like a phoenix from ashes and bird poo
The bike went into the shed for a year or so because i was studying and not really in a position to be looking for new forks so the bike went into hiding with all the parts off my old GT Tequesta. Mostly a Lidl bag full of STX-Rc parts, seized chains, homemade bashguards, mystery tyres, cassettes of uncertain origin, axles.. pedals with no spindles you know what i mean.. and it all stayed together getting covered in birdshti for the next two years.
At Christmas the year before last i needed a bike as i was back in the Lincolnshire countryside so i got the kona out and assessed its situation. i knew i had some cro-mo gt forks in the garage and even thought they were bent, they were bent the opposite way so i tried those for a change. the bike was still horrible to ride, the rear wheel wasn't straight, everything was covered in white blobs of poo, it had no brakes, it looked pretty sad so i cleaned it up.
I remembered another box of retro parts in the house and i got a club roost i beam stem on there and a set of x lite g force downhill bars, i saw a pair or Marzocchi XCRs hanging up I'd always known i had but assumed they wouldn't be of any use. Turns out i'd hung them up in about 1997 and preferred the rigid forks on the GT so they stayed hanging up in perfect working order... not quite perfect one of the seals seems to leak a little, they work and apart from the flex and the pathetic travel they gave a pretty cool look to the bike. the Material came off the saddle, they tyres were pumped up, and off i went on the country roads in the dark on compacted snow. I had a right laugh and spent a lot of time sliding down the deserted roads on my back giggling. I decided i'd take the bike away with me and make it into something proper.
When it arrived home with me it looked something like this: