mcatano

So I was doing a little digging to find out more about my 3Rensho frame, and apparently my bike is a bit of an odd duck. I'm wondering if anyone can help unravel the mystery.

It's a 3Rensho track frame with aero blade forks/fork crown, 3rensho super ends and pantographed seat stay plugs/caps (rather than fastbacks). None of this is particularly remarkable, but there are a few things that are odd:

1. It's fully chromed under the paint. Apparently 3Rensho never made any production bikes that were chromed. Anyone else have a chromed 3Ren?

2. The serial number doesn't seem to match other serial numbers. Mine is stamped on the BB shell with the NJS mark and then something that look like this:
6 3
79
Most 3Rensho serials start with letters a la this system (kindly provided by the folks at Yellow Jersey):
Japanese retail sales start with C
Custom models start with CC
Bikes imported by Andrew Muzi start with A
John Harrington's sales start with CCA

3. My bike doesn't have the standard "cyclone" or "katana" decals on the seat tube, or even the cute little elephant tubing decal. Instead, on the back of the seat tube there is a green decal that reads "Legno." The only cycling related-reference to "Legno" that google seems to be giving me is the name of a stage in the Giro. I think it means "wood" in Italian.

Any of this mean anything to anyone?

Oh yeah, for anyone who (like me) is wondering, Yellow Jersey has a stock of NOS 3rensho replacement forks. Unpainted ones are $340, chromed ones are $399. Yowza.

m.

sashae

Not true. I've seen a couple of fully chromed (and unpainted) 3renshos. It was an available option.

None of the frames I've brought in from Japan start with letters. Conclude from that what you will.

Out of the 4 3Rensho frames I've handled, exactly 0 have had the elephant tubing/cyclone/katana/champion stripes decals. The 'Legno' decal I've never seen, but the rest sounds about right.

There was a huge amount of variation in production details of 3Rensho frames over the years

I've owned 4 -- 2 road, 2 track -- and they've all had extensive differences in terms of decals, seatstay caps, and dropouts. Apparently there were a lot of changes over the years.

thelung

this thread is useless without pics

HexagonSun

there's a lot to say about what's happened to 3rensho frames over the years, much of which i can only guess due to the fact that so little information seems to make it to america - minus what comes through andy muzi, but his knowledge seems to cut off at the point he stopped importing frames.

there seems to be a general evolution of the frames over the years, from fastback seat stays and ohtsuya bottom bracket shells, to konno developing his proprietary lugs and superends, and the forward swept fork crowns. most traditional 3renshos seem to have at least a few of these attributes; sometimes shimano ends seem to be used and sometimes the fork style differs, but all super record exports seem to generally have ohtsuya bottom bracket shells and 3rensho lugs.

for example, chimbley's "okashii" is a good example of an earlier 3rensho:

fastback stays and 3resho lugs. the fork blades aren't swept forward, but i'm not sure konno developed these when he was still using fastback stays.

in this photo you can see chimbly's ohtsuya bottom bracket:

https://velospace.org/node/127

this frame is also a good example of the forward swept fork blades. (the bottom bracket shell isn't noticable from this angle):

https://www.fixedgeargallery.com/2006...xedrider_3.htm

there seems to be a point where most newer 3renshos differ from the standard "super record export" look. gone are the ohtsuya bottom bracket shells, superends, and eventually the 3rensho lugs and forward swept fork crowns. I'm not sure when they started to change, but they seem to have gone in that order.

my 3rensho has super ends, a swept fork and 3rensho lugs, but a bottom bracket that looks like this:

as opposed to an ohtsuya as seen on chimbly's. i've since seen other frames with 3rensho lugs and forks, but without ohtsuya bb's, or super ends. the super ends were replaced by shimano (or makino?) ends like this:

with the loss of 3rensho lugs and fork crowns following.
this frame only seems to retain the traditional 3rensho fork:


eventually 3renshos basically became makinos with 3rensho decals. these can be recognized for the style of lugs that have cutouts on the head tube lugs, and a circular cutout on the underside of the top tube and down tube, like in this photo:

these are the lugs currently used on makinos.

some of these models also have the panto'd 3rensho stay caps lugged onto the stays:


instead of the traditional:


then there is this bike, which seems to have absolutely no 3rensho attributes except for decals, not even panto'd stay caps:


what i do not know is exactly when konno was paralyzed and when the 3rensho attributes began to change. some of these frames were probably made at the 3rensho factory until they slowly began to run out of traditional components and began to substitute them, or components became unavailable or were changed for functional reasons (namely the ohtsuya bottom bracket, since that was the only part of the frame konno didn't seem to design). at some point they morph into what is basically a current makino. not sure if these later frames were actually made at the makino factory or not.

also notable is that none of the older super record export frames seem to have njs stamps (that i know of), and most of the frames that do have the stamp don't seem to have ohtsuya bb's (that i know of) and have serial numbers that differ from andy muzi's description, and they usually don't contain cyclone, or little elephant/steel decals, and sometimes the super record export decal. not sure why this is. my frame has all 3rensho components minus the ohtsuya bb, but it is stamped njs and does not correspond with muzi's serial description.

anyone else with info, or a frame that differs from my observations should set me straight. all of this info was gathered from the internet, photos, and the few 3rensho's i've seen so it is by no means complete.

thelung

Wow. That was very interesting, thanks. I felt like I was watching Antiques Roadshow.

mcatano

My bike has the older style seat stay plugs, the 3rensho stamped super ends, a bb shell identical to the one on hexagon sun's bike and the aero fork crown. If I'm interpreting this brochure correctly, the crown (model NSK) dates it (and, by association, chimbly's bike) to post-1987:



The head tube lugs do have the circular cut-outs - such as the ones on the white bike from sashae-framebank - but those same lugs show up in this fairly old looking catalog page, right next to the older style ohtsuya BB shell, and the older fastback stays (although they don't have the cut-outs on the side):



My frame seems to similar to yours - NJS stamped, no cyclone or elephant decals, different serial number, all 3rensho components (although with different head lugs?), and the bb is style with the integrated chainstay bridge.

Maybe we should start a database of 3rensho owners and the weird peculiarities of our bikes.

Either way, thanks for that great post, Hexagon!

raygunner

I was thinking about joining the database of who owns the "Love Buzz" single but your idea is cool.

Hell, I can sell my "Love Buzz" single & buy a 3rensho! Everything is coming up Raygunner!

jim-bob

My 3rensho is lacking pantographed seatstay caps and quite a few decals, but it's got the forward swept fork crown and is pretty recognizable still.

evanyc

you can tell you're a bike nerd when you love threads like these.

onetwentyeight 

That red one is mine... It is a super record export, but it is NJS stamped.. It has the same BB shell as hexagon suns. The nice detail that i enjoy the most on mine is the filed down lugs. I know its a common thing with those frames, but they get thinner as they come to a point and I dig it. Fun times. Great ride. I joke and call it my over priced makino. If i interpret the serial # correctly it is from 96.

Moximitre

damn, that is officially the best thread I've read so far. Thanks to all who know more than me.

evanyc

this is reminiscent of the excellent fork crown discussion we had going for a bit in the photos thread before people complained.

onetwentyeight 

also my serial# is 96 XX XXX, which as I recall works as year, month, #of the frame built that year. The ones that go Y xx xx xxx were the ones imported by yellow jersey. frame porn here for the bored: https://www.flickr.com/photos/onetwen...7594090343546/

sashae

Welp, I'm back from Japan, and I've FINALLY picked up my purple/neon yellow/frightening 3Rensho, and it's a reaaaallly weird one.

I haven't taken detailed pictures yet (planning on taking a few today) but there's several attributes of the frame I've never seen before.

1> Fully aero fork crown, internally lugged.

Looks identical to this one:



2> Fastback seatstays with internal binder bolt.

3> *Bladed* aero seatstays and bladed rear brake bridge.

4> 3-point head/seat lugs -- instead of the standard points at 12 o'clock and six o'clock, there's a single point at 12 o'clock, then points at 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock. I've never seen this before.

5> ...and most amazingly to me, it's fully chromed underneath the paint. Yeah. There's several fat chips on the stays and one on the top tube, and it's completely chromed. Bling?

Serial number is only "8 170" with the NJS stamp, so who the hell knows what the story is with this bike. The paint is... jarring, to say the least. But yeah, weird.

jayrooney

sounds absolutely incredible. can't wait to see it!

sashae

Since jetlag is keeping me from sleep, I took a few quick indoor photos. I need outdoor shots to really appreciate the paint.

chimblysweep

This 3rensho catalogue may help a little too.

I also have an old order form signed by Yoshi Konno that shows to sort of "levels" of track frame- the standard has the regular seatstays and the "deluxe" has the fastbacks. They made both at the same time, so it's really not any indicator of age.

Okashii, my fastback 3rensho, is NJS stamped and has the ohtsuya bb, so that may throw a wrench into things. The decals are replacements but match the originals almost exactly... it came with the elephant and the world champion stripes and the super record export on the chainstays. The serial # has no letters in it.

The little purple one had interesting decals I've not seen before - stripes but not world champion stripes. This was also a frame from japan, NJS, no letter in the serial number, newer BB design, older trackend design. I always assumed the red-white-and blue decals were because Konno's frames had not yet won a world championship, which I assumed made the frame older. More terrible photos of the purple one (no longer in my posession) are here.

queerpunk

that paint is ridiculawesome!

absntr

A little site dedicated to 3Resnho should be done methinks. Lots of little souvenirs and such are floating around. For instance, I have a sort of paperweight, a sticker with the katana letters and also a pin.

My BB also doesn't start with a letter -- just numbers, 3 pairs indicating the date the frame was made (from my friend Yohei's mouth direct from Makino-san's mouth).

Mine is from 97, Makino-made and was meant for export (super record export) but stayed in the Rensho/Makino factory/shop and was one of the last frames that Makino had on hand.



Here's an intersting San Rensho -- different decals and arrowhead lugs:





And here's a current photo of Makino-San:

jayrooney

the purple and yellow is so good.