1997 or 8 VooDoo Hoodoo

Anthony

Retrobike Rider
When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
I think the frame quality is the same, the paint quality is better at around that time, I find the sizing/geometry is better (to my taste) and this has a Bomber whereas the same year Cinder Cone had an Indy C. They tend to be equated, but this would have been £1,250 new, whereas a 97 Cinder Cone was £700. OK, the VooDoo pricing was too high, hence they are quite rare, but I would say it's a better bike that is now worth less.

Plus it's yellow.
 
What makes you say 18.5" Anthony? Must admit it doesn't look like a 16" but you can tell just by eye?

Don't know a whole lot about Voodoo, other than it was Joe Murray designed and (I believe) the same geometry as the mid-90's Konas. Looks like skinny tube steel, but what type?

Er... you like yellow then. :)
 
Well yes it does look like a size 18.5 to me, it certainly can't be a 16, and the owner may well be making the common mistake of measuring from centre of bb to top of top tube, which is how bikes were generally measured in earlier times. If it's 16" to the top of the top tube, then add another 2.5" to take it to the top of the seat tube and you have 18.5, which is what it looks like.

VooDoo started out in 1995, and initially all the frames were built in the USA by Altitude Cycles, which was Mountain Goat building frames for other brands in their factory in Chico, California. The Bizango was made from Tange Prestige Ultimate Superlight, the Wanga from Tange Prestige and the HooDoo from Tange MTB (i.e., a good double-butted 4130 cromoly, but not heat-treated like Prestige).

From 1997, the Erzulie was added to the range, double-butted cromoly built in Taiwan, and I believe (but haven't found confirmation yet) that from 1998 onwards all the frames were built in Taiwan, but still assembled into bikes in Chico until maybe 2000, using VooDoo's (expensive) custom options system. I labelled this a 97 or 98, but on further thought I'm not sure they made them in yellow until 99. Anyway, I think it's highly probable that it was made in Taiwan from generic double-butted 4130 of the same quality as used on a Cinder Cone or Lava Dome.

The geometry is similar to a Kona, but not identical. Some sizes had longer head tubes than same size Konas, and they had fractionally shorter top tubes, snaked seatstays and the cable routing works better. All of these factors make them slightly more like the way that design was going, with the slightly steeper top tube etc. Kona themselves froze their design as it was left to them by Joe Murray for 1994, and didn't make any significant change for many years. Whereas at VooDoo JM kept developing the design, so I would say at that time a VooDoo was Joe's more developed variation on his 1994 Kona design which Kona was still using.
 
Thanks Anthony, very interesting stuff indeed. I think I've been to Chico, on a 1981 trip to California. (Sorry, that wasn't interesting at all! :roll:)
 
I think that was pretty much when Jeff Lindsay was starting out with Mountain Goat, but I guess in such a small that you wouldn't have known it. Paul Components are also in Chico, but didn't open until 1989.
 
im into this Anthony, love my erzulie, which was the 1997 spec but which i suspect was one of those sold in the 97 colours in 1999 coz it didnt sell in 97

but how come

1997 Erzulie is according to bikepedia $549

1999 Hoodoo in this yellow fever colour is $1231

the erzulie has a rigid cromo fork granted but it is a full stx groupo

hoodoo has sids, but a mixed and lower spec groupo of stx, avid, alivio
wheelset is alivio too on the hoodoo

frames seem the same construction and material

what accounts for the $700 difference in price tag
 
Yes curious to the above question too.......i have had 2 Erzulie's , and a Prototype Bizango (columbus Foco tubing) and a modern Wanga(which was crap)...........the Hoodoo just seems the same frame as Erzulie but in nasty yellow and from a more expensive bike. Perhaps they just had a radical price review ???

Only differences i can see are different cable stops and a non re-enforced head tube.
 
Back
Top