I have a note of that serial number HO9607048 already, so presumably I wrote something on another thread of the previous owner. Apologies then to anybody bored by my repeating myself.
Essentially it confirms that the frame was made by Altitude Cycles of Chico CA in 1996. The Goat emblem on the dropout testifies to the Altitude operation being a continuation of the Mountain Goat business, from the same factory, with the same welders and still under the direction of Jeff Lindsay, the founder, principal and designer of Mountain Goat.
Altitude seems to have started in 1995, operating alongside Mountain Goat. They seem to have stopped selling Mountain Goats after 1995, and during 1996 they built the 1996 and all or most of the 1997 Hots for Kona. They also built the Kona Ku's, in this case from 95 to 97, presumably because Tom Teesdale who built Hots until 1995 didn't work with aluminium. A builder called Enigma took on the Kona contract from 1997, but their frames may have been just the 98 models. It would be interesting to know of a 97 Hot that doesn't have a 96HO serial, but I haven't seen one myself.
It seems that Jeff lindsay left Altitude sometime around the end of 1996, and one wonders whether the end of the Kona contract may have been linked to this. The company continued under the ownership of A-Pro of Taiwan, who were already involved in partnership with Jeff Lindsay. They kept it going until around 1999 building VooDoos, which were always the bulk of Altitude's business from 1995 onwards.
I believe that Altitude also painted bikes, including my VooDoo, but they didn't paint Konas - that was done by Velographics of Bellingham, Washington State, near to the Kona HQ.
Essentially it confirms that the frame was made by Altitude Cycles of Chico CA in 1996. The Goat emblem on the dropout testifies to the Altitude operation being a continuation of the Mountain Goat business, from the same factory, with the same welders and still under the direction of Jeff Lindsay, the founder, principal and designer of Mountain Goat.
Altitude seems to have started in 1995, operating alongside Mountain Goat. They seem to have stopped selling Mountain Goats after 1995, and during 1996 they built the 1996 and all or most of the 1997 Hots for Kona. They also built the Kona Ku's, in this case from 95 to 97, presumably because Tom Teesdale who built Hots until 1995 didn't work with aluminium. A builder called Enigma took on the Kona contract from 1997, but their frames may have been just the 98 models. It would be interesting to know of a 97 Hot that doesn't have a 96HO serial, but I haven't seen one myself.
It seems that Jeff lindsay left Altitude sometime around the end of 1996, and one wonders whether the end of the Kona contract may have been linked to this. The company continued under the ownership of A-Pro of Taiwan, who were already involved in partnership with Jeff Lindsay. They kept it going until around 1999 building VooDoos, which were always the bulk of Altitude's business from 1995 onwards.
I believe that Altitude also painted bikes, including my VooDoo, but they didn't paint Konas - that was done by Velographics of Bellingham, Washington State, near to the Kona HQ.
