My Retro ride - 95 Kona Explosif

[messiah]

My Retro ride – no garage queen round here

95 Model Kona Explosif with 96 Paint, 18", Columbus max tubing.
Bought at the end of the 1995 when I needed a frame quickly as I’d just broken my second Trek OCLV that year. :shock: I put a thumb sized dent in the top tube three weeks after getting it . I only planned to keep this frame for a few months but ended up travelling to the USA and New Zealand with it. Instead of racing in the UK the following summer I spent two weeks in Nevada City and Downieville before skiing and cycling round the South Island.
I did race this bike a few years later in the SCU series – 98. By then the bike was looking very tatty and I have a habit of looking as scruffy as my bikes. :roll: At the second race they called the top ten from the previous race to the front. As I lined up next to Mr Pristine racer guy he looked across and spoke down to me, “They said the top ten didn’t they?â€

 

[jez-4-bikes-max]

Crikey - I must admit you definitely get your moneys worth out of your bikes mate


Awesome stories.

 

[Tranquility Base]

I guess that puts to bed all the concerns about radial lacing :shock: .

 

[gump]

fair bit of bike mashing going on there messiah!!

Would have liked to have kept one of my old bikes, but at the time I changed so often and got given them so never really had chance to get attached to any

Was thinking the same about radial wheel!
6 frames, 3 stems, 12 chainrings, 4 cranks.

...but carbon bars/pin and radial lacing is fine!!

 

[Yetiman]

Nice to see the old Kona again Messiah. Scruffy but very very cool in my opinion. Knowing how you ride I'm very surprised that it's only needed the drop out repaired

 

[orange71]

that's the sort of Explosif I'm after...'95 red... hardly see them :roll:

 

[messiah]

Cheers for the comments - I thought it would be fun to post this

Hi Paul

I'm pretty sure I would have sold it if I hadn't put that dent in the top tube three weeks after I bought it. Nobody is going to buy a frame with a dent like that in it.

I bought it with the rigid forks but put Manitou Mach 5's on it, which seemed okay at the time. I bought a new frame in 1999 and retired this one bacause the handling had gone all wrong - I though the frame had lost it's spring after it's hard life In 2001 I decided to singlespeed it and put the rigids back on - this made the frame came alive and it's such an amazingly springy ride - weighing almost 22lbs helps - I completely love it again. When I took the Mach 5's apart they were fit only for the bin - no wonder it felt rubbish.

I built the radial laced wheel for a laugh in 2002 never expecting it to last, and yet it's only been trued once.

I bought my first Carbon seatpost in 93 or 94 having bent two control tech's and snapped the clamp on a Syncros. It's a lovely Bontrager Titec which is still in use on another bike... although I have had to araldite the clamp a couple of times when it began to turn. It used to be on this bike but it's a 27.2 and this frame is a 27mm.

The Cats Wiskas is 27.2 so the Bonty post will be on the move again soon

 

[Rich]

Great bike there...that's the beauty of steel eh...so repairable..good to see it's being put to good use!

 

[Stick Legs]

Really jealous actually, I'd love to have my old bike!

My old Dyna Tech Quantum was pinched in 1995 and I would never have sold it. Still looking for one now to replace it!

 

[ridevintagemtb]

Nice Kona, but of course I'm biased.

Now... I'm interested in the track dropout welding job. Many years go, when singlespeeding was still mountain bike counterculture, we visited our local framebuilder and posed the question: We wanted to cut the existing dropouts off our haggard old frames and weld on track dropouts. This was before enocentric hubs and BBs, so there was no real 'clean' setup other than buying the Bianchi complete bike. Our framebuilding friend said he'd have no part of it, no frame material would ever retain the strength after the weld. We verified this with another frame guru in the area.

Now you sound like you give you frames a rather large thrashing.. I'm wondering whether my friend was full of shite, and we missed out all those years ago?