Originally Posted by
AlanK
Sorry, my bad. I missed were you mentioned the rack.
I'm not too surprised if it's the same rack as the newest model. I don't know much about the rack, but they're probably lighter-duty commuting rather than touring racks. I would guess Kona probably included a light-duty rack as an inexpensive marketing add-on that will work fine for commuting which many Sutras will also be used for. For touring I'd almost certainly replace it with one that can handle heavier loads.
Unfortunately Kona bills it as "ready for your biggest adventure," so you'd hope they'd spec a rack that's up for that task. I think I remember someone on here once saying that Kona used to use much higher quality racks (maybe from Rack Time?), but now it seems they're on some unbranded stuff. And again, I don't know if hers was just defective or if they all look like the one on her bike, but since one of the things that drew us to the Sutra is that it comes equipped with rack and fenders, items you would normally pay more to add to any other touring bike you might buy, it's disappointing that it failed.
In any event, we still think it's a great bike and a good value and as I mentioned before, dropping the gearing was as simple as swapping out the smallest chainring.