1997 Kona Hot Stars n Bars

[al-onestare]

Re: Re:

Yep, liberally applied and a pain to remove, wasn't sticky but solid.

The frame number's H09611049

Spent more time spec'ing it up than doing anything with it, keep flipping between period and modern.

Hey there. A very long time bump to a wonderful bike.

Fast forward from 2014, I was thinking about how few Hot's I've seen from this small window of time; the ill-fated Altitude partnership.

Now we know what we know, the serial number indicates 1996, November, #49. So this would be right at the end of the Altitude production run as we can pretty confidently say, it was during early 1997 the production switched to Enigma. You can argue that it's amazing this one even exists with very strong rumours that the Hots were snapping like crazy although I really do think that's more to do with folks riding them much harder than they had previously, thanks to the advances in suspension technology, the widening profile of the sport and increased trail variety.

Anyway, we also know that the Altitude Caldera's have some very odd SNs with Hot prefixes. I wanted to compare this to that list so here goes:

Caldera owner 1 (currently unknown, sold on Facebook in September 2016): CA9609012, Poopsy Blue, 16"
Caldera owner 2: HO 9607032, different blue, 19"
My Caldera: CA 9609046, Poopsy Blue, 20"
Caldera owner 4: CA 9609144, Molotov Red, 18"
Caldera owner 5: HO 9610031 (TBC), Poopsy Blue, 18"
Your Hot: HO 9611049, 18"

What does this prove? Not much other than things were all over the place back then

How's she been to ride?

Thought I'd add ernie's Hot SN to this list and one more new one, made in the same batch as yours!

Caldera owner 1: HO 9607032, different blue, 19"
ernie's Hot: HO 9607048, rasta flames, 18"
Caldera owner 2 (currently unknown, sold on Facebook in September 2016): CA 9609012, Poopsy Blue, 16"
My Caldera: CA 9609046, Poopsy Blue, 20"
Caldera owner 4: CA 9609144, Molotov Red, 18"
Caldera owner 5: HO 9610031 (TBC), Poopsy Blue, 18"
Your Hot: HO 9611049, stars and bars, 18"
German Hot: HO 9611059, stars and bars, 19"

If you don't mind a total hi-jack, this came up in the Kona retro Facebook group last week. It's an absolute beauty, has the right SN, drop-outs and routing. It was used by a central European dealer as a promo bike, then put into storage and not used or unearthed to till last year.