After several years of keeping an eye on Yahoo Japan auctions, I finally found my "grail bike" - a complete Zunow 650B randonneur bike! While not part of the early custom "KYGM" series, this one does have the same Nervex lugs with the Zunow seatstay caps. It's a beautiful and finely rendered copy of French randonneur designs of the 1960s and 70s like Alex Singer. The lugs are hand-filed and it even has internal wiring for the lights.

It came complete and is in amazingly good shape, only a few small scratches in the paint. The only changes I've made to it are new tires (Grand Bois Hetres) and some Kool Stop brake pads to replace the old MAFACs. It has a SunTour Cyclone GT rear and Superbe front derailleur, and a Sugino Pro Dynamic S 50.4 crankset with Stronglight chain rings. The brakes are MAFAC and the bars are Belleri, but the levers are Dia-Compe, the saddle Brooks. Very much a blend of East and West, Francophile and Japanese.

My favorite touch is that the Zunow logo on the headtube matches the tattoo on my right leg and the logo on the seat tube matches the tattoo on my left leg. It was meant to be!

In the short term, I will probably put a longer stem on it and re-wrap the handlebars. Ultimately, I may convert it to modern 10-speed Campagnolo alloy - heresy maybe, but I really want to put some miles on this bike, not hang it on the wall like a trophy. I'll be posting more pictures soon.