1995 Kona Sex Too

Introducing my latest purchase, John Balmer's 1995 Kona Sex Too.



I recently purchased this 1995 Kona Custom Cruiser, from a personal friend of former Kona employee John Balmer. I had originally passed on this one, but I couldn't stop thinking about having all three 'New for 1995' Kona bikes:



I am currently disassembling the bike and taking note of what is factory original, and what is not. I am likely going to use the Ritchey brakes, Sugino cranks, and Kona SUS 999 front hub on my 1995 Kilauea:





I have a set of XT M737/Mavic 237S wheels for this bike, a Sugino Mighty 900 crankset, and I'll put on some black LX brakes on here.

There's some really cool original Kona parts on this bike too, like the bar end plugs which usually get lost, and a front Maximum tire in great condition! It appears Mr. Dirt has gone bald though.

Now that you've seen the good, here's some of the bad and the ugly.

The paint is on this stem is excellent, so new decals would make this perfect:



The head badge has been worn away by some really poor cable housing routing:



The O-Beam seatpost has both a worn logo, and a worn spot around the clamp:



The front Marzocchi XCR is leaking, and the decals are peeling, but much like the stem, the paint is excellent. I think a rebuild kit would do this fork good. Paging @Dr-Zocchi! I've heard you're the person to talk to about this fork!



I am also looking for a replacement Marzocchi A25 rear shock. These are hard to come by in the states, but there appears to be a few NOS pieces on German Amazon and Italian eBay. If anyone would be willing to purchase one and ship it to the US, I would be eternally grateful!

GeneralOsik said:

...

I think a rebuild kit would do this fork good. Paging @Dr-Zocchi! I've heard you're the person to talk to about this fork!

View attachment 803191View attachment 803187

I am also looking for a replacement Marzocchi A25 rear shock. These are hard to come by in the states, but there appears to be a few NOS pieces on German Amazon and Italian eBay. If anyone would be willing to purchase one and ship it to the US, I would be eternally grateful!

View attachment 803188

Click to expand...

No problem for the 26mm XCR seal kits. I also have new stanchions for that fork. Check this for different options in Service Kits : https://dr-zocchi.projectweb.de/produkt-kategorie/seals-24-26mm/ .

Regarding the shock : why don't you simply order it from Ebay IT or Amazon?

It's been far too long since I've posted an update to this bike, so I'll get y'all caught up. I disassembled the bike and mulled over the theme of the bike, while I sourced a few parts. I just finished a 1987 Diamondback Arrival, that I'll create a thread for soon, so my work stand was empty again. I decided it's time to tackle my first full suspension work job.

Many thanks to Dr. Zoochi, who procured two Marzocchi A25 rear shocks, and shipped them to me in the US, along with one of his fantastic rebuild kids for an XCR fork. More on that process later, I'm waiting for a tool to arrive to get to the bottom most bolt in the stanchion.

The NOS rear shocks are exactly the same as the old one, and it fitted to the freshly polished frame perfectly







Two nights ago, I finished cleaning and polishing the brake set, and fitted the rear brakes and swing arm adapter



I also cleaned and polished the front derailleur and crankset, and fitted that last night





Tonight, I'm cleaning the wheelset and tires

Wow!

Now that's looking great. The fact you got it with the brake adapter is a huge win, and with @Dr-Zocchi on the case, it's all downhill from now on.

It's not often you see one in a decent size either. What are your riding plans for it?

al-onestare said:

What are your riding plans for it?

Click to expand...

It'll definitely be ridden on some trails! A lot of the singletrack here in Missouri are similar to the kinds of trails that used to be ridden when this bike was new. We also have some modern trails, so I'm curious to see how scary that would be on this early of a bike. I'm also going to take this on my usual party group rides, to show off to friends once it's finished.

I would really love to take this bike out to California, or even the pacific northwest, and ride it in the environment I'm sure it's seen before. There was a lot of fine, tan dust all over the brakes and bottom bracket. I wouldn't mind having to clean that off again!

And who knows, since this bike will likely end up being the nicest rideable example of a 95 Sex Too, it might catch the eye of people (maybe at Kona HQ) who want to review it and take photos of it.

I love these. Picked up an S1 a few years ago that I ended up moving on as it was a bit small. They really are a good looker, and very "AMP" like rear end. It was lighter than it looked, and just wish it had been bigger.

These certainly cleaned up quite nicely!




The front rim decal is quite a bit more faded, so I'd eventually like to find some replacement decals



I have a few more things on order, including the housing and cables, and one more small part for the fork. My next post will be to showcase the collection of matching parts and accessories, and I think it will be clear what the theme of the build is, once you all see what I have acquired. Cheers!

When I first bought the bike, and saw it had grip shift, I know that I wanted to keep those on the bike. I usually only run thumb shifters, but I've always wanted to try grip shift. While I was shopping for parts, I came across a couple pairs of X-Ray SRT-800, both the clear and smoke. If these clear ones finish cracking and fall apart, I'll swap in the smokes. I also found some NOS ODI grips in clear, shipped from Portugal. And to accompany the rear shifter, I got a clear SRAM Bassworm from my friend Matt, that came off a GT he bought.

And purely by coincidence, John Balmer worked at SRAM after he left Kona!

While I was looking around for more clear parts, I realized that I already had a couple of clear bottle cages and a Sensor cycling computer from Trek, so I'll be throwing those on the bike right at the end.

And purely by coincidence, John Balmer worked at Trek after he left SRAM!



I'm waiting on cables, the rest of the housing, a few more rear derailleur accessories, and some fancy brass ferrules. Tomorrow night I will tackle the fork rebuild finally. The bike is almost finished! I'm aiming to have it completed by the end of March, so that should be plenty of time to work out any minor issues.

In my next update, I'll show off all the rear end accessories that you might not expect to all be on one bike!