Old 08-09-18 | 11:44 PM
  #25  
since6
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Joined: Nov 2015
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From: Lacey, WA

Bikes: Stevenson Custom, Stevenson Custom Tandem, Nishiki Professional

I did find a prior post regarding the Sannow Sport bicycle on C&V and a website that has a 1960s Sannow Sport catalog.

Thanks to a post from 2frmMI:

“Zombie Revival!!
Just found this thread, and for the purpose of not letting info be lost, here goes...
I found the Sannow Sports bike shop in Tokyo sometime around 1984 or 85, if I recall. When I walked in the door and looked at the bikes I was immediately in love. The frames were "old school" even then. The jolly old proprietor came out and introduced himself as Takahashi-san. Some amount of conversation (limited by my rough Japanese language ability) and he let on to being an Olympic medalist in the 50's, though I've never been able to confirm that. Anyway, he had a set of candy-apple red frames hanging from the ceiling that were drop-dead gorgeous - like I had died and come back to life in a Cinelli factory. Metal flake candy-apple over chrome. Long cutout lugs in Cinelli style, more chrome on the fork crown and dropouts. I'm told that to do that, the whole frame is chromed, and I believe that, since over the years I've been a bad boy and chipped and banged mine up enough to find chrome all over the place (for example see the closeup of the lug area). Takahashi-san claimed these frames were a contract build for the Korean National Team. This was the start of a 2-week business trip for me, so I had him measure me up for exactly "one just like those". Tange "prestige" tubing, and T-san said I couldn't gain 10 pounds or I'd have to hang it up... When I got back to Tokyo, the frame was ready (though it was too quick for him to get the head badge and decals on), and we debated the running gear. He eventually convinced me to equip it with a majority of Suntour Superbe (and at the time he was the importer for Campagnolo, so pretty honest recommendation, I think). Superbe was some beautiful stuff and the market is the worse without it these days. I particularly liked the pedals and the hubs...sigh. Anyway, having brought the kit back to USA and put it together, I had a lot of interest from friends in Seattle, where I lived at the time. Subsequently imported a few more bikes from Takahashi (with help from a friend in the food import business - Blake, are you listening?), with the idea of becoming a grand entrepreneur, but alas, I am to this day only a bike rider. The bike sits today in our exercise room in an honorary position on a stand. Back in the day, I put a LOT of really great miles on this lovely bike (call it '84 thru ca. '94), including a high-point for me, a 3 digit STP (Seattle to Portland). I hope others will find this thread and add to the history, though the most knowledgeable will probably need translation.

Sannow sports in 1960s - The catalogs of Japanese vintage bicyclecyclespeugeot.web.fc2.com/reminiscence/sannow60s.htmI've received several catalogs from many cyclists who visited this website. I greatly appreciate them. Here is the catalog of Sannow Sports in 1960s.

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From this 60s catalog I glean that there were Sannow Champion, Eminenza and Santa Rosa models, but I don’t know what model my Sannow is, again any help in identification is welcome.
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