Tag Archives: Nitto

Zunow KYGM Randonneur Restored

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I’ve been long overdue in sharing this restoration of my wife’s Zunow KYGM randonneur bike.  Originally acquired via Yahoo Japan auctions in 2020, it is a sibling of my own Zunow randonneur bike and an example of Kageyama-san’s early full-custom work.  Dating from the early 1970s, it is in the style of classic French randonneur bicycles, complete with Nervex lugs, 650B wheels, and Gilles Berthoud handlebar bag.  I wrote about the bike and its history in detail in this article from 2022.

After the initial build was complete, the plan was to put a few hundred miles on it to confirm it fit before kicking off a restoration.  She loved riding it so much that two years passed by quickly.

As 2024 rolled around, I promised myself that I would have it ready for her birthday in February.  That winter, I had it professionally repainted in a beautiful dark blue sparkle with yellow accents.  After the new paint, I began the rebuild, with help from Dave Perry at BikeCult.  Dave did a great job building the wheels and installing the fenders. Read on for all the details and a gallery of photos!

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State Titanium All-Road Build & First Impressions

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My love affair with State Bicycle’s “All-Road” series of gravel bikes was sparked by their 4130 model, which I reviewed in this post.  After riding that bike for two years, I only had one complaint: the weight.  Twenty-seven pounds in its stock configuration (spec sheet here), and closer to forty when outfitted with racks and bags.  The chromoly steel tubing yields a smooth ride over rough terrain, but that’s a lot of bike to get moving!  As I huffed & puffed my way up yet another bridge, I considered the eternal question of cycling.  An age-old conundrum that every cyclist eventually finds themselves pondering: what if I could have the same bike, but lighter and better?  Enter State’s Titanium All-Road gravel frame.  After saving up and waiting a year for State to build a new run of these frames, I finally got my hands on one.  Read on for the build, first riding impressions, and a little titanium bike history.

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State 4130 All-Road Gravel Bike – Custom Build

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Last year, I decided that I wanted to buy a modern gravel bike to see what all the hype was about: one-by drivetrains, tubeless tires, carbon wheels, disc brakes.   After extensive research, the State Bicycle Co.’s 4130 All-Road caught my eye.  I was attracted to the cool semi-raw phosphate finish, having experimented with different unpainted metal finishes in the past.  I was also impressed with the clearance it has for super-wide tires, bigger than any other stock gravel bike at the time.  That’s a feature that’s increasingly come into style over the past twelve months, and which proves that the folks at State know what they’re doing.  Originally, my plan was to buy just a frameset and build it entirely custom.  The price for a complete 4130 All-Road was so low, I decided to get one stock and customize it by replacing parts over time.  Read on for details on my custom build and more photos!

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3Rensho XR-7000 Lo-Pro Pursuit Funny Bike

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3Rensho XR-7000

After three years, I finally finished my restoration and build of this 53cm 3Rensho XR-7000 bike.  I acquired it from Japan as a frameset, and discovered it was made under license  by Yamakuni.  Check out this prior article for the history and background.  I had the fork re-chromed, but left the main triangle as-is.  I bought a barely-used Georgina Terry Despatch from 1988, and stripped it for the 6-speed Suntour Cyclone 7000 groupset and the 24″ front / 700c rear wheelset.  I’m aware the 3Rensho catalog showed it built with a Shimano 600 group, but they also sold it as a frameset.  Cyclone was Suntour’s second-best group in the same way that 600 was a notch below Dura Ace.

The rear Araya rim had a crack in it, so I re-laced the hub to a brand new Araya RC-540 rim.  The stem is a NITTO S65 Crystal Fellow with NITTO RB-021 bullhorn handlebars, matched to the NITTO S66 seat post.  The 3Rensho saddle finishes off the build in style.  Read on for more photos and ride report! 

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Nagasawa Special NJS Track with Dura Ace 7500

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The Nagasawa marque sits at the apex of Japanese Kierin bicycles, recognized worldwide for impeccably designed and executed frames, each hand made by master builder Yoshiaki Nagasawa. This particular Nagasawa, built in May of 1985, came to me as a frameset by way of Yahoo JP auctions. It has a 53cm seat tube (center-to-top) and a 54cm top tube (center-to-center). It has a beautiful, but hard to photograph deep green / blue paint scheme with rainbow sparkles and yellow highlights. I built it up with a period-appropriate Shimano Dura Ace track group set. Read on to learn more about this bike and the back-story of Nagasawa bicycles.

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Maruishi Emperor RE-C-A Touring Bike

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The Maruishi Emperor has been a popular line of touring bicycles in Japan since at least the 1970s. The Emperor line covers a number of different models, but like the Maruishi brand itself, there is little information on them available in English. After much research, I have identified it as an RE-C-A “Camper” model, released in 1976. It caught my eye as a frame set on Yahoo Japan auctions, as the triple-triangle style of frame design is uncommon, even in Japan. After it arrived in my shop and sat for a few months, I built it up using period-correct parts that came from a Zunow KYGM I am restoring. Read on to learn more about this bike, along with some history of Maruishi.

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Soma Rush 57cm fixed gear

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Along with the Volume Cutter, I built up this Soma Rush over the weekend.  The frame, while used, had only a few paint chips under all the stickers I had to remove from it.  The Soma Rush is an excellent fixed-gear / track frameset made from top quality Tange chro-mo steel, with a few concessions to street riding, like a rear brake bridge and water bottle mounts.  Soma is a well-known and respected manufacturer, and the Rush is a cut above typical “entry-level” fixed frames from IRO, Origin8, Mercier, and Bianchi.  It is a size 57cm, check out the frame geometry and dimensions here.

I paired it with a lovely Soma Hellyer track crankset and chainring, and it’s rolling on hand-laced Miche Pr1mato wheelset.   It’s sporting a brand new saddle, seatpost, chain, pedals, and tires.  The red anodized Nitto track bars look great against the brand new bar tape as well.  This is one classy ride!  More pictures after the jump…

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