What frame have I bought?

danwithaplan

Devout Dirtbag
I bought this stunner as a whole bike from a friend and wondered whether anyone could identify the frame. It's badged as a Voodoo using individual letter stickers over a terrible paint-job. It has Ritchey drop-outs,a 27.2 seat-post, 28.6 Front mech, all 3 cables run along the top tube using the same guides and the serial no. is S9LM00497.

Any help/ideas would be great.





Cheers.
 
It does look rather Kona/Voodoo like from the angles but from a cursory look, the rear stays look wrong. Perhaps something generic but still looks like a quality frame.
There are others more knowledgeable who may disagree.....
 
I shall not argue with a Voodoo owner ;) Did the earlier Voodoo's have straight stays?
 
Hmm, I don't know were any voodoos ever made with rack mounts, mine is a bottom routed front mech cable.
 

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My 97 erzulie, my 99 hoodoo and my 2010 djab all have them beautiful curved stays. I think mr Murray likes them.
 
Again all my 3 have top tube routed front mechs , I thought this was usual for joes bikes regardless of year and model, but seems not to be
 
And I'd never seen one with rack mounts.. that said the two people I know who bought one both got Bizango's. Mine is a '97, which I'm guessing must be pretty early, when did Voodoo start production?
 
VooDoo started out in 1995, and initially all the frames were built in the USA by Altitude Cycles, which was Mountain Goat building frames for other brands in their factory in Chico, California. The Bizango was made from Tange Prestige Ultimate Superlight, the Wanga from Tange Prestige and the HooDoo from Tange MTB (i.e., a good double-butted 4130 cromoly, but not heat-treated like Prestige).

From 1997, the Erzulie was added to the range, double-butted cromoly built in Taiwan, and I believe (but haven't found confirmation yet) that from 1998 onwards all the frames were built in Taiwan, but still assembled into bikes in Chico until maybe 2000, using VooDoo's (expensive) custom options system. I labelled this a 97 or 98, but on further thought I'm not sure they made them in yellow until 99. Anyway, I think it's highly probable that it was made in Taiwan from generic double-butted 4130 of the same quality as used on a Cinder Cone or Lava Dome.

The geometry is similar to a Kona, but not identical. Some sizes had longer head tubes than same size Konas, and they had fractionally shorter top tubes, snaked seatstays and the cable routing works better. All of these factors make them slightly more like the way that design was going, with the slightly steeper top tube etc. Kona themselves froze their design as it was left to them by Joe Murray for 1994, and didn't make any significant change for many years. Whereas at VooDoo JM kept developing the design, so I would say at that time a VooDoo was Joe's more developed variation on his 1994 Kona design which Kona was still using.


Non of the above is my own work I stole it from Anthony so shhh
 
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