Suntour Team Bike

[Uncle Monty]

Have trawled the net a little for photos with no luck. Has anybody seen this bike or one in the same livery before? Probably mid to late eighties. Sponsor decals are Suntour and Diacompe.




Built for the Suntour professional cycling team by Shigeru Nakagawa in Osaka. I am curious as to where it was raced and how it ended up over here. Brakes are left hand front. The equipment is mostly Suntour Sprint and Diacompe, Sakae chainset, Strong post, Nisi rims. Fork is Aluminium, frame tubes are Ishiwata 017 and it is pretty small. Bars are RonKit, stem is 3TTT. Quality of the frame itself is outstanding. Colour does not do it justice.

Cheers - Chris.

 

[glpinxit]

If you are on Facebook you could ask your question on the group '80's cycling remembered' - it is quite active and includes numerous riders from the time.

 

[Uncle Monty]

Re:

Not on FB. Only reference I have found of anyone racing for Suntour is a guy called Derek Hunt, but I think that was a bit earlier. I can't seem to find out to what extent Suntour got involved with sponsorship. You would think with the competition for the market it would have been a big part of their advertising campaign.

 

[Midlife]

Suntour and marketing are not two words you will find in the same sentence...........they were pretty hopeless in that department for a number of reasons.

Shaun

 

[Old Ned]

My guess is that it could have been a bike fitted out with Suntour etc. components and used by Ron Kitching for marketing purposes such as the Harrogate Show etc. Whatever, it's a nice looking machine.

 

[Midlife]

I guess Ron Kit would have had his name on it somewhere.........he was never shy And it's not green LOL

Shaun

 

[Uncle Monty]

Re:

Interesting, so Suntour really dropped the ball with marketing? I read a bit about their latter years and collapse online. I thought about a promotional bike, the equipment is good but not top of the line, Nisi mixer rims are clinchers not tubs. The RonKit bars and possibly the 3ttt stem stand out as a bit out of place but maybe they are later additions. The frame however is a bit special. Ishiwata 017 has a 150 lb recommended rider weight limit. The lugwork, dropouts and manipulation of the tubes is very skilled. The top tube is trenched for the cable and the chain and seatstays are ovalised or D shaped. Brake bridge is very sylish. A lot of time and effort went into this frame.




Paint is a bit scratched but perfectly passable if a bit dull. Decals are lifting. Aluminium bonded fork is 20 years old. If it turned out to have some interesting race history I would preserve it as is. Somehow I doubt it. I have been in touch with Shigeru Nakagawa and he is still building frames in Osaka Japan. He confirmed he built this frame for the Suntour professional team but I don't have a year or a name. It would most probably have been built for a specific rider. It is pretty small - I would say 5'4" to 5'8" at the extremes. A new steel fork and Nakagawa team paint job by the man himself might be the way forward....

 

[PANZR]

Wow. I love it

All that detail is sublime

 

[Jamiedyer]

Wow!
Beautiful machine and an intrigueing back story.
Surely there must be a way of finding where this frame went at least a few details on its journey to yourself. How did you come across it yourself?
I really like these 70's/80's Japanese handbuilt machines.
I may be almost big enough to fit this if it ever needs a home
Please keep this updated as you find out more.

Jamie

 

[Uncle Monty]

Re:

I have been keeping an eye out like yourself for Japanese frames, and I am interested in the the builders. Nagasawa is the one everybody knows and is reckoned to be one of the finest. Bit of a sweeping statement as I personally think different people do different things well. Nagasawa is NJS registered and probably best known for his Kierin frames as are many others. There was one of his track frames at Bespoked this year and I didn't think to take a picture. Every detail wherever you looked seemed perfect. But I suspect if you dig deeper into Japanese framebuilding you will find a lot more than just track frames. Nakagawa is not NJS registered as far as I know, so he has built a more diverse range of frames. I found this bike on ebay. The seller had no background history so he may have picked it up to sell on. Will try and get some more details from Nakagawa, but for the moment I will give it a spin now and again and see if any details emerge before I go stripping it down.