Can anyone help me ID this older Kona road bike model?

[vancitynovice]

I've been digging through catalogues all day and I can't seem to nail down which model this bike is. My best guess (and prayer) at this point is a Haole, because the rear dropouts have a window cut out that I haven't seen on any Kapu models.

I have a picture of the drive side, non-drive side, and the bottom bracket. The format of the serial number is also a bit strange. it reads "TET R001". I would really appreciate any help I can get with this. Thanks!

 

[mk one]

Well, not really up on road bikes, but it is handmade by Tom Teesdale so probably the Haole, '94 maybe? @al-onestare though a mountain biker at heart, does ride road as well, and hopefully will be along sometime to help ID the exact model/year for you

 

[vancitynovice]

Well, not really up on road bikes, but it is handmade by Tom Teesdale so probably the Haole, '94 maybe? @al-onestare though a mountain biker at heart, does ride road as well, and hopefully will be along sometime to help ID the exact model/year for you

Wonderful, thanks for the info and the hope! What's the deal with Tom Teesdale? It seems he was a pretty gifted framebuilder according to Google.

Did he work with titanium? It seems he was mostly a steel builder, at least when it came to mountain bikes. I plan to bring a magnet tomorrow and see what happens, haha.

 

[W7Ford]

Drop Kona themselves an email tech@konaworld.com, I'm always pleasantly surprised by how helpful they are and pleased to see their older bikes still going strong.

 

[al-onestare]

Drop Kona themselves an email tech@konaworld.com, I'm always pleasantly surprised by how helpful they are and pleased to see their older bikes still going strong.

Absolutely this, and if they draw a blank, let me know and I'll do some digging with folks direct.

This is quite something - what a discovery! Is it yours and if so, what's the story of you acquiring it?

I'll say with 99.99999999% confidence that it isn't a Haole. To my knowledge, Tom didn't work with titanium. He certainly didn't with Kona at least. The welding and tubeset doesn't look titanium. A quick magnet test would determine the outcome quickly!

TET R has to imply "Road" and 001...well, that's obvious! The Hot SN thread explains a bit more about his work with Kona and the legendary bike he built for many years: https://www.retrobike.co.uk/threads/kona-hot-serial-number-list-update-16-06-23.446740/

The seat-tube extension is almost non-existent, and with the decals presumably original, this is leaning very much to late 1993, early 1994 for the 1994 range. If you know that, then you know the Kapu was launched for the 1994 range. Could this be an early demo/show bike? Could it be a bespoke 1-off for Kona / an employee / or even a customer who insisted they wanted a Kona custom road bike?

 

[mk one]

Absolutely this, and if they draw a blank, let me know and I'll do some digging with folks direct.

This is quite something - what a discovery! Is it yours and if so, what's the story of you acquiring it?

I'll say with 99.99999999% confidence that it isn't a Haole. To my knowledge, Tom didn't work with titanium. He certainly didn't with Kona at least. The welding and tubeset doesn't look titanium. A quick magnet test would determine the outcome quickly!

TET R has to imply "Road" and 001...well, that's obvious! The Hot SN thread explains a bit more about his work with Kona and the legendary bike he built for many years: https://www.retrobike.co.uk/threads/kona-hot-serial-number-list-update-16-06-23.446740/

The seat-tube extension is almost non-existent, and with the decals presumably original, this is leaning very much to late 1993, early 1994 for the 1994 range. If you know that, then you know the Kapu was launched for the 1994 range. Could this be an early demo/show bike? Could it be a bespoke 1-off for Kona / an employee / or even a customer who insisted they wanted a Kona custom road bike?

There was another Haole made by TET not so long ago for sale, it was NOS from memory, you actually commented on it

 

[mk one]

Wonderful, thanks for the info and the hope! What's the deal with Tom Teesdale? It seems he was a pretty gifted framebuilder according to Google.

Did he work with titanium? It seems he was mostly a steel builder, at least when it came to mountain bikes. I plan to bring a magnet tomorrow and see what happens, haha.

Would be curious to know if it is steel, it looks it from here. I have seen another frame made by Tom which was steel and labelled as a Hoale a while back, I doubt many were made though.

Tom was a well respected frame builder, made a lot of road bikes and also special order mountain bikes for various manufacturers. As far as I know his choice of material was steel, don't know of any Ti frames he made.

 

[mk one]

Here is one for sale previously -

Teesdale Kona Haole 52-54 w/ Suntour Superbe

I didn't know Tom Teesdale made custom road frames for Kona, alongside the MTBs. This one's unridden, apparently. http://www.ebay.com/itm/MINT-new-52-cm-90s-Kona-Haole-MADE-IN-USA-SunTour-Superbe-Tom-Teesdale-built-/221020461323

www.retrobike.co.uk

 

[al-onestare]

There was another Haole made by TET not so long ago for sale, it was NOS from memory, you actually commented on it

...in 2013...give me a break!!

 

[raidan73]

Yeah I'm pretty sure Tom built the early Haoles, from Prestige tubing. I remember reading it on his website bitd