Kona’s - best year for frame?

[bold stelvis]

Obviously down to personal preference but for me 94 to 96 had the best colours and graphics
'97 saw the move to the more 'comic sans'-seque, "Hawaiian" styled graphics which personally I am not a big fan of.
the earlier ones are growing on me though - ie 90-91 era

I think the mid to late 90s ones are generally a bit lighter and have slightly more extreme stretched out geo - late 80's and early 90s a little more relaxed with shorter Top tubes

 

[al-onestare]

Why was Kona so late to the suspension game? I got my first suspension bike in 92 (what a mistake that purchase was).

To be fair, they weren't. They'd had their fingers burned with the Z-link/Futureshock in 91/92, kinda echoing the point of your mistake

Once Rock-Shox came along a little later and initially dominated the mass-market, Kona started to fit them as an option in 1993 through to 1994 when the geometry was adjusted to cope with the increased travel.

Kona were known and were bold enough to say it, to stick with tried and tested designs and components. Using thumb-shifters a couple of years after everyone was using rapidfire/bar shifters.

 

[minor_LEGEND]

Rock Shox were on the market in 89/90 with the original RS1 fork. There was the Kona branded Future Shock, the leading link Project 2 inspired fork carrying Joe Murrays name but Kona got behind Marzocchi for original equipment as a first fork option iirc. Was that in 93 or 94?

I would imagine Kona thought it wiser to leave fork choice up to the owner rather than risk speccing something that could fall out of popularity in the marketplace. As said above they didn't really see any return on the investment into the Future Shock offering. Knowing how most buyers of MTB's like to modify their own bikes plus this would help keep the bikes within a certain price point.

 

[al-onestare]

As said above they didn't really see any return on the investment into the Future Shock offering.

To be clear, the Futureshock was a horrible design, a mistake, and quickly recalled for safety issues

 

[MattiThundrrr]

To be clear, the Futureshock was a horrible design, a mistake, and quickly recalled for safety issues

Such a pity, they were a cool looking thing. Didn't they end up dump a container load into the sea? That can't be profitable! I seem to remember reading that somewhere...

 

[MattiThundrrr]

Found it, Kona world.com cited in this for sale thread:
https://www.retrobike.co.uk/threads/kona-joe-murray-future-shock-fork-1992.360282/

This fork is very rare, I post a courius story taken from konaworld.com:

"1992 - The Future Shock fork is introduced, a leading-link design by Joe Murray. In a very amicable agreement with Specialized, the name is changed to Z-Link. The fork is a total flop, is never safe to ride, and all stock is dumped into the Straight of San Juan de Fuca."

 

[FluffyChicken]

Also remember at the time (early 90s) forks where designed to be as short as possible for the most travel, so the forks where designed to be direct replacements to the rigid equivalent of 390/395.
Stems came out to help this too, bringing in the Zero rise stems.

Then frames where changed for 'marketing' and then changed because forks got longer (for marketing) and then forks got better to use that length...

So Kona only really had to change when forks length had to be compensated for and the rigid length then followed...
(and stem got shorter, and bars wider to compensate too... And marketing Kewl Rad Ness)

 

[MattiThundrrr]

It has to be pretty prevalent by 1993/4. It had trickled down to Hardrock level, mine is a "FS" model, optimized for front suspension. I'm running it with a rigid fork though, and it handles it fine, so the accommodations made can't have been too great

 

[BerthaPog]

Nah, ‘98 was the peak. All the learning and refinement of the ‘89 - ‘97s, before things started to diverge into different disciplines with ‘99 and beyond.

 

[Scott-S]

For me it's the pre suspension years (pre 1994 I think), I fell in love with the simple yet sturdy geometry of those frames before they started changing them with modern ideas like suspension and disc brakes..
Yes at 56 Im an old fashioned guy, I bought a Specialized about 15 years ago and it was a front suspension bike that I really liked the look of,, sadly I hated the feel of it and locked the front forks out as much as I could just to ride it comfortably. I rode it a year or so and gave it away for health reasons.
But as with all things in life we are all different and have different expectations but as along as I see an old bike still being used I don't care if it has suspension or not as long as its rolling on its wheels and being enjoyed.
I just prefer things my own way cos Im a geriatric