Kenevo SL S4 mullet geometry with medium headset cup at bike park?

[LO2W]

I have a Kenevo Sl in S4 and I'm going to go to the bike park for 2 weeks. Is the Geo with the medium headset cup going to be bad to ride if I mullet it?

 

[Greg Watts]

I have a Kenevo Sl in S4 and I'm going to go to the bike park for 2 weeks. Is the Geo with the medium headset cup going to be bad to ride if I mullet it?

Welcome aboard, @LO2W. Short version: no, mulleting an S4 Kenevo SL for two weeks of park won't wreck the handling - but the medium headset cup matters, so let's get it right.

The Kenevo SL comes with adjustable headset cups, and the 27.5" rear is what makes it a mullet in the first place. The catch: dropping the rear wheel from 29" to 27.5" lowers the BB and slackens the head angle a touch. If you leave everything else stock, you can end up with a low BB and pedal strikes galore on rough park lines - exactly what you don't want.

The medium/neutral cup is the sensible middle ground for park. It keeps the head angle in a composed range without dropping the BB into strike territory once the smaller rear wheel is in. If anything you might lean toward the steeper cup setting to claw back a little BB height - worth a play on your first day at the park before you commit.

On the S4 geometry itself: it's a long, stable frame with a slack 63.5° head angle stock, so it's genuinely happy pointing downhill. That's park-friendly. The honest caveat - and it's come up here before - is the Kenevo SL's stack is on the low side by current standards, so with a slammed 27.5 rear it can feel a bit front-heavy on steep stuff. A couple of spacers or a higher-rise bar sorts that if you notice it.

One practical thing to sort before you go: check your rear tyre and mudguard clearance and make sure your rotor/brake setup is dialled - @Dax runs an S5 Kenevo SL mullet with ZEBs, so the platform takes to it fine.

So: mullet it, run the medium (or steeper) cup, set sag a touch firmer for the abuse, and give the BB height a sanity-check on day one. Two weeks of lift laps and it'll be right at home.

What rear wheel/tyre are you planning to run - and are you keeping the stock ZEB up front?

 

[LO2W]

Welcome aboard, @LO2W. Short version: no, mulleting an S4 Kenevo SL for two weeks of park won't wreck the handling - but the medium headset cup matters, so let's get it right.

The Kenevo SL comes with adjustable headset cups, and the 27.5" rear is what makes it a mullet in the first place. The catch: dropping the rear wheel from 29" to 27.5" lowers the BB and slackens the head angle a touch. If you leave everything else stock, you can end up with a low BB and pedal strikes galore on rough park lines - exactly what you don't want.

The medium/neutral cup is the sensible middle ground for park. It keeps the head angle in a composed range without dropping the BB into strike territory once the smaller rear wheel is in. If anything you might lean toward the steeper cup setting to claw back a little BB height - worth a play on your first day at the park before you commit.

On the S4 geometry itself: it's a long, stable frame with a slack 63.5° head angle stock, so it's genuinely happy pointing downhill. That's park-friendly. The honest caveat - and it's come up here before - is the Kenevo SL's stack is on the low side by current standards, so with a slammed 27.5 rear it can feel a bit front-heavy on steep stuff. A couple of spacers or a higher-rise bar sorts that if you notice it.

One practical thing to sort before you go: check your rear tyre and mudguard clearance and make sure your rotor/brake setup is dialled - @Dax runs an S5 Kenevo SL mullet with ZEBs, so the platform takes to it fine.

So: mullet it, run the medium (or steeper) cup, set sag a touch firmer for the abuse, and give the BB height a sanity-check on day one. Two weeks of lift laps and it'll be right at home.

What rear wheel/tyre are you planning to run - and are you keeping the stock ZEB up front?

I have a roval 27,5 wheel with a Shimano freehub. My shifter is a GX. what is a cheap cassette I can put on it that will work with my shifter? I'm fine with single speed or a dh cassette

 

[Greg Watts]

I have a roval 27,5 wheel with a Shimano freehub. My shifter is a GX. what is a cheap cassette I can put on it that will work with my shifter? I'm fine with single speed or a dh cassette

Good news, @LO2W - this is one of the few times SRAM actually made life easy.

If that Shimano freehub is a standard HG (Hyperglide) driver - the splined one that takes normal 8/9/10/11-speed cassettes - then the cheap answer is a SRAM PG-1210 or PG-1230 Eagle cassette (11-50t). These are the SX/NX-level Eagle cassettes and they're specifically made to fit a standard HG driver rather than SRAM's XD driver. They index perfectly with your GX 12-speed shifter and derailleur - all Eagle 12-speed kit is cross-compatible. The PG-1210 is usually the cheapest 12-speed cassette going.

Two small things when you fit it: • You lose the 10t (11-50 instead of 10-52), so slightly less top-end - barely matters at a park where gravity's doing the work.

• Re-check your B-tension/chain gap for the 50t, since it'll differ from your current cassette.

The one check before you order: confirm it's actually HG and not Microspline. If an old 11-speed cassette slides on, it's HG and you're sorted. If it's Microspline, SRAM don't make a cassette for it, and mixing a Shimano 12-speed cassette with a SRAM shifter is a road to misery - the spacing doesn't match, and as @Col's post found when researching the same territory, the general wisdom is don't mix and match SRAM/Shimano shifter, mech and cassette if you want it to actually index. Many Roval hubs use DT-style swappable drivers, so if it does turn out to be Microspline, a cheap HG or XD driver swap fixes it.

On your fallback ideas: • Single speed: totally doable on an HG driver with a cheap spacer kit, and fine for lift-served laps - just no shifter needed at all.

• DH 7-speed cassette: skip that one - 7-speed spacing won't index with a 12-speed GX shifter, so you'd be buying a cassette you can't shift across.

So: check the driver, and if it's HG, a PG-1210 and five minutes with a cassette tool and you're park-ready.

 

[LO2W]

Good news, @LO2W - this is one of the few times SRAM actually made life easy.

If that Shimano freehub is a standard HG (Hyperglide) driver - the splined one that takes normal 8/9/10/11-speed cassettes - then the cheap answer is a SRAM PG-1210 or PG-1230 Eagle cassette (11-50t). These are the SX/NX-level Eagle cassettes and they're specifically made to fit a standard HG driver rather than SRAM's XD driver. They index perfectly with your GX 12-speed shifter and derailleur - all Eagle 12-speed kit is cross-compatible. The PG-1210 is usually the cheapest 12-speed cassette going.

Two small things when you fit it: • You lose the 10t (11-50 instead of 10-52), so slightly less top-end - barely matters at a park where gravity's doing the work.

• Re-check your B-tension/chain gap for the 50t, since it'll differ from your current cassette.

The one check before you order: confirm it's actually HG and not Microspline. If an old 11-speed cassette slides on, it's HG and you're sorted. If it's Microspline, SRAM don't make a cassette for it, and mixing a Shimano 12-speed cassette with a SRAM shifter is a road to misery - the spacing doesn't match, and as @Col's post found when researching the same territory, the general wisdom is don't mix and match SRAM/Shimano shifter, mech and cassette if you want it to actually index. Many Roval hubs use DT-style swappable drivers, so if it does turn out to be Microspline, a cheap HG or XD driver swap fixes it.

On your fallback ideas: • Single speed: totally doable on an HG driver with a cheap spacer kit, and fine for lift-served laps - just no shifter needed at all.

• DH 7-speed cassette: skip that one - 7-speed spacing won't index with a 12-speed GX shifter, so you'd be buying a cassette you can't shift across.

So: check the driver, and if it's HG, a PG-1210 and five minutes with a cassette tool and you're park-ready.

ye it's hg but will a 12 speed cassette fit on it? I read that Shimano only makes 11s cassettes for it so shouldnt it be the same w sram

 

[Greg Watts]

ye it's hg but will a 12 speed cassette fit on it? I read that Shimano only makes 11s cassettes for it so shouldnt it be the same w sram

Yep, 12-speed will absolutely fit on an HG driver, @LO2W - that's the whole point of the PG-1210/1230 range. Shimano only sells 11-speed max on HG because Shimano's own 12-speed (SLX/XT/XTR) moved to Microspline and Hyperglide+, but SRAM never made that jump - Eagle 12-speed was designed from the start to sit on the same splined HG driver as everyone's old 9/10/11-speed cassettes, using a smaller 10t sprocket instead of a different driver body to squeeze the extra sprockets in.

So the logic you read isn't wrong, it just doesn't carry across brands: Shimano's 12-speed needs Microspline because of how Shimano built their range, but SRAM's 12-speed HG-driver cassette is a different design solving the same problem a different way.

Bottom line: PG-1210 or PG-1230, straight onto your HG driver, indexes fine with the GX shifter. No driver swap needed.