they are no longer offering reduced shipping for multiple frames, and i saw this on the site today:

"We will close foreign orders on the end of June 15th(Japanese hour)
and will stop accepting for the time being. "

You guys ordered too many, too fast...


(says the guy who's getting #5509 as an anniversary present)

hm...tickets to tokyo are pretty cheap now...

wonder what's going on with the international orders. perhaps it's too much work for them to keep up with it? drawing too much attention somehow?

anyway, i've long wondered why no one attempted to import larger quantities of frames into the US for resale. reload occasionally gets 5 or 6 (and sells them out instantly at around $500 each), but that seems to be it.

if e-framebank is selling these beautiful frames for the US equivilant of $250-350, they're probably paying $100-250 for each frame.

these are frames i'd expect to see for $500-1000+ in the right market in the usa.

i don't know anything about exporting larger amounts of goods for sale in another country, but it must be pretty difficult.

they try to support the local young riders by giving them access to cheaper frames. so they where probably not happy to see them go out of the country in huge quantities.

pretty much all of the frames are donated by racers. they're then sold (at low prices) to younger racers in japan in order to promote the sport - a sport which can be quite expensive for young people who might be interested because of the cost of njs parts. all proceeds from the sold frames are donated back into youth bicycling programs. in the beginning it probably wasn't a big deal, since the few frames they were selling to americans meant money to promote the sport. but i think after the explosion, shinji probably realized not many japanese kids would be able to get a frame if they were all being snatched up by us. not to mention shinji is a racer himself and offers this service in his spare time.

I wrote this in another thread about eframebank:

What's up with eframebank? In the beginning weren't the frames really cheap, like $200 or something?
Now they cut off multiple shipping discounts, the larger/smaller sizes not being sold anymore, and shaft you on the somewhat *****ty conversion rate.
I guess they finally realized that their frames were not going to budding track racers, but rather to_____ [fill in the blank]. Messengers, collectors, hipsters, ebay profiteers, etc.

to be honest i can't really blame him. those of us who got a frame from him got them at a steal. those deals weren't meant for us anyway.

Wow - It's awesome the "luck" factor for what people are riding. How often do you tell your fellow riders - "man that's so cool, you're so lucky." These parts are soooooo expensive!!!! It's really crazy. "Dude if you can ride that bike, then maybe you can buy this round" And then they show you the holes in their shoes.

All you guys that made these purchases - so Lucky - and that's rad!

totally makes sense when spelled out like that. that's a great service for young racers, then.

i'd have been stoked to get a cheap pro-level frame when i first started racing.

do you guys have any idea what shipping company in Japan e-framebank uses to ship to the States?

no clue, but i'll post what i can find out from the packaging when my frame gets here.

My money came back due to lack of enogh postage and resending it again to them.. We will see if the take it.

S/F<
CEYA!

mine came EMS through the japanese post and then was USPS expressmail when it hit the states

Smart! They use postal services instead of a shipping company. Postal services in Japan uses set prices for item shipped through them.

S/F,
CEYA!

My Anchor by Bridgestone.

55 c/t seat tube
53.5 top tube.
suntour 75 BB
Hatta HS

will be built up in a week. got this from E-Frame Bank.
3 days to get here.

S/F<
CEYA!

NOTE posted this is Photos forums.

f*ck. how many bikes does that make now, ceya?

too many.

S/F<
CEYA!

somewhere along the line e-framebank updated their homepage with a new picture. (I usually go straight to the list) it's sweet. I'm guessing Ceya has a similar set-up check it...

Is the guy in the photo running a front disc brake on his yellow bike on the left?

it might be a drum brake

does anyone know if they are accepting international orders yet?

According to the website, no.

Great. Now my siezures are back. Thanks a lot.

yea.. if I only had a room that looked like that.