Ex-model King Kahuna from 2000!

[eporter123]

Just picked this up from the original owner. Needs some love, but in good shape overall. 19" from Y2K

KK19070

He said it was in a Kona photo shoot when new?

Has anyone seen a catalog/article with a King Kahuna with orange Mavic 517 rims? The front broke, and was replaced with silver.

Probably just going to clean it up and ride it. Hoping the forks do ok. Anyone have a good replacement? Rigid P2s?

 

[Pipmeister]

Re:

Hello there,

This bike is a 1999 rather than the 2000 model.

The decals (if original) are from the 1999 range with the orange border and Jungle logo. The 2000 model had the Glow In The Dark Decals, with an oval Headtube logo.

The best pictures that I have on file, are from BikePedia and shot of the rather rare 6.4 King Kahuna that has the same DownTube Glow In the Dark Decals.

The 2000 Model also had Disc Tabs - although I can't quite see well enough in your picture if obscured by the Seatstay.

Pip

 

[eporter123]

Ah, ok. Thanks for the 6.4 pic. Nice looking, I'd love a Score from that era!

The decals are a bit confusing as some 199 KKs had that orange headtube as well. Not sure on the oval vs. leaves headtube decal, as it appears some 2000s had it.

I found some confusing google image search results as well, here's a nice "2000" (but maybe 1999) KK right here on retrobike.

viewtopic.php?t=99254

No disc tabs, but I read those were optional?

Either way, it's a great bike. Has anyone compiled serial #s for these?

I may get a disc front fork for it, but don't plan on having tabs added to the frame.

 

[Pipmeister]

Ah, ok. Thanks for the 6.4 pic. Nice looking, I'd love a Score from that era!

The decals are a bit confusing as some 199 KKs had that orange headtube as well. Not sure on the oval vs. leaves headtube decal, as it appears some 2000s had it.

I found some confusing google image search results as well, here's a nice "2000" (but maybe 1999) KK right here on retrobike.

viewtopic.php?t=99254

No disc tabs, but I read those were optional?

Either way, it's a great bike. Has anyone compiled serial #s for these?

I may get a disc front fork for it, but don't plan on having tabs added to the frame.

The KK on here that you referred to was indeed a 1999 model - although Wadsy (the owner at the time) and the guy in Denmark who sold it to him, may beg to differ

The serial numbers of Titanium Kona frames has been discussed at length on this site, and I'm not sure if we ever concluded with the definitive answer. King Kahuna frames ran with a K prefix from 1996 to 1997, then changed to a KK prefix from 1998 to 2000 - the final year of production. We can see that the first two digits are the frame size, but were never sure if the next digits ran consecutively or started over again from 001 with each different year of production.

Below are both examples of a 1999 with and without the Orange Headtube. I would say the the oval Headtube decal was definitive on the 2000 models and continued on the Kona range into 2001.

Pip

 

[eporter123]

It's great how much information there is on here!

Another thing pointing to 1999 is the build spec. Mine was bought as a full bike from the dealer. They could've copied the spec and built up a frame, but it matches what Bikepedia shows for 1999. 2000 had the race face cranks and Avid brakes.