Kuwahara Olympia info?

[adlu]

Dear 80's Japanese road bike experts,
I bought this Kuwahara Olympia about a year ago as a campus commuter. It's served me well and I'm ready to sell it before I move away from campus, but I just wanted to make sure I don't have some sort of hidden gem. I bought it for about 100CAD and intend to sell it for about the same. The only repair I did was to replace the front tire and tube.

It's a Taiwan-made lugged steel frame, with a Sakae stem, Hsin Lung handlebars, Suzue hubs, Dia compe brakes and Suntour Accushift 3040 derailleur/shifters. Serial number on the downtube: S8100421.

I searched on this site and others for the make/model and similar serial numbers, but didn't find anything. I'm always generally curious about the history of my bikes, so if you have any information about this frame I'd be happy to know!!

 

[juvela]

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there is a helpful guide here to the serials of Asian produced cycles -

it contains a specific listing for Kuwahara:

https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-vintage/1042901-asian-serial-number-guide.html


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[adlu]

Thanks! I saw that one and the pattern doesn't exactly match mine. I reckon the frame might have been built in 1981, but I'm curious what the "S" in front means.

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there is a helpful guide here to the serials of Asian produced cycles -

it contains a specific listing for Kuwahara:

https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-vintage/1042901-asian-serial-number-guide.html


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[otherself]

This one has the same serial beginning S8100, but it screams later half of the 80's/early 90's to me with that toptube font, colourway and graphics.

https://bikeindex.org/bikes/750905

The Suntour Blaze components on yours are late 80's.

 

[SteelNipple]

Thanks! I saw that one and the pattern doesn't exactly match mine. I reckon the frame might have been built in 1981, but I'm curious what the "S" in front means.

Made in 1988 in Taiwan by Anlun.

Suntour Blaze first appears in catalogues in 1989.

Usually with Asian bikes the first letter in the serial number denotes the manufacturer of the frame. With Kuwahara (at least with Kuwahara BMX's) the "S" is found on frames made by Anlun for Kuwahara.

The 2nd digit is the year and 3rd and 4th are the month of manufacture. So yours is made in October 1988, and probably sold as '89 model.