Bloke at work has started riding his old Explosif in.
What year’s this then? Components look late 90s to me, apart from the Sugino crank, which is earlier maybe?
Should I tell him the frame is quite desirable!

I think its a 98 or 99 lovely.

Hardly used!

Looks very faded and a bit rusty has it been left outside?

In a shed I think. He said he had to clean the cobwebs off before riding in on Monday.

I nearly bought an explosif in 1995 or 96, it was green in that year, and I am pretty sure it came with suspension forks, which probably means that this one is earlier than then.

Similar decals to my Fire Mountain, so i’d say 98.

That’s a re-painted 94/95/96 with 98 decals (possible repro ones)

I’ve had a 92,93,94,95,96,97,98 & 99 Explosif ( a bit of a Kona freak!)

Giveaway it’s not a 98 is the aftermarket v brake cable mount on the top tube

Down tube looks ribbed but can’t really tell from the picture for sure, if the bottom of the seat tube is fluted then that confirms it is an explosif

I doubt very much it’s been repainted… I’ll check it later.

Full size pic

It only appears to be locked to itself and not the bike stand. Do your colleague a favour and give him a quick lesson in bike security.

a guy at my work rides a mid-late 90s trek. mint condition throughout. STX RC hubs, radial spoked front wheel, basically new rock shox indy fork, it’s completely pristine. even down to purple anodised skewers (possibly ringle). i told him that retro lovers would fancy a lot of it but he’s not interested.

I tend to agree with Drapoon the fact it has canti mounts and no V brake stop means it pre 98 but they are 98 decals. Also has an LX headset which would not have been standard so would have been stripped at some time. Might not even be an Explosif….

and its got a club roost stem !

It only appears to be locked to itself and not the bike stand

Ooh yeah… hmm, I might drive in tomorrow 😉

not a 99, could be a 98 as decals similar to my caldera 98.

Yep, ’98 decals but not a stock ’98 Explosif colour so almost certainly resprayed. Looks like it has a threaded headset too with quill/ahead adaptor so probably ’96 or earlier. Got any clearer pics of the dropouts?

I think pre-’97 as it no v-brake mount and if paint and decals original it is definately post ’95. I cannot remember when Kona went to v-brakes on the Explosive, ’95 was definately normal cantilevers and ’96 may have been also – although I am not sure if ’96 or ’97 went for Magura hydraulic rim brakes…?

Oh yeah, that’s not a quill stem!
I’ll go and take some, the non-drive side stays have a little bridge between them that you can’t see in my pic.

Here we are:
Fluted seat tube

Dropouts

On close inspection it could well be a respray. The decals don’t look original and are peeling a bit. Were original decals lacquered over?

i have to mirror what a few others have said. definitely not a 98. Dropouts are from ’94/95/96 and no v-brake cable stop. Non original decals and it has an ahead style stem but possibly with a quill adaptor hence the LX headset. If the guy says its an explosif then it might be but i cant see where he would have got a Sugino Impel 500 chainset. The Sugino Impel 500 was found on the AA and Cinder Cone of that year and its obviously not an Aluminium AA so could it be a Cinder Cone?

Saw this the other day just outside Essen- thought it was just another gas pipe special then had a closer look!

Ooh, lovely RM! That’d be about a 96/97? I’ve probably got the catalogue at home.
I had a ’99 Instinct (same frame). That blue thing you can see in the background of my first pic is my RM Solo.

haggis, chainset says fuse, not impel.

Any of you Kona experts know what year they first started putting disc brake mounts on their frames?

I was just going to ask the same question -so, I’ll bump this
The above question that is. What year did Kona add disc mounts to frames. I’d like to get one to run some 700c discs on.

2000 i think

2002 for the explosif