I moved house last weekend, and on a trip to the skip with various house rubbish my eye caught the collection of rusted bikes. Low and behold a 1997 Kona Lava Dome was there, rusting slightly and covered in green slime. All alone in the pouring rain.
Worth a punt for £10 I thought.
I've been looking at it when I can this week and a simple clean with muc off has shown it to be in much better nick than I thought.
The seatpost came out at only the second time of asking and the paintwork, although from from being perfect, is also far from needing a respray at the moment (imho). Original decals are also in a good state with the Kona Cromoly and Race Light decals still there as well.
Some nasty Shimano Acera parts are on it and rusting out - I'll have to junk the cassette, front mech, chain etc, but some alright finishing kit such as a club roost bar (including brace), planet x stem and a few other bits to take me back to when I first got into bikes. Also some bling green tektro brake boosters (brace things, forgive my ignorance on what they are technically called). The front wheel looks ok and just in need of a slight truing, the back is missing a couple of spokes but may be ok for parts.
Just in the process of cleaning it up, checking the headset and bottom bracket and seeing where to go from there. Tempted to look for some P2's to restore it to its orginal forked state. At the moment there are some black suntour forks but missing all decals so I'm unsure what they are. I'll take them apart this weekend and see if I can shed any light, the only thing I know is that they are black, have magnesium lower legs, made in Taiwan (think suntour moved production there in the late 1990s). They are cleaning up ok and movement is good on the traditional push down on the handlebar test so they should be salvageable!
I'm afraid my home internet isn't working until the 12th but I'll put some photos up as soon as I can. Any experts on suntour forks who can point me in the right direction please feel free to help!
This is my first build and i'm loving it, scouring around for bits. I will upset the purists by not putting original buits on it but I don't want to put cheap shimano bits which don't work back on it. I have sourced SLX shifters and levers from a 1998 GT Backwoods which should do the job perfectly well.
I have access to some immaculate Bomber (Z2's) as well so I am considering putting them on as I think they'll compliment the steel frame quite nicely.
Worth a punt for £10 I thought.
I've been looking at it when I can this week and a simple clean with muc off has shown it to be in much better nick than I thought.
The seatpost came out at only the second time of asking and the paintwork, although from from being perfect, is also far from needing a respray at the moment (imho). Original decals are also in a good state with the Kona Cromoly and Race Light decals still there as well.
Some nasty Shimano Acera parts are on it and rusting out - I'll have to junk the cassette, front mech, chain etc, but some alright finishing kit such as a club roost bar (including brace), planet x stem and a few other bits to take me back to when I first got into bikes. Also some bling green tektro brake boosters (brace things, forgive my ignorance on what they are technically called). The front wheel looks ok and just in need of a slight truing, the back is missing a couple of spokes but may be ok for parts.
Just in the process of cleaning it up, checking the headset and bottom bracket and seeing where to go from there. Tempted to look for some P2's to restore it to its orginal forked state. At the moment there are some black suntour forks but missing all decals so I'm unsure what they are. I'll take them apart this weekend and see if I can shed any light, the only thing I know is that they are black, have magnesium lower legs, made in Taiwan (think suntour moved production there in the late 1990s). They are cleaning up ok and movement is good on the traditional push down on the handlebar test so they should be salvageable!
I'm afraid my home internet isn't working until the 12th but I'll put some photos up as soon as I can. Any experts on suntour forks who can point me in the right direction please feel free to help!
This is my first build and i'm loving it, scouring around for bits. I will upset the purists by not putting original buits on it but I don't want to put cheap shimano bits which don't work back on it. I have sourced SLX shifters and levers from a 1998 GT Backwoods which should do the job perfectly well.
I have access to some immaculate Bomber (Z2's) as well so I am considering putting them on as I think they'll compliment the steel frame quite nicely.
