1996 Kona Cinder Cone

[nspace]

Thanks. I am not super into the whole period correct thing at the cost of not being a daily bike for me (since I have a few other more capable rigid XC bikes) and this felt like a good balance between heritage of the bike (I love the color matched quill stem) but also want it to be a bit less aggressive and provide more bar options (since split clamp designs can also limit bar selection).

I also re-laced the wheels to silver XT hubs, and replaced the DT decals (the decals from Gil were quite good, the color match was a bit off, and the sizing of some of the decals were also not accurate—so my advice to anyone would be to accurately measure the originals first and get Gil to size them for you—luckily in my case, I was only messing with the DT logo and the size match was quite good).

 

[minor_LEGEND]

Great work on that stem modification & what a colour match too.

 

[al-onestare]

would say it's a 95 - graphic-wise.

Never the less; lovely nick.

100% 1995 model. My very first Kona, and in my opinion, the best spec-ed Cinder Cone of the era.

 

[JCS]

Wow, you don’t mess about!
That’s a very cool solution to the stem requirement.
I know what you mean about stem size/length. The velocity stem on my 91 cinder cone looks great but it’s too low and long for my back, so I switched to a shorter version.
In the trade off between bike aesthetics and back comfort, the latter wins for me these days

 

[arnomatic]

Stem mod is perfect. Wanted to do this same thing for a long time but lack the tools! Colour matched stem and bar really elevate these builds, maybe I'll post you my velocity stem for a 90mm conversion one day

 

[nspace]

1995 for sure, it just won’t let me edit the post title.

Thanks for all of the comments. Yeah the colour match turned out really nice.

 

[minor_LEGEND]

Is the stem matched to the forks or are both repainted?

 

[nspace]

Fork is original paint. I haven’t touched it. Just repainted the stem with a custom can of spray paint matched to the paint code I shared above.

 

[minor_LEGEND]

Fork is original paint. I haven’t touched it. Just repainted the stem with a custom can of spray paint matched to the paint code I shared above.

Thanks. Very good match indeed.

 

[Lostcause]

I don't know if this is interesting to you all, but I am in the process of making some changes to this bike to work better as an around town/picnic bike with my kids. So it won't be an original period correct type of piece which may immediately oust me from good standing with the RetroBike overlords, but I am trying to capture the spirit of the original bike as much as possible!

Can share my progress but thought you may appreciate hearing about the stem first! My goals:

• Maintain color matched fork & stem (feels so unique to this bike and Kona!)
• Reduce reach of stem for more upright riding position
• Avoid resorting to a different stem and having to use a 22mm quill + shim
• Expand the amount of wide bar options by having a 31.8mm bar

I decided to shorten the original Kona Velocity stem and bronze braze a Paragon Machine Works 31.8 clamp. Repainted to match (thanks to @RadNomad for the paint codes in his thread) with Mitsubishi Yellowish Brown C05, and had Gil supply some decals (sized down for the shorter stem). Pleased with the result. Decided to leave Paragon Machine Works faceplate raw silver since there will be lots of silver accents on the bike.

Measured the cut off point to result in a 90mm length stem.

I mad the first cut close to the stem clamp, and then I clamped a tubing block on the end to score where I wanted the final cut. I needed to slowly work around cutting it from all sides to end up with a square end to the tube so it would mate well with the stem backing plate.

I devised this very scrappy setup to get the clamp fit up with flux to the stem. I needed a window for access with the torch to head up the backing plate from the frontside to mitigate roasting the extension tube!

After brazing, have not soaked off the flux yet.

Test fit on the bike with a bit of filing and clean up.

The finished stem with velocity decals and paint!

Superb work, looking fantastic