>How rare are camping bikes.
A month ago I asked about "classic" shops in "The Bay" beyond American Cyclery. Nobody on the list came back with the best most classic shop in the area. I'd heard of the shop on the iBOB list once, but few other places beyond that. Well when we were up in the area we never made it to the west bay (a.k.a. San Francisco) but hung around the Oakland and Berkeley area instead. While talking to one of my closest friends Ivor Thomas at The Missing Link in Berkeley I mentioned that I had heard of a strange Japanese shop in the area. He directed me to 2250 Bancroft Way next to the Berkeley campus. Anyway M and I made the trek up the hill and across the school to what is now my favorite bay area shop. This is a small shop with few bikes but what it lacks in quantity it easily makes up for quality. He speciallizes in modern make classics with a few Rivendells and Eisentrauts, but his favorite bikes are camping bikes. The bikes are not a fancy as Herse's since thay are designed to ridden hard and put away wet. The lugs are simple and paint basic colors but the look is 100% classic. The owner Hiroshi Iimura designs the bikes and has them built in Japan and they are wonderful. I know quality construction when I see it and these frames have it. I only had a quick visit but found him to be a great man with a real interest in classic designs along the same lines as mine. Next time I hope to take one for a ride. Rarely do I ever enter a shop and have my Visa card call to me, but if I was working a good job my wife would now be riding one of his bikes. Mitzi had never seen a camping bike in person and now she knows it's the bike for her. This also leads to the question does anyone have anymore info on the construction and design of camping bikes. This year I'll be building M a frame and fork to replace her 80's Trek and she now wants a camping bike and I need to design it before I build the jig. If you have an interest in camping bikes I would recommend a visit to his shop.
enjoy, monkeyman
Brandon and Mitzi's-- "Wurld uv Wunder"
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/
Monkeyman's on going bicycle part garage sale
http://www.uweb.ucsb.edu/
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Nobody can do everything,
but if everybody did something
everything would get done.
-Gil Scott Heron-
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