One year living with a Kenevo SL

I bought my Kenevo SL Expert in September 2022 after test riding a comp at the my local LBS, Lynwood Cyclery. Over the year I have made some changes however in general have been very happy with what I have since moving from a 2022 Levo SL.

The items I have changed are:
1. Brakes, well got rid of the 1.8mm stock rotors and changed them for the HS2’s which are 2mm rotors. That was a big change alone, the changing of the pads was the other moment. Have some RSC levers on the way, which I only really want so that I can change the bite point as the pads wear out. I found I have to change my pads at around 500km with 2mm of material left which sorta sucks.

2. Handlebar to a 50mm Burgtec Josh Bryceland bars cut to 780mm. These alone made me so much more at home on the bike due to the effective change in stack height that on the first day out I set PR’s on every stage at the Grootfontein Bike Park.

3. Grips to Ergon GA2’s in Yellow. In hindsight not the best choice, as they are not easy to keep looking yellow. The grips themselves are amazing at removing handpump.

4. Change to Schwalbe tires. I had to send my Butchers in for warranty as I had ripped most of the side knobs at less than 500km and I am by no means an aggressive rider. One thing I definitely noticed is these tyres are way quieter on the trail is they are so much quieter, and I can here when grip is changing.
Front is a Big Betty at 2,6” wide, terrain I ride does not really warrant the Magic Mary. The amount of front grip is quite crazy, although that could also be due to the step up from 2,4”
Hans Damph in the back 2,4”. The difference in rolling speed is so worth is and again this tire is grippy when needed and is easy to make it loose grip when you want it to for those style points 😁

5. Rear wheel to a 32 spoke as I kept breaking spokes on the 28 spoke. the hub is a high engagement from ZERO HUB REAR SL6.0. The best part of this hub is it is nearly silent. Paired with the quite tyres life is good.

Pros:
– Adjustable geometry. Only messed with the head tube angle.
When at +1 makes it feel like my 2022 StumpJumper.
At Neutral it is very much an all rounder
When set to -1 it is really a downhill monster, however does not quite the trails in my area as they tend to have very tight corners which I did not find comfortable on. However on a flow / jump line this was scary how hard it was to not just let go.
– Stable at speed, scarily so
– Components are for the most part good. I have made a few quality of life changes
– I feel like I am part of the bike, not the other way around. This was something I really did not like about my Levo SL 1.1 (Large) as I always felt like I was just sitting on top and just never felt in control.

Cons:
– Bike is long, switchbacks especially in the two slacker positions are really touch to get right.
– Stock rotors are rubbish. I was fortunate enough to be able to buy some SRAM HS2 rotors when I was in Germany and these made the brakes actually usable. I know everyone is always complaining about the SRAM brakes being terrible, however it is really down to the stock “consumables” not the Code RS, even my wife’s Code R’s work really well with the change in Rotor and pads

For those interested I have some riding videos on Youtube. Not talking to the view ones. YouTube Channel