romanrinos
Kona Fan
This is a bit of a Time Machine thread..
This frame has had a small past, on a thread I discovered on here from 7 years ago.
It's first life being here:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=149001
As far as it seems the build was never completed.
I bought this 20" frame over 2 years in June of 2016, after an internet search led me to a fellow local Konahead, with a small stock of assorted Kona frames in his apartment.
Having only owned a purple 1991 19" Explosif at the time, which I've owned from new during the 90s, the titanium Hei Hei was always a bit of an enigma. And after a few months, and a some negotiations, having never handled a Ti bike, I finally bought the frame. I couldn't quite believe how light the thing was.
It's also some thing of an anomoly. The seat tube clamp is straight from a 1992 model, but the serial dates it as a 1993 model.
Condition wise, other than having replacement decals at some point (they don't look like top quality Gil productions) the frame surface is pretty immaculate and had the original Ti-3Al-2.5 sticker intact.
After a gentle rub down with scotchbrite, and a heavy dose of lemon juice, the frame is near-enough brand new. The only issue being that the ti brake noodle was famously missing. More about this later in the thread.
I gave myself a brief: to build the best vintage XTR race worthy Hei Hei I could.
With the final purchase of a decent low profile BB today, this journey of searching / collecting has almost come to an end..
Quite a few people have made a very valuable contribution to this build to date that I'd like to thank, which otherwise wouldn't have resulted including judd peterson, raidan73 and zoda, and gratitude to pipmeister and minifreak for their general support.
This frame has had a small past, on a thread I discovered on here from 7 years ago.
It's first life being here:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=149001
As far as it seems the build was never completed.
I bought this 20" frame over 2 years in June of 2016, after an internet search led me to a fellow local Konahead, with a small stock of assorted Kona frames in his apartment.
Having only owned a purple 1991 19" Explosif at the time, which I've owned from new during the 90s, the titanium Hei Hei was always a bit of an enigma. And after a few months, and a some negotiations, having never handled a Ti bike, I finally bought the frame. I couldn't quite believe how light the thing was.
It's also some thing of an anomoly. The seat tube clamp is straight from a 1992 model, but the serial dates it as a 1993 model.
Condition wise, other than having replacement decals at some point (they don't look like top quality Gil productions) the frame surface is pretty immaculate and had the original Ti-3Al-2.5 sticker intact.
After a gentle rub down with scotchbrite, and a heavy dose of lemon juice, the frame is near-enough brand new. The only issue being that the ti brake noodle was famously missing. More about this later in the thread.
I gave myself a brief: to build the best vintage XTR race worthy Hei Hei I could.
With the final purchase of a decent low profile BB today, this journey of searching / collecting has almost come to an end..
Quite a few people have made a very valuable contribution to this build to date that I'd like to thank, which otherwise wouldn't have resulted including judd peterson, raidan73 and zoda, and gratitude to pipmeister and minifreak for their general support.
