei thrives throughout the entire mountain. From top tech to bottom flow, it proves that while it doesn’t excel at any one thing in particular, mountain biking isn’t just one thing in particular either.

The Hei Hei is for riders who want to go out for a full day’s ride, where the climbing time may exceed the descending time, and be challenged along the way. You know, mountain biking! While the bike might not be designed for serious tech riding, it can hold its own with the right line choices.

Geometrically Speaking

Until someone presents a better alternative for longer top tubes, steeper seat angles, and slack(ish) head angles, you’re going to see numbers floating around this margin for some time. Some constants across all sizes include the 435 mm chainstays, the 66º head angle, and 31 mm of bottom bracket drop. To address the need for a longer top tube in the XL size, the seat angle is adjusted from 76.1º in the size small to 75.8º in size XL.

The Hei Hei’s calm and fluid demeanor comes in large part from these numbers, and even more from the suspension setup.

Suspension Kinematics

Previous versions of the Hei Hei full-suspension platform utilized a flexstay design. Thankfully, for the 2025 version Kona specced a linkage-driven single pivot dubbed Swinger Suspension. The kinematics rely on a seatstay pivot just above the dropout and toptube-mounted “Swinger” link. The latter compresses the 190 x 45 mm stroke RockShox Deluxe shock during active pedaling and descending.

What’s nice about the top tube-mounted shock is that it frees up the front triangle for bags and bottles. Perhaps this invitation for all-day exploits motivated me to take the Hei Hei higher and deeper into our Santa Fe National Forest. There’s nothing worse than having to figure out ways to carry your water and gear when the suspension design eats away at the front triangle space. Even the size small fits a large bottle.

The resulting feel is supportive and plush. With the RockShox Deluxe shock tuned for your weight and preference, you won’t likely feel the need to lock out the rear travel while climbing, even on fire roads. Overall, a Deluxe is super easy to set sag, and a Pike ought to be familiar to most riders. I didn’t think twice during setup; I just copied the exact settings from my other Pike on the first ride, and haven’t touched it since April.

Hei Hei CR Frame Details

Long-travel droppers, slammed to the clamp, are what’s up. The Hei Hei’s 31.6 mm uninterrupted seat tube allows for a great insertion depth. There are no kinks or bottle bosses to interfere with getting the most out of your travel. The size small can take up to a 225 mm of insertion, the medium 255 mm, large 290 mm and XL (reviewed here) 330 mm. The smallest rotor the rear of the bike can take is 180 mm, which also speaks to Kona’s intent with this latest edition. Yet if racing is your thing, it can take up to a 38-tooth chainring and down to a 28-tooth for you alpine mountain goats.

Parts Spec

How refreshing is it to see a complete bike, priced at $5,299, without a single battery and a robust suspension kit? The RockShox Pike is the best fork on the market for the 130-140 mm travel range, and the Deluxe offers plush, controlled support without the need for a space-consuming piggyback. But the crowning achievement for the Hei Hei build spec is the Eagle 90 drivetrain and Motive brakes. SRAM’s development of a cable-actuated system won me over. The fact that the derailleur is rebuildable rules.

My one qualm with the part spec in the build list is the 170 mm cranks on a size XL. If you’re riding an XL frame, chances are you have long legs, and this growing trend of speccing XL builds with 170 mm cranks has to stop. It’s a noticeable difference for me, with an 82 cm saddle height, to be put on shorter cranks. /end rant

SRAM’s move to mineral oil results in a brake that honestly feels the best any SRAM hydro brake has ever felt in my hands. The lever ergonomics and modulation are outstanding, with consistent bite and no need for a bleed since taking receipt of the bike in April. The entire spec feels like a concerted effort in reliability without compromise. Even the wheels and tires have held up without requiring any maintenance. All I did to the original build spec was swap out the grips to make the aluminum cockpit more comfortable on my hands.

Sisyphian Skills

Similarly to previous years, I like cheating my rise to summer fitness by taking on a lightweight carbon bike to review. A lighter chassis can assist in some of our monster climbs here in Santa Fe, and a 120/130 bike climbs with ease when compared to a 135/160 bike. While I love my Murmur’s overall ability, the Hei Hei proved to be not only a fast climber, but a very comfortable bike overall.

The geometry puts you in the ideal position for climbing rooty, rocky, loose, and steep terrain, including switchbacks designed for hikers. Even on a particularly large fire road climb – our Town to Towers ride – I didn’t feel the need to lock out the rear shock. My rear end liked how supportive it felt. And I was able to take the singletrack back down to town.

Coming up to a particularly rooty climb that features two big step-ups that, in all honesty, I usually just walk, I nudged forward on the saddle, putting my ass right on the nose, and dug in with my current gear. On a hardtail I’ve cleared this section only a handful of times, but the five times I rode it on the Hei Hei, I was able to clear it with ease.

Climbing Vibe

This is part rider and part bike. Whether equal parts or a lopsided percentage depends on what I ate for breakfast that day. Yet through its simplicity, in terms of suspension kinematics, geo, and part spec, I was utterly impressed with how the Hei Hei enhanced my physical abilities. I never felt like it was too much bike for me or that I was under-utilizing its tech.

The most admirable trait about this bike is how it harks back to mountain biking’s early days. Back then, the bikes were designed specifically around the feat of climbing mountains. Every technological advancement was implemented for easier climbing. Be it gearing, overall bike weight, or tire tech. Many of the early pioneers of the sport were always looking to make the bikes more capable of climbing. I think bikes like this embody that same philosophy. Sure, they are carbon and have suspension linkages, but they’re easily serviced and reliable.

Yet Kona didn’t skimp on its descending prowess either.

Trundling Traits

Cresting the top of our bike-legal section of the Winsor trail and woofing down some sour gummies, I momentarily stretched before pointing the Hei Hei back down the same trail we’d spent almost four hours climbing. Overall, my body felt great. I took down my sun hoodie from under my helmet, pulled some sweaty gloves out of my pocket from their wad, and checked the time before rolling into an increasingly fast trail.

I felt like a boulder being rolled down a mountainside by a sasquatch.

Water bars, then rocks, roots, high-speed chicanes, tree bump jumps, and ramped cattle grates. This was the first long descent I’d taken the Hei Hei down. It was May, and I’d just gotten back from the Sea Otter Classic travel. I had a few days before heading out to London for Bespoked. Naturally, a lot of travel meant I wasn’t in the greatest shape, but this trail is very familiar. I’ve ridden it carefully on the Ponderosa, irresponsibly on a loaded-down Stargazer, and can fly through it on my Murmur without blinking. If you want to see me zenning out, follow me down this trail on the Murmur.

While it’s not our most technical trail, there are plenty of places to stuff a wheel, clip a pedal, or lose your line. My notes from the day exclaim “never relented” and “this is a high line to inside corner root-gobbling ripper of a bike.”

A Bike for All-Day Riding

Descending is one of the best parts about mountain biking. Getting to the top of the climb via my own two legs and parched lungs is what actual mountain biking is to me. Bike parks, shuttles, and even e-bikes can be fun, especially for building descending skills. However, I feel that we’ve strayed from the roots of the sport. Bikes like the Hei Hei are refreshing in that regard. They’re vehicles for all-mountain exploits; veritable mountain goats on climbs, and playfully planted on descents.

I don’t believe in the “earn your descent” mantra. It feels jocky and gross. But I do celebrate my body’s ability to climb 6,000 feet in one sitting. All while starting in town at 7,200′ to begin with! I understand this isn’t possible for everyone, but in those multi-hour climbs, you really dig into your mind, pushing past the self-doubt and learning more and more about your body’s abilities.

Any bike that can place you at the top of the climb without feeling vanquished and still handle the rocky descent back down is a true-to-form mountain bike.

A Brief Aside: More Low Tech Please

Miguel posted a video on his Instagram the other day. It was a high-end build at a local shop from a high-end bike brand. It was in the same “XC/Downcountry” space as this bike. But it had seven batteries on it. And it wasn’t even an e-bike! It all felt like a silly Tesla Cybertruck. Now I know why the Butlerian Jihad happened.

Jokes aside, I really enjoyed the sensible all-mechanical spec on this model year. No batteries, no rules. At a $5,000 price point, these days it’s common to see a wireless drivetrain. It’s refreshing that even on Kona’s most XC-oriented bike, they’ve gone with an all-mechanical spec.

Bikes like the Hei Hei are an exercise in restraint, in terms of spec, use case, and marketing. Kona’s phenomenal press photos for the bike’s launch don’t show some lycra-clad racer charging. Please don’t conflate the Hei Hei with a Lance commercial from the ’90s. They showcased two riders having fun. Complete with smiles, little whips, and responsible, sustainable riding. There are no massive skids or berm smacks; just good-old-fashioned mountain biking. Fuck yes. This is what we need more of.

I’d love to see more of that from brands. It’s nice to know that Kona is celebrating these moments of that atavistic urge in humans to play. All without a bunch of batteries to charge. Mountain bikes have evolved a lot since their early days; even since the first Hei Hei in 1991. I think a re-centering to the roots of the activity is on the way.

TL;DR

I’m stoked to see such a capable bike in what many would consider the “XC/Downcountry” space. The fact is, I didn’t have to reel in my throttle one bit while riding it on the same trails on which I ride a bigger bike, even on my favorite tech trails. It leads me to question my own 135/160 mm travel Murmur’s future suspension setup. So don’t be surprised if you see that bike change as a result of this review.

These traits place the Hei Hei at the top of my list of favorite carbon bikes I’ve ridden to date. The modified single-pivot suspension feels familiar, offering velcro traction on the ups and the downs. The fork and shock tune allows for plenty of lift-off, and there’s a playful feel to the bike, best noted as it plops through roots and ramps up speed through beautiful iris-filled meadows. The Hei Hei is a proper bike for the entire mountainside. It pedals effortlessly, and I found myself riding it way more than I thought I would initially.

The Kona Hei Hei CR is a great bike for you if you’re wanting to dip your toes into a full-suspension platform but are intimidated by longer travel numbers and complex suspension designs. Perhaps you can put the hardtail down for a bit and try something new. That’s what Kona did in 2007 with the first full-suspension Hei Hei, and they clearly haven’t looked back.

Pros