Recent content by murphy79

For the first two years (96 and 97) the KK was known as the Hei Hei King Kahuna and had HH stickers on the top tube with KK stickers on the seat stays. The 96's did not have gussets or shaped tubes, but did use 6-4 titanium for the stays (the only year that did), and then the gussets and shaped...

It was s a tattoo shop, not a bike shop. And the FB ad says it is 17".

It's @nadge123* frame, I was up there in his shop a few weeks back and saw it then. Lovely frame and a great bloke with a fantastic collection of Konas.

From what I have read, mostly on here I think, the Hodaka Ku's with the chainstay bridge (and headtube flanges) were made very early in '99 and may have been warranty replacements. With the bridge and flanges, and "standard" Hodaka formatted serial numbers, they are harder to tell from the...

The Kula was the top non-custom / non-us made alloy bike offered at the time, the AA was one step down but had essentially the same frame, only the components were slightly lower. You can see them both in the catalogue here.

Based on that pic I would say a stripped '97 AA or Kula. I've looked at my AA frame and it has almost identical numbers but has the actual serial number on the opposite side of the BB. Is there any indication that the S/N has been removed on the other side (maybe when the paint was stripped)?

Certainly not a Ku with that serial number, and the Ku's did not have a chainstay bridge (except for a few of the last Hodaka built ones). The serial number doesn't really match what would be expected for a Kona at that time, but the thumbs up stamps would only be on a Kona and the Easton mark...

Amazing, I remember seeing that frame in the video but it's only up close you see the glitter in the paint! On the face I would agree it is a later frame (97/98) based on decals and cable routing, but the dropouts appear to be different, even simpler compared to those years, and also different...

Very cool, that must have been amazing! So the placard says that the '99 KK's had a 6-4 rear triangle? I thought that was only on the '96 frames with the 64 suffix on the S/N. If it's coming from Kona HQ then it has to be true, but what does that mean for the years in between?

Lovely!! Is that a '97?

Al is correct with the interpretation of the S/N except I think April '96 would make it a '96 model as each new year's production begins in the Autumn of the previous year ('95 in this case) and ends some time before the next year begins the following Autumn. So it can't be an Explosif for the...

A 96 Explosif, 96 Ku and 96 King Kahuna all have (as near as makes no difference) a 110mm head tube for an 18" frame. That covers the three different materials (and also three different builders) so I would imagine the rest of the range to be pretty consistent with that.

The spiral headtube logo would mean '93 to '96. The grey doesn't match any bikes that I am aware of, the only grey's I can think of were more metallic. So maybe that isn't the original colour either. You could check the inside headtube or BB shell to see if there is any over-spray. The seatpost...

Hi, my first guess would be a 1992 frame. That would match the cable routing and the remaining decals, and the oval headtube badge. Difficult to know which model though, although I would guess lower end as it doesn't appear to have the taper at the bottom of the seat tube that the mid-range...

Looks like it was his original race spec, found these pics too ... And this youtube video where he talks about the bike.