Kona lavadome/Cindercone frames?

[camokid]

Were the Kona Lavadome and Cindercone 1991/1992 the same frame rebadged or was the CinderCone better quality??


Thanks

 

[OrangeRetro]

I always though that cindercone was a better frame and the lavadome shared the same frame as the fire mountain... I'm probably wrong though.. :?

 

[OrangeRetro]

No I'm wrong heres a link to the 1992 kona catalogue spec page.

http://www.konaretro.com/articles/catalogues/1992/92Page8.jpg

The Hahanna and Fire Mountain share the same frame, The Lava Dome is double butted and Cinder Cone is extra light double butted.. whatever that means?

 

[camokid]

I wondered whether the "extra light" part was just a bit of marketing bulls**t??

 

[OrangeRetro]

If you look closely at them both in the 1991 catalogue, the Cindercone is missing some rack eyelets at the top of the seat stays, maybe the Cindercone used the same tubing, but the frame was just made lighter by removing un-necessary weight?

http://www.konaretro.com/articles/catalogues/1991/91Inner2.jpg

 

[cce]

i have a sneaky feeling it's the same front triangle, but the cindercone had a butted arse

my (1996) lava dome insists it has double butted *main tubes*

 

[Anthony]

My belief is that from 1993 onwards the frames were the same. For 1991-92, although the Lava Dome and the Cinder Cone both had double-butted main tubes, the fact that they say that the Cinder Cone had the lightest Kona double-butted tubing implies that it may have had slightly thinner gauge and slightly lighter than the Lava Dome. But even then the Lava Dome was at a clearly higher level than the Fire Mountain.

I don't think either bike had butted stays in those days, although right at the death the Lava Dome had db stays in 2003. Prior to that, the Kilauea and then the Caldera seem to have been the lowest models with db stays.

Incidentally, speaking as the owner of a 97 Kilauea and a 97 Lava Dome, I can testify that db stays do make a difference, not always reflected in the eBay valuations of the various frames.