A-ha, the Ford Escort, sorry, Kona Lavadome '01 has arrived!

A big 'THANK YOU' going out to our king of the skip horders Le Grande Fromage for helping me with this frame. The size is absolutely bang on, thank you so much fella.

Bear in mind I'm not a Kona fanatic but this should be a fun build. I had some old Ringle and Brooklyn Machine Works bits and bobs in my tool box so have decided to base the build around those, plus other parts from Elite, JustBackDated and the RB crew.

Next up is a bit of filling in with the small dents in the top tube and then a re-spray, after that the buildeth does commenceth. Thanks to Gil_m for the new decals n'all.

Still trying for some M900/950 front and rear mechs if anyone can help? And yes, it will be rider and not a garage kween.

Wheels are a Ringle hub on the front and a Hope TiGlide on the back mated to modern XC717 rims from Mavic (ideally I would have been using HED's but my parents binned mine ages ago - the bar stewards). Tyres and tubes will be modern Maxxis ones. Obviously it's not a period correct build, just (hopefully) an aesthetic one.

I'll keep you in the loop on this thread. The frame colour's gonna be a treat

hope it serves you well

i used to do 30 miles a day on it

nice choice of parts

I know Kona's make good riders and they're relatively cheap to buy, it will be well looked after. Wanted a Lavadome when I was a wee nipper, never got around to it....until now. I also have a CX build going on too, will get photo's of that once the frames and forks arrive.

This bike will also mean my other half can come out on rides with me

The irony was that I'd ended up with a complete 9spd Deore everything to make this a rider - yo' damn lucky!


from banana to....