THE KONA TIMELINE 1988
1992
• Kona is founded by Dan Gerhard and Jacob Heilbron, with offices opening in Blaine, Washington and Vancouver, BC. First bicycles are introduced as Cascade, but changed later in the year to Kona. Joe Murray is the first bike designer/product manager. .
• The Future Shock fork is introduced, a leading-link design by Joe Murray. In a very amicable agreement with Specialized, the name is changed to Z-Link. The fork is a total flop, is never safe to ride, and all stock is dumped into the Straight of San Juan de Fuca.
• First race team consists of Joe Murray and Dave Turner. Joe is inducted into the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame.
• Kona presents Max Jones race clinics at NORBA and World Cup events. More than 200 dealer and 2-day mini-clinics are held, with over 5,000 riders learning from Max’s expertise as a racer and from his “Tricks of the Trade” booklet.
• Distributors in England, France & Sweden bring Kona to Europe. • Kona introduces the first set of front/rear MTB tires: Maximum/Reaction designed by Joe Murray. Other MTB tire sets introduced include Break/Enter, Equilibrium/Propulsion and Lumpy/Gravy. • Grassroots racing program introduced in October. More than 3,000 riders have raced for Kona since the inception of the program.
1989 • Project Two, the first straight leg MTB production fork is introduced. Throughout the Kona range today, there are more than 10 versions of this fork produced for 26”, 29” and 700c wheel mountain and asphalt bikes. • Ex-roadie Bruce Spicer (now Brodie) races on the Kona Factory MTB team.
1990 • Doug Lafavor, “Dr. Dew” joins Kona in July 1990. • Kona line is expanded to 8 models at Interbike Anaheim 1990, first Hawaiian names are introduced. • Sandvik Special Metals begins production of the Kona Hei Hei in July. 4,000 Kona titanium frames are produced during the next 10 years. • Kona Hot, the 2nd US-made XC hardtail begins production in August 1990. • Max Jones of Carson City, Nevada joins the Kona Factory Team in March 1990. He is inducted into the MTB Hall of Fame in 1995.
1991 • World Champion DH rider Cindy Devine joins the Kona Factory Team. She takes the Bronze medal at the World Championships in September 1991 and a World Cup DH victory at Mount Snow, VT in June 1992. She is inducted into the MTB Hall of Fame in 2003.
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• Haole, the first Kona road bike, features a titanium frame made by Sandvik.
1993 • Kona Hahanna and Fire Mountain are the first Kona Asphalt models, designated as, “Mountain Cross” hybrid bicycles with 26 x 1.50 slick tires. • Kona Kilauea wins 1993 “Bike of the Year” from Mountain Biking magazine. • AA and Kula are introduced in September, the first aluminum (Easton tubing) bicycles produced by Kona. A total of 20 models are presented at Interbike Anaheim.
1994 • Sex One and Sex Too are introduced in September, the first Kona dual-suspension bicycles. • Humuhumu-Nukunuku-Apu’A wins out as the name for the Kona singlespeed cruiser over Unit. It’s the longest name used for a bicycle model and the first named after a state fish. • The great Steve Peat races DH in the UK on a Kona Hei Hei Ti frame. Future NORBA champion Kirk Molday races XC in Canada on the same bike.
1995 • Kona introduces the Buck-A-Bike program on February 14. A total of $80,000 is raised between 1995–1998 by the program which supported cycling advocacy organizations like IMBA, Rails to Trails and NORBA. • Made by Altitude Cycles, Ku is the first aluminum mountain bike frame produced by Kona in the USA. Altitude produced over 3,000 high-end steel and aluminum bicycle frames for Kona, their first US customer. • Kona Design Group creates first original dual suspension design—a unified, linear-rate design named Sex (for suspension experience) One, Too and Three.