kona bikes is a bicycle company based in the pacific northwest . founded in 1988 and still owned by dan gerhard and jacob heilbron in vancouver bc their world headquarters are located in ferndale washington with canadian distribution offices in vancouver and european distribution offices in geneva switzerland . gerhard and heilbron worked initially with mountain bike hall of fame rider joe murray to create a range of custom steel hardtails . kona was the first brand to produce a complete range of sloping top tube design mountain bike frames . the canadian headquarters are located near the famous north shore mountains of vancouver leading kona to develop a range of freeride mountain bikes in 1998 known for durability as well as for their ability to handle extremely technical downhill terrain . kona has gone on to develop a complete range of road commuter cyclo cross in addition to a complete range of mountain bikes . using a range of materials including carbon fiber titanium aluminum and steel kona s bikes are sold in over 60 countries worldwide . the company s website is located at www.konaworld.com . contents 1 kona factory team 2 advocacy 2.1 kona africabike 3 external links kona factory team edit kona has a long standing tradition in the support of bicycle racing beginning with their first product designer joe murray who was also a two time us national mountain bike champion . many elite riders have been part of the kona team including 2012 giro d italia winner ryder hesjedal can world downhill champions steve peat uk and greg minnaar rsa 2004 2005 world downhill champion fabien barel fr world cup downhill champion tracy moseley uk and us national mountain bike and cyclo cross champions ryan trebon and anne knapp . over 200 national and world champions have been won by kona riders . the current kona factory team completes in national and international events and includes riders from the us canada uk australia and france . information on the current team is located at http www.konaworld.com team.cfm . advocacy edit kona is involved in cycling advocacy . international mountain biking association kona has been an imba corporate supporter since 1994 and has developed fundraising projects including the kona buck a bike program the kona bro deal program the interbike bowling tourney and kona imba freeriding grants . the kona imba bowling party held at interbike from 1998 until 2007 raised money for nemba a new england imba related advocacy group . its purpose was to help purchase a large area for mountain biking by funding the kona imba freeride grants . the kona imba freeride grants helped clubs throughout the us and canada including rapid city south dakota ; grand junction colorado ; hood river oregon ; coquitlam british columbia ; st. charles missouri ; surrey british columbia ; anderson indiana and east burke vermont . the grants helped build freeride features on trails as well as building dirt jump parks in parks . for 2008 kona sponsored the imba epic rides program helping fund four new rides throughout the united states and canada . the trails set aside as epic rides for 2008 were the mid mountain epic in park city utah ; comfortably numb in whistler british columbia ; the trails sponsored by pamba outside of peoria illinois and the loon lake epic in tamarack idaho . kona africabike edit in 2006 kona began its largest advocacy effort to date biketown africa . the kona africabike was a bike built in partnership with bristol myers squibb and bicycling magazine . the kona africabike was designed specifically to assist health care workers treating hiv and aids patients with the delivery of home health aids and other services in african cities starting with bobonong botswana and gaborone botswana . more recent projects have included delft and stellenbosch . for 2008 kona pledged to donate 1 000 africabikes for the project and due to the overwhelming customer support of this project kona set up a non profit humanitarian organization from their european hq in geneva switzerland called kona basic needs http www.konabasicneeds.org . this organisations aim is to continue to raise more funds and awareness of the kona africabike program and to continue the donation of these bikes . citation needed . external links edit konaworld official website kona s vimeo page about jacob heilbron founder klassic kona a collection of past kona bikes online retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title kona bicycle company & oldid 730737516 categories cycle manufacturers of canadamountain bike manufacturersmanufacturing companies established in 1988hidden categories all articles with unsourced statementsarticles with unsourced statements from september 2009 navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages deutschfran aispolski suomisvenska edit links this page was last modified on 20 july 2016 at 21 46 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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