90’s steel konas

Canti brakes

Try rear mounted u brake. **** knows what they were on when they thought that was a good idea.

I would have thought the old steel konas and ( other retrobikes ) have more flex in the frames than steel bikes of today due to the new testing standards.Probably what made them so good a ride. Kona had lower geometry stance when compared to other retrobikes.

Not all ‘retro’ Kona are equal.

For instance the Explosif was made of colombus or Reynolds and had complicated fluted tubing etc….whilst the Cinder Cone and Lava Dome were just Hi Ten. Nice bikes back in the day compared to many contempories but not really the same thing.

Nothing wrong with well set up canti brakes unless you are shredding the gnar…or its wet.

whilst the Cinder Cone and Lava Dome were just Hi Ten.

Hardly. They were both full cromoly. My Cindercone is fully doublebutted with a triple butted Project 2 fork. The frame is Tange Infinity.

the Cinder Cone and Lava Dome were just Hi Ten

My 89 or 90 Lava Dome is badged as Tange double butted cromoly. Weighs a bloody ton though!

Maybe bit harsh on shit off road comment. Fine on smooth flowy stuff as mentioned.

Me getting air on my 1996 Kula few years back and my restored by me 1995 Cindercone:)

Tange infinity is pretty much hi ten with a name attached. it’s seamed for a start. it has butting up to a point..buuut it really isn’t anything like the tubesets in the Explosif.

Tange infinity is pretty much hi ten with a name attached

What you actually meant to say was ‘right enough guys I was wrong about them being hi ten’ 😉

The composition of the steel is different to hi ten. The method of tube manufacture is indeed different as they are seamed. However, by the mid ‘90’s most if not all of the drawbacks of seamed tubes had been negated – e.g. weakness at the seam. The wall thicknesses are also thicker on Infinity to Prestige. It’s still a decent quality cromoly tubeset though…

Some good information on Tange tubesets. Profile, composition etc…

http://velobase.com/Resource_Tools/DownloadFile.aspx?Path=%2fCatalogScans%2fTange_1988.pdf&FileName=Tange_1988.pdf

@plus one

Wow that 95 Cinder Cone brings back some memories, my first ‘proper’ MTB after a Spesh Rock Combo and a cheap Claud Butler, both that were nicked.

Your restoration looks v. true to the original build I remember – same XT rear mech, Richey cantis, gripshift etc.

Snapped the chainstay on mine 🙁 Kona warrantied it with a 1998.

Had this 98 Lava Dome until a few years back. Bought it mostly orginal except for 100mm forks.

Added shorter stem, wider bars and a SS kit.

Was a fairly light and agile bike. If I hadn’t been such a singlespeed newbie wuss back then would probably have kept it. Still ride a skinny steel 26er SS as main bike today, except in Orange flavour

100mm forks work perfectly on a ’98, btw. Allegedly. Disclaimer etc. 😉

I had a 96 Kilauea from new which I saved up for on my paper round.

Rode it and loved it until i used it to tear the roof off my car under a low bridge! 😥

I do enjoy my modern bikes now, but for messing around at trail centres with the kids,  general commuting and tow path type riding I still miss it. I don’t however miss v-brakes in any way shape or form, discs are unbelievable in comparison.

I don’t however miss v-brakes in any way shape or form, discs are unbelievable in comparison.

Generally speaking I’d agree. But if my TRP Spyres stopped me 80% as efficiently as the vees on that Kona up there, then I’d be really happy

A properly set-up pair of vees can be wicked good. Away from the mud…

until i used it to tear the roof off my car under a low bridge! 😥

Ouch. Double 😬😬. Funnily enough my first Kona Cinder Cone was launched from a bike rack on a 60 bend. It bounced head over heels, exploding the back wheel, mashing a saddle and destroying a brake lever. Most annoyingly – the impact snapped the little friction/index lever on the previously mint XT Thumbies. Frame and forks were fine! It was stuck in friction shift thereafter.

What is this?

geometry stance

My Dad has a 21” 1993 explosif frameset languishing in his loft if that was of interest?

Mat, ooh, that could be my dream pub bike! Project 2 forks? Where are you and how much?!

Bar tyres/saddle/grips the 1995 Cindercone is catalogue spec. 🙂

plus one – that’s a lovely looking bike.

Try rear mounted u brake

If we’re talking reeeeeally bad brakes, my old Saracen Tufftrax had plastic rear mounted u brakes…………..

Having started mtbing in the early ‘90s I’ve had a fair few bikes but the only Kona I’ve ever owned was a Muni Mula, a cheap aluminium one.

After being disappointed with an Orange Clockwork in about ‘95 I went down the ‘fat’ tubes alu path with Cannondale, Klein and then various full sus bikes, next steel frame was a Team Marin that I didn’t get until about 1999.

Nearest I got to a Kona was probably my Bonty Privateer or a Merlin Ritchey WCS.

My wife has a Hahanna as her commute bike, 1” steerer, P2 forks, cantis, thumb shifters. That is a basic plain gauge frame, I do remember that they didn’t alter the geometry from low to high end so the cheaper models still rode nicely, just a bit heavier and less ‘zingy’.

Just built this to recreate the 93 Kilauea I had from new

View this post on Instagram

Kona is now finished. Just suspension to setup. #kona #konakilauea #mtbrestoration

A post shared by David Ladkin (@dladders) on Feb 23, 2019 at 8:47am PST

Made from this

View this post on Instagram

Start of my Kona frame restoration #Kona

A post shared by David Ladkin (@dladders) on Jan 28, 2019 at 2:05am PST

And these

View this post on Instagram

eBay forks ready for refurb! #retromtb #rockshox #mtbrestoration

A post shared by David Ladkin (@dladders) on Feb 3, 2019 at 3:05am PST

^^Nice!

Plus one – That’s the same as mine but yours is a much better restoration!

Thanks I wish I’d kept it now 🙁

whilst the Cinder Cone and Lava Dome were just Hi Ten.

Hardly. They were both full cromoly. My Cindercone is fully doublebutted with a triple butted Project 2 fork. The frame is Tange Infinity.

partial apropopopoos nugget further to this – I had a (professionally) resprayed Kona that I couldnt identify. The bike project had no info so I gave Kona a buzz with the frame No. They told me that it was ‘either a 94 Lava Dome OR 94 Cinder Cone’ – ie same frameset used for both models.

It didnt weigh a ton.

^^ I know in certain model years they were indeed the same frame and it may be the case for all years…

Yeah, for most of the 90s the Cinder Cone and the Lava Dome used the same frame, and the Fire Mountain and Hahanna also shared. The Explosif and Kilauea tended to share some tunes but not all, and the Hot generally used the same tubes as the Explosif.

FWIW I had a Hot (Tange Ultrastrong, Ultralight etc) and a Lava Dome (vanilla Tange DB with the same/similar profiles) from the same year (96), with the same geometry, and I couldn’t discern even the slightest difference in ride quality. The narrower tubes of the older frames, and the heavier tubes of the low-end ones, did however feel different. YMMV.

I’ve got the full Kona jersey and shorts that went with my Explosif and later my Hei Hei. Here’s a pic of me fixing a mech on Saddleworth Moor; believe it or not people really did dress like this.

(Picture credit: I Donohoe.com)

Yeah, for most of the 90s the Cinder Cone and the Lava Dome used the same frame

It’s those 1990’s bikes I know most about – post-2000 my knowledge is less complete.

Recently sold my dad’s old Kilauea to a buddy who is looking to restore it. Most of the value was probably in the complete set of XTR parallelogram V-Brakes right enough…

My classic Kona jersey is all the Kona I own now, only to be brought out for racing CX courses with ‘death spiral’ features, or riding up volcanoes in Hawaii.

Just found this old Kona newsletter tucked into Issue 1…

…has a bit of info on the 95 Cinder Cone in it…

I bought mine from a guy (Russell?) in Guildford Cycles, who I think went on to work for Kona. Remember he rode an Explosif, think he managed the race team?

Mat

Subscriber
My Dad has a 21” 1993 explosif frameset languishing in his loft if that was of interest?

I’m interested in this mate, being tall and old enough to remember the 90s and that.

Whereabouts are you based and how much do you think he’d want?

Cheers

I (like a lot of other people) had Steel Kona as their first “proper” MTB,  Mine was a ’92 Lava Dome.

Bloody loved that bike.  I still have the frame in storage.

Kona got 26er rigid geo nailed pretty quickly, if you then add in things like the impact headset, P2 forks and the slightly fatter on the front tyres and you can see why people love them.

Blimey – I was wrong on the tubing..I always remember Cinder Cones as the cheaper end of Kona bikes but £699 in 1995 equates to around £1200-£1300 today.

Cinder Cone was midrange back then. I remember they held the price at £699 for a few years, so it effectively moved down the range as they added sus forks and components had to get cheaper. And then it went alu mid-noughties 🙁

Straying into the 00s there, no? 😉

What year is this Lava Dome frame? That’s what I’m currently riding, but don’t know how old it is. I’m assuming from the dropouts, V-mounts and IS disk mount it’s early Noughties.

I bought the very Explosif reviewed by MBUK in a second hand bikes for £500 feature back in the day!