…does anyone have or know someone who has purchased their insanely priced njs frames?

Yup - me.
I bought a frame off of John at the beginning of this year. Excellent service - worth it for the two and a half years I had saved to purchase a true track frame. I was offered some money off and then noticed after I purchased my Gan Well, the frame builder was temporarily not offered via Business Cycles. Not sure what the deal was with that, but they are back in disty via John now.

FYI - John's Gan Wells and Nagasawas are same/similar price as the very same frames that American Cyclery is offering. I believe this would have something to do with the folks at EAI - reference the Decline of HouseOfTrack for more info on EAI's pricing agreements with bike shops.
If John wanted to become rich, he wouldn't do it via a bike store.

i don't know…the price seems extreme, but then again its either that, or go to japan (or a hook-up in japan).

Japan hook-ups are becoming more and more difficult, and with e-framebank shutting doors (they want to keep the frame "indigenous") to foreign inquiries, it will only get harder. RELoad, Stratton (eBayer), and maybe other random sellers will have any sort of product to offer for the time being. Kind of sucks too, but thems the breaks.

As far as price - yes, but I put a little away in order to get what I wanted instead of a dented/stressed/whatevered used frame. I still wouldn't mind another one, on the cheap of course.

Just out of curiosity, and I know that this has probably been asked many times before, how much cheaper are these frames in Japan?

no clue - I live in Chicago

perhaps Tomity might know?

Frames in Japan seem pretty inexpensive when compared to US pricing, some of it due to exchange rates, some due to supply and demand.

My used Vivalo frame/fork in a hard to find 58x58 size was roughly $300 USD in Japan through the e-framebank Japanese friend hook-up... I can only imagine what the frame would go for on ebay right about now with "commonly" available 52-55cm frames fetching $700+. I'm guessing new frames are subject to markups in teh same range.

-brad

-brad

Check out page 14 in the ebay/CL thread.

https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...54#post1842754

A bomber pro frame which sold for $775 BIN on ebay was offered in a kerin shop in Japan for $295.

It -was- a gorgeous frame though

yeah, thats the thing about all those used/crashed keirin frames on ebay. i mean, those keirin riders are small guys, but they ride so hard and their legs or so massive, they probably push those njs standards to the limit. and once they crash a frame, they don't ride them again …they sell them to americans with an njs fetish.

it almost seems worth the trip to japan....just watch out for that damned bird flu....lol