At the York Cycle Rally I spotted this collection of bikes, which were perhaps curated around a theme. I asked their owner, Ted, to tell us a bit more about it.
Is it a Kona collection? Is it a Joe Murray collection? What inspires it?
It started off as Konas and then I had my garage broken into and lots of bikes stolen and I was doing retail therapy and the Bizango appeared and ‘I thought I’m having that’. And so it’s one of my ‘not quite a Kona’, but it’s very much in the spirit of it, and design.
And the blue Fire Mountain is essentially my very first mountain bike. It’s a replacement. I gave mine away, stupidly. So that’s basically a replica of my first mountain bike.
The Kilauea, which is the orangey yellow one is my second mountain bike. Again, the original got stolen, but that’s a facsimile of it.
And then there’s the bright yellow one, which is a Ku, which is very rare. Hand built but aluminium, not steel, so equivalent to a Kona Hot as the steel version. That was owned by a gentleman called Pip who was obsessed with Konas in a really positive way. Unfortunately he passed away a few years ago and and now I’m the custodian of it, so I get to look after it.
Now it looks absolutely pristine. Has it been restored or just not ridden?
The frame has not been restored it’s just been looked after really, really well. It does get ridden, it does get muddy, and then it gets loved with the sponges and everything to keep it as as lovely as it is.
And some fairly unusual brakes on there. Tell us about those.
Yeah, they I got those for a different bike. Yes, six years ago. Technically they’re V-brakes, but you don’t have the funny noodle. Some Cane Creek nicely machined aluminium. Yeah, the Cane Creek curve brakes and they’re just a different way of doing a V-brake without the noodle and things.
And is there anything else on that bike that you think is worth drawing our attention to?
Actually, I think it’s unusual in that it’s most of the transmission is all modern. So it’s modern 2 by 10. So that’s not original. But that actually means it’s actually really good as a fast modern bike, providing it’s not getting too rocky. It’s it’s been built up by me. It’s all the bits I’ve chosen and things.
Everything’s chosen and put together to be ridden rather than looked at. That’s good. I like it. OK. And then Kilauea behind. Anything on there that we should note in particular?
Parts… it’s still on its original tyres, so the original Kona Break and Enter tyres, as is the Fire Mountain behind on its Maximum Reaction.
Such good tyre names!
Yes.
And tyre logos as well!
Yes, from when bike companies did their own tyres.
Anything else exciting on the Fire Mountain?
It’s not the original saddle, but it is a proper Kona number plate saddle. So if you go and look at the back.
Look at the back… Oh yeah, I see. Yes, it says Kona on the back.
Yes, Kona had Acovet make the saddles and had them put their own little number plate on the back.
And then to complete the circle, the Voodoo Bizango. Pre Halfords Voodoo Bizango! What else can you tell us about that?
After Joe Murray separated from Kona, he went off to do his own thing and formed Voodoo Cycles. And this is one of his high end steel frames from when he started doing that.
This is a ’97. So just before Halfords came in. But you could buy one of these at Halfords if you were quick. So they were the first ones there. But again, partially built up, it’s running Kona Project 2 forks and nice Hope chunky machined stem.
And is there anything that you’re on the lookout for, or is this your collection and your garage is replenished?
I have a ’94 Explosive in progress. And should the right titanium Hei Hei come up, I think that would make me kind of complete-ish, subject to financial approval from the purse strings as it were. But yeah, the number of acquisitions has definitely slowed in recent years.
Well, thank you very much for sharing those with us!
