Kinki Cycle: April 2017

Friday, 28 April 2017

National Tam Tam Road

Rather classy vintage National "Tam Tam Road" touring bike shot out in Osaka a couple of weeks ago...

Fairly standard mid range parts throughout but all in surprisingly good condition...

Suntour downtube shifters...

Pulling a Suntour Seven Mech...

National cranks...

Dia-Compe U-brakes...

And National bars bearing the motto "Just Slightly Ahead Of Our Time"...

A little message to any local bike owners, please park them drive side out, it makes our job so much easier, thanks!

Wednesday, 26 April 2017

Custom Salsa El Mariachi @ Bicycle Maru

A little backstory to this one. Early last year Kentaro-san, owner of Bicycle Maru, had a used and slightly battered Salsa El Mariachi frame kicking around. In a moment of inspiration he decided to send it off to Kyutai Paint in Nagoya for a complete custom paint job. After that Kentaro-san patiently waited for suppliers here to complete his list of dream parts and he slowly built up one of the most stunning single speeds we've ever seen...

Ok, so the parts list is jaw dropping. Naturally a Chris King headset twin that with a beautiful Paul polished Boxcar stem and some polished Sim Works "with-me" spacers...

That stem is holding a pair of titanium Salsa "Salt Flat" bars...

Which is a perfect match for the Salsa Regulator seat post (note the Phil Wood seat post clamp, bling at every detail)...

Down at the drive there's a set of lovely Paul cranks...

With a set of the new MKS "Allways" pedals...

Pulling a Profile Racing Elite freewheel...

Which is mounted on Phil Wood polished single speed hubs which are laced to Velocity polished rims...

Stopping power provided by a pair of (polished of course) Magura hydraulic disc brakes...

All finished with Fairweather CG XC tyres, ESI grips and the increasingly popular Bike Togs...

This bike basically blew up our Instagram when we posted some shots of it (here, here and here) and with good reason, it's f*cking stunning. We're lucky to have a shop like Bicycle Maru in Nara, Kentaro-san is one of the nicest guys around and knows how to put together a killer bike! Follow Bicycle Maru on Instagram and Facebook to see what he comes up with next.