This 3Rensho Cyclone is one of the rarest and most valuable bikes I have ever restored over the past sixteen years of collecting vintage bicycles. The story began for me on the docks of Red Hook, Brooklyn, but the story of this bicycle goes back much further in time. After extensive research, I’ve confirmed it was made by Mr. Koichi Yamaguchi in 1978 for the NYC Bike Show. This article relates the story of how it came into my hands, the restoration process, and some 3Rensho history. All images in the article are hi-resolution – click them to view the large version. Read on to learn more and check out the gallery of photos.

A year ago, I saw an eBay listing for an older 3Rensho road frame. The was very little info on it, but it was local to me so I went to go see the seller at his studio in Red Hook. At that point, I assumed it was an older model, but nothing special, and a good candidate for a quick clean-up and rebuild. After I bought the frame, I noted the gold stem and handlebars, and the seller told me that he also had a matching gold wheelset and brakes that came with it. I quickly bought those up, too, and he told me that the bike had been hand made for a New York City bike show in the late 1970s.

I reached out Mr. Yamaguchi via email, and he validated this story, confirming that he personally built the frame and fork, and assembled the component build as well. It’s made of Ishiwata 017 tubing, with Tange lugs and a Tange Champion bottom bracket shell. The shift cables are internally-routed, via tiny holes that are so finely done that they disappear into the frame. The lugs are hand-cut in the “modulo” style, beautifully thinned and filed, with flourishes throughout that are not seen on other 3Rensho frames.

There is no serial number stamped on the bottom bracket or anywhere else I could find. As seen in the photo above, there are no cable guides on the BB shell, but due to where the shift cables exit the internal routing, they’re definitely meant to wrap around the bottom of the BB shell. To preserve the finish, I added some thin rubber tubing around the cables where they touch the shell.

The logos used are uncommon for a 3Rensho bike, and Mr. Yamaguchi explained why:

We started building frames in 1975 [under the] Cyclone brand. Later this changed to 3Rensho around 1978. This pictures decal (3Rensho-Cyclone) was used the brand name transition period (about year) then completely switch to the 3Rensho name. In the early days, we are only 2 builders, Mr. Yoshi Konno and myself. Most Cyclone and early 3Rensho was I build. Mr. Konno was busy working on other projects.

Decals on the chain stays proclaim “Super Record”; the later models were typically marked “Super Record Export” so this bike comes from the time when Konno was transitioning the brand from Cyclone to 3Rensho.

Scans of a contemporary 3Rensho Cyclone catalog confirm this:

Before I heard from Mr. Yamaguchi, I had also reached out to Andrew Muzi of Yellow Jersey, who was the importer for 3Rensho bikes in the 1980s under the Ariel Trading company, and told he me via email:

That’s a bit before I met him, likely 1979, 78 ish. Some details ( gear wires in downtube, end treatment) are of his style then and I assume the full Maeda Suntour motif extends to the Tange BB shell rather than Eisho Ohtsuya.

Eisho is a Japanese company who made lugs for 3Rensho beginning in the early 80s, explaining why these early Cyclone Renshos have different lugs than the standard Super Record Aero and Katana models produced through the 1980s.

The second half of the story pertains to the Suntour Superbe group set fitted to this bike. As I researched the bike online, I turned up an old eBay auction from a year prior. Here was the same bike, but complete! I realized then that the man who’d sold it to me had purchased it via that eBay auction, and then stripped it down, selling the components piece by piece. Generally, that is the most profitable way to sell a vintage bike, but in my opinion, when it has such an incredibly rare group as this, it should be kept together with the bike.

I got in touch with the seller and asked him for the contact info of the people he sold the parts to. Luckily, it was only one person, and luckier still, they responded to my email. Ultimately, I was able to buy back all of the parts of this bicycle, with the exception of the freewheel, chain, and saddle.

The entire bike is built with a Suntour Superbe group set that has been anodized gold. The only parts that are not Superbe are the brakes, which are Dia-Compe Royal Gran Compe 400, and the handlebars which are Kusuki. The handlebar choice makes sense; the Suntour Superbe stem is a re-badged Kusuki Medallion. The fading on the Dia-Compe brakes shows that they indeed are original to the bike.

Initially I believed that this was a one-of-a-kind group set, anodized specifically for this bike. However, later I was able to find and purchase some new-old-stock examples of the same gold Superbe components from Yahoo Japan Auctions, as well as NOS gold versions of Suntour Superbe Pro components. A summary of my research into gold Suntour bits can be found at this Bikeforums thread, and I’ll write a blog post on them soon. Interestingly, I found a pair of Superbe brake levers in gold, which further makes me wonder about the choice to use Dia-Compe brakes. Dia-Compe made the brakes used in Suntour’s Superbe group, so it’s still “all in the family zaibatsu”, so to speak.

The rims are Mavic red label “Record Du Monde De L’Heure” a reference to the Hour Record. The Velobase entry (linked in the previous sentence) shows that these rims came in a gold anodized version. The rims on this bike are not gold, although it’s possible that they once were and have since faded.

I finished the build with a gold Suntour Pro Compe 14-21 freewheel, Regina Oro gold chain, T.A. water bottle cage, and a Selle Royale saddle. I decided to leave the gold handlebars bare, without any tape or wrap. The anodizing is lovely, and also at 59cm this bike is too big for me to ride, anyway. The bike itself has seen some use; the seat post has insertion scratches and the fork shows chrome loss on the crown and a few speckles along the blades.

My approach to restoring it was to be as “hands-off” as possible. Johnny Coast visited my shop around the time I acquired the bike, took one look and said, “Oh no, you can’t repaint this. You gotta leave it original” and I agree. I touched up the black paint in a few areas, put new hoods on the brake levers, polished the rims, repacked the hubs and bottom bracket, and installed all new brake and shift cabling. It sounds simple, but I took a very delicate hand to every part of this restoration, knowing the value and rarity of the bike.

Now that I know the history and provenance of this bike, I’m hoping to find some photos of the 3Rensho Cyclone booth from the 1978 NYC Bicycle Show that might include this bike. As a very cool post script, I found out this bike was featured in a book called “The High Tech Bicycle” by Edward Stevenson, with photos by David Arky. Below is a photo from the book. I’m in the process of buying a copy and will update with a better scan soon.

I’ve had a lot of fun restoring and tracing the history of this unique bicycle, and I owe a big thanks to Mr. Yamaguchi and Mr. Muzi for their help. Also big thanks to Mr. George Evans on Facebook for letting me know about the feature in “High Tech Bicycles”. Check out the gallery below and leave me a comment if you enjoyed the article.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

•