James H Haury

Leo, I think you are using photoshop ? It is very convincing though.Mr matsuda could concievably be selling inferior Dahon copies after all they copy most everything in China.

Leo C. Driscoll

Except for Dahon folders and possibly other brands , Matsuda has no problem in offering on his Yahoo store any bike-even the virtual Spacelander ;-)- since he doesn't ship anything!

For example, Matsuda is currently "selling" Brompton L-3 ($800) (which you can really purchase for $915 from Bicycle Habitat, NYC). https://bicyclehabitat.com/site/itemd...2389&Catalog=1

Sugoi, Matsuda-sensei, momovelo no keiei kanri keikaku ni tsuite, tensai no Yahoo! no sagi desu.
[Congratulations, Prof. Matsuda, on your Sugoiyahoo! startup in Tokyo.]

robertsdvd

Dang man, give it a rest, while I had a good experience ordering from him, I guess other people have not, but we get the point.

jim-bob

Did Kai beat you up in high school or something, Leo?

royalflash

keep it up Leo- I nearly ordered something from him once-glad I didn´t

wpflem

I suppose this dealer has thus far eluded Brompton's radar. Brompton is careful about who they allow to sell their products. There are less than 20 dealers in the USA.

weed eater

i spent a fair amount of time in kai's shop in '02/'03. i do not wish to defend his actions because taking someone's money and not shipping their product is indefensible.

however, i at least can offer my (more positive) experiences. i did have some successful transactions with him, mostly on the accessory side, and more than that i enjoyed his aesthetics and his energy. obviously his vast and free-running intentions outstripped his abilities, and he got in over his head/bit off more than he could chew/pick your cliche.

you will be amused to know that at least part of his problem was that he was (on a local level) too generous. when he first opened his atelier it was because his little boutique in sather gate had become mostly a repair shop, which repairs were largely free and done on bicycles belonging to homeless men. furthermore, once my partner and i rented ten bikes from him (for a bunch of visiting friends to join us on critical mass) and after we returned them we could not get him to accept payment for the rentals. i think the same mindset was at work in both his inability to fill mail orders and his inability to take money from local regulars.

it really sucks, because he has a good design sense and, as no one can deny, his later "atelier" bikes were astonishingly beautiful. i've gotten the hots for a singlespeed bike recently, and today i went to his site to see what he had, and found it "closed," which is what ultimately led me here.

back then, we quite often thought that the one thing he needed was a business manager. i guess we were right.

Leo C. Driscoll

Thanks, weed eater, for helping us put all this in perspective.

Like you, and many members of BikeForums, I was enthused about momovelo designs and planned to order one of his astonishing single speeds or fixies.

I'm now inclined to think that Kai-san just got overwhelmed by a combination of financial and health problems and simply dropped out. Unfortunately, it looks like he left his biz in some very bad hands.

If something like this happened, Kai-san is the ultimate victim of this fraud. The rest of us just lost money. To some extent, this poor guy lost his ability to create, market, and sell uniquely beautiful and functional bikes.

If something like this happened, and if Kai-san is the person you describe- bike culture icon, velo artist, compassionate shopkeeper- then I owe him a serious apology. More to the point, all his friends and former customers (even those of us who got ripped off) need to help him get back to his art and business.

If anyone has any information or even hearsay about what actually happened to momovelo, please post it on this thread. Yes, this situation sucks. We need to do something about it.

Plus I'm still keen to test ride one of his new fixies on Tokyo's Omotesandoo;-)

weed eater

there's a huge amount of chatter on various forums about momovelo, which you've no doubt read. as far as I can tell, as of yesterday the Yahoo store is no longer. you can find some archived momovelo.com pages if you are sneaky, but that web site is effectively dead too. the ebay ID you mentioned does appear to be him, and to his credit there are no negative feedbacks, though, strangely, the ID name changed yesterday.

i think it would be very difficult to do what he did, and do it profitably or even sustainably -- perhaps a non-profit org, connected to a traditional bike store, would have all of the ins and outs needed to cover all (or most) of the ground he wanted to cover, while providing a base income. But the logistics, never mind the Bay Area rents, of even half of that (take your pick--bike store, or bicycle non-profit) are huge, certainly more than one person can handle. I think there is a place in the US, particularly on the West Coast, for a store that carries specialized 'boutique' equipment like this, and the presence of the Internet makes it all the more feasible, but the vision would have to be pared down to one or two things instead of all ten or fifteen, and you'd have to at least hire a staff.

but who knows -- once the Bay Area real estate bubble bursts, maybe someone will give it a try. I'll certainly be happy if so!

weed eater

i've found an online bike "store" that seems to have a similar aesthetic sense as momo; a bit more gritty and use-what-ya-got, which fits me fine...

go on ebay and check out seller ID "adkerbicycles"

OneTinSloth

kai is still around in the bay area. he has a new shop in downtown berkeley along the same lines as momovelo. and he's super pleasant to deal with, and a real nice guy. i really enjoy being able to go down there and chat with him.

weed eater

that is great news. where's the shop?

Leo C. Driscoll

Yes. this is great news! Now we don't have to worry about Kai-san sleeping in one of the aesthetic cardboard crates for the homeless outside Shinjuku station in Tokyo.

A new scenario- Kai-san is back selling velo-eye-candy- hopefully only from his new Berkeley shop. Now it looks like those of us who were ripped off were simply venture capitalists ;-)

So, OneTinSloth, where's the shop?

In my brief search, I did find jitensha.com/ (Jitensha Studio, (2250 Bancroft Way, Berkeley). weed eater, you may want to check it out. Not Kai-san's new boutique- reportedly there since 1985. But I wish Jitensha Studio were in Boston/Cambridge ;-( For that matter, I wish Kai-san were in Boston/Cambridge. We could have some kaiwa as we drink a litre of Momo no Shizuku sake ;-)

Adker

Weed Eater,

Thanks for the kind words. We are probably not in Momo's league regarding aesthetics or customer service. We convert quality old road bike frames into something "we" would want to ride. In many cases we do ride them for a while before we offer them for sale. We'll do just about anything our buyers request to ensure they get a bike they are happy with. We rescue these bikes from hanging unridden in someone's garage or barn. Our goal is to build them up into something the new owners really want to ride.

Thanks Again,
John
AdkerBicycles

Leo C. Driscoll

Matsuda-san is back! He has just opened in Berkeley a new eye-candy shop, wryly called Omafiets ("granny bike" in Dutch). So all of us venture capitalists (Kai's Ripoff Club) should bike over to Milvia Street and help him celebrate the grand opening of Omafiets (through May 29) ;-) For a look at "granny bikes" in the Netherlands check out https://www.omafiets.nl/.

puckman

OK... I hope somebody will let me know what happen to this Kai Matsuda or my Gitane Mixte....

Last Summer (June 05) I gave Kai Matsuda my NervexLug Gitane Mixte to restore and repaint. He took the frame to powder coat shop and it never made it back to his shop and I think late August 05 he closed ho Omafiet shop and dissapear.
This is what I know....
Around August 05: He just left the area and did not pay his rent nor take his stuff in the shop with him. The landlord of the space had no idea what happen to him, they packed Kai stuffs and put them in the storage. I left the landlord my info in the event that Kai might come back.

November 05: I stopped by the shp and asked the landload what happen to Kai.. they said he came back and took his stuff and left.

I hope people in this BF community who know him will let him know that some one in BF is looking for his Gitane Mixte...