Bikes Of 2025: Karate Monkey

 It's another end-of-year period on the blog. You know what that means? Yep! Another round of my bikes I used in 2025. This round-up will not include some of the bikes I did not use this year much, or at all. I focus only on the bikes that played a big role in my riding during this year.  As always, any changes or future plans for any bike I feature will also be detailed. I hope that you enjoy this year's round-up.

 My 2003 Karate Monkey is still rolling along in 2025 after 22 years of service. It is my bicycle which I have had running the longest out of any I have now. This is also my first ever 29"er, the bike I rode the longest in one sitting, (around 160+ miles), and was my first gravel grinder bicycle. 

For most of its time with me it has had drop bars. I changed to a flat bar when I got in the Good Grief Cycles "Nice Bar" and installed it back in January of this year. It also was mostly used with disc brakes until a couple of years ago. 

As far as uses went this year I very briefly had this out on gravel, but for the most part it was a commuting bike used on the occasions when I wasn't riding fixed gear. I did put a computer on the bike this year as well. An older, NOS Cateye Velo 5. I recently put an old, reconditioned Brooks saddle and silver post on the bike but I am going back to what you see here in the Ritchey post and apple green Brooks B-17. 

One weird fact about this bike is the head set. It is a Race Face head set which I purchased in 1996 for a Diamondback full suspension XC bike I used to have. I used this head set when I first built this bike up in March of 2003. It is a turquoise anodized head set and it works perfectly on the bike to this day.  

In the future I have contemplated going back to disc brakes, but this would require a new wheel set, or.....I still have the original wheel set. It was a Paul Components WORD hubbed, Alex disc rim wheel set. I need a couple of parts for the Paul rear WORD hub to make it right again, but I hear Paul still will service these older hubs. I have to look into this. 

As far as the bars go, I like them, and the fact the Nice Bar is an angled extension bar makes me more likely to stick with it. Otherwise I think I'd go back to a drop bar again. 

I also need to find a new set of tires for the KM. I have on a set of old Vulpine 2.1" tires which are kind of weird handling and not the greatest for what I want out of this bike. 

I likely won't ever get rid of this bicycle until I cannot ride anymore. It is not just significant to me, but these first gen Karate Monkeys were the bikes a lot of custom frame builders used as a template for their early 29"er custom bikes. I'd go so far as to say this model was the most copied bicycle in modern times, from a geometry and style point of view. The first Karate Monkeys were most definitely a boon to the acceptance of 29"ers at that time and later. 

So, I am happy to have this bicycle yet, and it will be getting miles in 2026 as well.