Bike Forums - SR - School Me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hairnet (Post 10046199)

err, don't mean to high jack the thread, but what about SR frames? I've tried looking it up but I didn't find a whole lot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by krems81 (Post 10046199)

The logo on the sr frames looks suspiciously like the sr components logo. I'd guess they contracted a large Japanese frame manufacturer to make bikes for them for a period of time. Probably Panasonic, judging by the way they were equipped....

Quote:

Originally Posted by romanlotus (Post 10046199)

SR bicycle have nothing to do with Sakae .

Well, this gets a bit complicated. Sakae Ringyo, the component manufacturer, did manufacture bicycles but they do not appear to be related to the SR bicycle brand, Confused? Let me try to explain.

Circa 1976, a Japanese trading company called Marui introduced the SR brand of bicycles to the USA market. The brand had its heyday in the mid-1980s and through that time was distributed in the USA by Windsor Enterprises, who operated out of various locations in the San Francisco Bay area. These bicycles were contract manufacture by various Asian sources, with Araya and Miki being the two most common, based on the serial number data that I've seen able collect. Marui also owned the Shogun brand of bicycles and in the late 1980s started phasing out their SR line, in favour of Shogun.

The SR component brand was owned and manufactured by Sakae Ringyo Kaisha, who were, to the best of my knowledge, unrelated to Marui. However, in the late 1980s, apparently as a result of Shimano's dominance in the bicycle component market, Sakae Ringyo started looking to diversify. They also changed their name to SR Sakae. Since they had lots of experience with aluminum and aluminum bicycle frames were becoming popular, they started building bonded aluminum forks and frames which were marketed under the Litage and Prism names, in addition to be rebranded by other companies such as 3Rensho and BH. These frames appeared circa 1988. However, probably to avoid confusion with Marui's SR brand, any decals bearing the company named, stated "SR Sakae".

So, Sakae Ringyo/SR Sakae (the component manufacturer) did build aluminum framed bicycles, but they do not appear to be related to the SR brand of steel framed bicycles of the late 1970s though the mid-1980s.