I've been visiting this site quite regularly now and am very happy to see there are other people that have an interest in older bikes!
This may seem like a 'mid skool' bike to many of you but for me this build represents to me what was hot whan I first started getting into mountain bikes, 12 years ago.
My first proper bike was a 1998 celebration edition Kona Nunu. I absolutley loved that bike and thought it was amazing, I loved the snappy feel of the v brakes, the pogo stick style travel of the RST 381, the riser bars and just felt at home with the feel of the bike.
After this I had a few other bikes, notably a Kona Roast, a Kona Chute and then my dream bike, I thought DH was the way forward and managed to get a 2001 Santa Cruz Bullit with UD180 forks, hope DH4s, big un hubs etc it was my pride and joy. I bought it from Jamie Hibberd who used to feature in MBUK, the bike had a double page spread.
I sold the Bullit to buy a car and never really got into biking like before, I bought a few mags here and there but the bikes didn't interest me. I felt the frames looked over complicated, everything had discs and I ended up losing touch.
This little story brings me to my 1999 Kona chute build which I started with the forks that I bought on Ebay about 8 months ago for no apparent reason! I remember drooling over then when they were new and won them by accident really! Next came the frame from Ebay again and since then I've become slightly obsessed with Ebay and this forum, looking for bits to suit my build.
I'll show you some pics of the build I'm talking about! I plan to have the frame and fork resprayed - Gil M is on the case making me some new stickers. Everything else I've bought is new (including the D521 rims) so I hope to end up with a brand new retro bike! (Save a few colour coded parts like the saddle I'm going to replace)
Let me know your thoughts! (I've decided to keep the silver Shorty stem on for now as it makes the ride more versitile, the Funn henchman is more iconic I think though)
This may seem like a 'mid skool' bike to many of you but for me this build represents to me what was hot whan I first started getting into mountain bikes, 12 years ago.
My first proper bike was a 1998 celebration edition Kona Nunu. I absolutley loved that bike and thought it was amazing, I loved the snappy feel of the v brakes, the pogo stick style travel of the RST 381, the riser bars and just felt at home with the feel of the bike.
After this I had a few other bikes, notably a Kona Roast, a Kona Chute and then my dream bike, I thought DH was the way forward and managed to get a 2001 Santa Cruz Bullit with UD180 forks, hope DH4s, big un hubs etc it was my pride and joy. I bought it from Jamie Hibberd who used to feature in MBUK, the bike had a double page spread.
I sold the Bullit to buy a car and never really got into biking like before, I bought a few mags here and there but the bikes didn't interest me. I felt the frames looked over complicated, everything had discs and I ended up losing touch.
This little story brings me to my 1999 Kona chute build which I started with the forks that I bought on Ebay about 8 months ago for no apparent reason! I remember drooling over then when they were new and won them by accident really! Next came the frame from Ebay again and since then I've become slightly obsessed with Ebay and this forum, looking for bits to suit my build.
I'll show you some pics of the build I'm talking about! I plan to have the frame and fork resprayed - Gil M is on the case making me some new stickers. Everything else I've bought is new (including the D521 rims) so I hope to end up with a brand new retro bike! (Save a few colour coded parts like the saddle I'm going to replace)
Let me know your thoughts! (I've decided to keep the silver Shorty stem on for now as it makes the ride more versitile, the Funn henchman is more iconic I think though)
