Kona Hei Hei frame

Steve Niece said:

I'm looking at picking up a used Kona Hei Hei frame for a
(rarely ridden) mountain bike. It's a fairly old frame,
but seems to be in good shape. My question is, I think the
bike is from the pre V-brake days, and doesn't appear to
have a cable guide for the rear brake at the top tube/seat
tube junction. Is this right, or should I be looking for a
spot where the guide was potentially broken off?

Pre-V-brake Konas used a clamp-on cable guide that fitted
around the seat tube just above the top tube.

konaretro.com8.jpgOpen ↗

Nothing's broken off your frame, but you'll need to either
find the necessary guide (called a "dog collar" by Kona,
IIRC) - or if you intend to use V-brakes, provide a stop of
some kind at the rear of the top tube, or run a full length
of housing to the rear brake.

James Thomson

Steve Niece <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

I'm looking at picking up a used Kona Hei Hei frame for a
(rarely ridden) mountain bike. It's a fairly old frame,
but seems to be in good shape. My question is, I think the
bike is from the pre V-brake days, and doesn't appear to
have a cable guide for the rear brake at the top tube/seat
tube junction. Is this right, or should I be looking for a
spot where the guide was potentially broken off?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks, Stephen

I have an 12 year old Hei Hei that I put V-brakes on a
number of years ago. The bike is currently in a storage
locker so I can't easily go look at to see of there is a
cable guide but I suspect something is missing on the bike
you're looking at because I had no problem putting V-
brakes on mine.

Thanks for the inputs guys. A couple of friends of mine who
are previous Kona owners confirmed that the rear guide isn't
a part of the frame. Like you say, it looks like for V-
brakes I'll need to anchor some kind of cable stop to the
top tube which shouldn't be too much of a problem. The whole
bike (cheap components and a rigid fork) cost me $160
Canadian, so I think I can make some concessions!

Steve

Eagle Jackson said:

Steve Niece <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

I'm looking at picking up a used Kona Hei Hei frame for a
(rarely ridden) mountain bike. It's a fairly old frame,
but seems to be in good shape. My question is, I think the
bike is from the pre V-brake days, and doesn't appear to
have a cable guide for the rear brake at the top tube/seat
tube junction. Is this right, or should I be looking for a
spot where the guide was potentially broken off?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks, Stephen

I have an 12 year old Hei Hei that I put V-brakes on a
number of years ago. The bike is currently in a storage
locker so I can't easily go look at to see of there is a
cable guide but I suspect something is missing on the bike
you're looking at because I had no problem putting V-
brakes on mine.

Steve Niece <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

The whole bike (cheap components and a rigid fork) cost me
$160 Canadian, so I think I can make some concessions!

Awesome deal you got! Until I finally got a FS mtn bike last
summer, I used my Hei Hei for over 10 years of heavy use. It
is a great bike. It's light but still almost indestructible.
I crashed it many times with no ill effects to the bike.
Every part except the cranks has been replaced multiple
times, but the frame is still in great shape and never had
any problems. The dropouts are 6-4 Ti and withstood crashes
that would have bent or broken any other dropout (and did
with my previous mtn bike, a Bontrager Race, which is a
legendary bike but I prefer the Hei Hei).

Slap some slicks on it and it's a great city bike too.