I’d like to share another bike from my collection after just finished a major update. Found in a dumpster in 2019 (just like my Bianchi) in this sorry state:
Pretty amazing find for a free bike. First below pictures are of my first attempt at a paint refurbish. The decals were in decent shape so I masked them all and found a rattle can color sort of close (was difficult to tell as the paint had faded so much). I replaced a few parts including the lower spec Sugino Fuse 500 crankset with the higher spec Sugino XP Mighty Kona was using this year for the Explosif and up. I had always wanted this crank since BITD, reminds me of my favorite road crank vintage Campy C-Record. The old school Dura-Ace RD was picked up for $20 due to it being so scratched up, a lot of elbow grease later and on it went! I’m using the cable anchor trick which lets it index shift 7-speed Shimano.
Overall a fantastic vintage steel MTB, I bit larger than I normally ride but I love the fit, it rides a bit longer than some of my others.
A few years later I’ve gotten a lot better with the rattle can. I had never even bothered with a clearcoat on the original paint refurbish, not even metallic paint.
One day I stumbled across a full decals set, like everything, on eBay even including the Prestige Concept tubing decal. I decided it was time my Kona got a more proper paint job. I was tempted to put on the “Race Light” seat tube decal but noticed this was only on the euro versions, not the north American ones. May still add it later. I think I found a good color match this time after scouring the interweb for old photos trying to match the original color. Decided to remove the rear rack eyelets for the racer/cleaner look.
It was a lot of work to re-do the whole frame and fork but well worth it for this amazing piece of MTB history. I love my Kona
1st Paint Job
New and improved Paint & Decals:
Pretty amazing find for a free bike. First below pictures are of my first attempt at a paint refurbish. The decals were in decent shape so I masked them all and found a rattle can color sort of close (was difficult to tell as the paint had faded so much). I replaced a few parts including the lower spec Sugino Fuse 500 crankset with the higher spec Sugino XP Mighty Kona was using this year for the Explosif and up. I had always wanted this crank since BITD, reminds me of my favorite road crank vintage Campy C-Record. The old school Dura-Ace RD was picked up for $20 due to it being so scratched up, a lot of elbow grease later and on it went! I’m using the cable anchor trick which lets it index shift 7-speed Shimano.
Overall a fantastic vintage steel MTB, I bit larger than I normally ride but I love the fit, it rides a bit longer than some of my others.
A few years later I’ve gotten a lot better with the rattle can. I had never even bothered with a clearcoat on the original paint refurbish, not even metallic paint.
One day I stumbled across a full decals set, like everything, on eBay even including the Prestige Concept tubing decal. I decided it was time my Kona got a more proper paint job. I was tempted to put on the “Race Light” seat tube decal but noticed this was only on the euro versions, not the north American ones. May still add it later. I think I found a good color match this time after scouring the interweb for old photos trying to match the original color. Decided to remove the rear rack eyelets for the racer/cleaner look.
It was a lot of work to re-do the whole frame and fork but well worth it for this amazing piece of MTB history. I love my Kona
1st Paint Job
New and improved Paint & Decals:
Wow
