Kona Ku
- Thread starter theboy
- Start date
Early Summer 2000 I broke the frame on my 1998 King Kikapu:
Kona didn't have a replacement frame that fit me but were willing to work out a deal that left me with a very reasonably priced 2001 Stinky Primo.
I was all for this, the only problem was, that still being summer, I needed a bike to ride until the new 01 Stinky Primo was available that fall. Kona's solution was to send me an old 97 Custom Ku frame they had sitting in their warehouse (I did pay a token amount of cash to Kona for this frame).
Got the frame and sorted all the King Kikapu components onto it that fit. I had been about a long week without a bike and I really wanted to ride that day. Thus, did not take the time to even clean up the frame first. When I got the frame, packing tape was stuck to it in various places. I assume someone had sent it to Kona with a funky wrap job and no box, To this day, the bike is still one of my workhorses. I have never taken the time to properly clean off the sticky residue which was a magnet to the dirt. You can see this as dark spots in the pictures above.
The Stinky Primo showed up a few months later as an awesome supplement to the Custom Ku. For the most part, rides under two hours are done on the Stinky, while the longer all day rides are saved for the Custom Ku.
Kona didn't have a replacement frame that fit me but were willing to work out a deal that left me with a very reasonably priced 2001 Stinky Primo.
I was all for this, the only problem was, that still being summer, I needed a bike to ride until the new 01 Stinky Primo was available that fall. Kona's solution was to send me an old 97 Custom Ku frame they had sitting in their warehouse (I did pay a token amount of cash to Kona for this frame).
Got the frame and sorted all the King Kikapu components onto it that fit. I had been about a long week without a bike and I really wanted to ride that day. Thus, did not take the time to even clean up the frame first. When I got the frame, packing tape was stuck to it in various places. I assume someone had sent it to Kona with a funky wrap job and no box, To this day, the bike is still one of my workhorses. I have never taken the time to properly clean off the sticky residue which was a magnet to the dirt. You can see this as dark spots in the pictures above.
The Stinky Primo showed up a few months later as an awesome supplement to the Custom Ku. For the most part, rides under two hours are done on the Stinky, while the longer all day rides are saved for the Custom Ku.
At that point, I was just happy to have a bike to ride again. I have no idea why they had the at that time a used three year old bike hanging around. I do believe Kona was shooting from the hip, going above and beyond to appease a customer who had had a problem with their product.
This 1995 example is the earliest I've seen. It was spotted on craigslist by gearlessinseattle http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=72745 The kit on it corresponds quite closely to the bikepedia listing.
I don't know who built it. Correspondence with the seller suggests that he thought it was made by Altitude but he doesn't know. The information I saw said that Altitude was established in 1996, so it would be too early for them to have built it. My guess it was made by Tom Teesdale. The seller may ask him. It could have been somebody else altogether - Kona just said made in USA.
I don't know who built it. Correspondence with the seller suggests that he thought it was made by Altitude but he doesn't know. The information I saw said that Altitude was established in 1996, so it would be too early for them to have built it. My guess it was made by Tom Teesdale. The seller may ask him. It could have been somebody else altogether - Kona just said made in USA.
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Opening up a can of worms here but...........
That Ku (on the worlds stage) is essentially in my back yard. If the seller won't ship and you absolutely positively need it. Let me know how I can help (sorry, with shipping not financing)....
I saw it on my local CL and emailed the seller simply stating it was a sweet bike. He responded with a nice thank you. It is about a 45 minute drive from my home depending on traffic.
Cheers,
T
That Ku (on the worlds stage) is essentially in my back yard. If the seller won't ship and you absolutely positively need it. Let me know how I can help (sorry, with shipping not financing)....
I saw it on my local CL and emailed the seller simply stating it was a sweet bike. He responded with a nice thank you. It is about a 45 minute drive from my home depending on traffic.
Cheers,
T
Hi there,
Confirmation of 1995 Ku is in the catalog that I'm in the process of preparing for upload. Here is the Ku.
I've only just returned to the world of MTB and been riding Kona's since 1995. Anyhow, reading about the Ku and seeing some of the custom paint jobs is very interesting.
I visited Vancouver and travelled down the coast to Seattle and Portland in the summer of 1998. En route we stopped for a night in Bellingham, which is very close to Ferndale. Anyhow, in one of the local bike shops I was enthralled to see a Kona Ku frame, brand new. Now it is a long time since 1998 but the overiding memory I had of this frame was the size of the tubes and the colour scheme.
Is it possible that some Ku's had more oversized tubes compared to the Kula, because I'm sure the top and down tube were considerably bigger than the Kula available at the time, which was also in the shop.
The second striking thing about this particular frame was the paint job. I recall it being several colours, but most impressive was an a glitter effect around the head tube working down and across the down tube and head tube respectively.
That day, I very nearly bought that frame, which from what I remember was approximately £400 - a bargain then and today, but I was not sure how I was going to get it home, and also I was a post graduate student and therefore, couldn't quite justify the cost - oh well, and how was I to know Kona would make no moe Ku's!
Confirmation of 1995 Ku is in the catalog that I'm in the process of preparing for upload. Here is the Ku.
I've only just returned to the world of MTB and been riding Kona's since 1995. Anyhow, reading about the Ku and seeing some of the custom paint jobs is very interesting.
I visited Vancouver and travelled down the coast to Seattle and Portland in the summer of 1998. En route we stopped for a night in Bellingham, which is very close to Ferndale. Anyhow, in one of the local bike shops I was enthralled to see a Kona Ku frame, brand new. Now it is a long time since 1998 but the overiding memory I had of this frame was the size of the tubes and the colour scheme.
Is it possible that some Ku's had more oversized tubes compared to the Kula, because I'm sure the top and down tube were considerably bigger than the Kula available at the time, which was also in the shop.
The second striking thing about this particular frame was the paint job. I recall it being several colours, but most impressive was an a glitter effect around the head tube working down and across the down tube and head tube respectively.
That day, I very nearly bought that frame, which from what I remember was approximately £400 - a bargain then and today, but I was not sure how I was going to get it home, and also I was a post graduate student and therefore, couldn't quite justify the cost - oh well, and how was I to know Kona would make no moe Ku's!
Attachments
Yes, we had already worked out that Aaron's 95 Ku probably wasn't made by Teesdale because it has no TET stamp on the bb shell, but this seems to confirm it. I wonder whether it might have been made by Mountain Goat before they went out of business/changed their name to Altitude Cycles. And maybe one or other party was coy about saying so.
It says on the Kona site that the 98 Ku was made of Columbus Altec 7005 Megatube, the only year when the Ku was made of a different tube from the Kula. So that would explain the more mega tube profile you recall. It would have been painted by VeloGraphics in Bellingham, so maybe the one you saw there was a cancelled order that had found its way into that shop. It says that the price was $900 (£800 in the UK), but that was for a single colour, I don't know how much more a fancier colour scheme would have cost.
http://www.klassickona.com/oldgold/98bi ... einfo.html
It says on the Kona site that the 98 Ku was made of Columbus Altec 7005 Megatube, the only year when the Ku was made of a different tube from the Kula. So that would explain the more mega tube profile you recall. It would have been painted by VeloGraphics in Bellingham, so maybe the one you saw there was a cancelled order that had found its way into that shop. It says that the price was $900 (£800 in the UK), but that was for a single colour, I don't know how much more a fancier colour scheme would have cost.
http://www.klassickona.com/oldgold/98bi ... einfo.html
