1998 Kona Pahoehoe

dablk

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I had been using a lovely 1996 Lavadome as my run around but always wanted to put it back to factory spec. So being a taller lad, when any 20" Kona comes a knocking I'm always having a hard look, especially being 94-00. So when a bike I had never heard of dropped into Charlieboy28 sale threads. I started digging. It wasnt original paint, had a tiny dent(took me a while to find it too) nor was it respray fresh but Aluminium sounded like a good idea for a chain it and leave it. Being a 98 I also didnt have to worry about dog collars, cable stops for v's as with LD. Plus It came with a set of z3 light bombers with a long steerer and Charlie Karma a post in aswell. All at a cracking price ;)!

As said not being steel Kona I had never heard of it. Heard of a Muini-Mula , Ku and Kula via this forum but this was new to me. Looking up the archive it actually looked like a Higher end of the range bike. This would have been metalic lime green originally. But the deep metaclic purple actually looks really nice.



So to the build. Its going to be a run around, built using the modern drivetrain of the lavadome and a few 1996 20" spares I have collected. So the bombers will be set aside for a rainny day. Its a big chainset as its for road work.



The BB took a little persuading but that ping turn is always such a top momment. I gave the frame a light rub to remove the excess paint. Its getting a HT2 chainset, but I'm not too worried about facing it off. Cleaned out the rust residue from the old BB, threads all perfect.



Impact headset fitted just in time for rain to stop play... best get the bacon on then.
 
Not sure mate, didn't weight it, but I will say it was massively noticeable how much lighter it was once BB was out.

Got a cheeky frame pimp thru an Easton elite 7005 sticker.. May not be the exact one but I'm not fussing too much ;)

Friday..more bloody rain doh!
 
This looks really nice mate, Kona did some really nice colours for 1998 (the lavadome is my favorite) but I wish they'd done this colour! I'm pretty sure the frame material was exactly the same as the Kula so Easton Elite doesn't sound wrong!
 
Cheers Mark...sorry it scuppered your bomber purchase. :oops: but it was too good a deal to not have a set of bombers for £20.

the first MTB I bought was a dawes xc expert in purple so it feels a little like that. Plus i was expecting it to be matt. Its actually beautifully metalic.

If i ever thought about a respray I would probably consider the true 96 Lavadome sunburnt orange colour. Thats a long way down the line thought. Yeah badge is technically correct. it may just be exagerating the tubes AND stays part.

more rain and no play today.
 
Found a bit of between showers to get some kit hung on


the make do elite sticker


front end is actually 96 era, impact headest, threaded TB p2 and aluminium velocity stem
 
These were great bikes and seemed pretty rare (by Kona standards...). I had had the 1999 version and beat the carp out of it for around five years, and only sold it on in the end as I wanted disc brakes. Looking back at it, it was quite a retro build in it's final guise, with 1st gen XTR cranks, Flite saddle, Syncros post, Mavic Ceramic rims, Ti Glide hubs etc:
 

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Nice, the blue kona stickers on the bare farm look really nice.

Not that its a WW build but i'm expecting it to be sub 25lbs anyway.
 
Finished enough for riding.
Repro frame stickers looked pretty good. However headtube was a bit wayward as far as style.



I however by chance had a set of 98 KK spares..inc Jungle Boogie!



Stilll have plans on the saddle and perhaps some posher tyres. It is however a hack about/pub bike. So this will do for now.

 
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