I think I speak for many when I say we understand you perfectly! My bicycle wish list is improbably long, but no matter what I spend, it never seems to be enough (now you know what my "drug" is!) :-) Dennis in Louisville, sprucing itself up for the Derby ...
----Original Message Follows---- From: kf <QYP02710@nifty.com> To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org Subject: RE:Re: [CR]URLs for Toei, Pegasus, etc Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2001 04:22:39 +0900
I think, many of Japanese collectors buy own nostalgia. Since Japanese are poo r and Japanese Yen is not strong in the world market, They can not to buy good bicycle when they are young. French bicycles (Rene Herse, Alex Singer, Follis ...) and French equipments (Strong Light, plunger Simplex, Ideale, Mafac...) a re their shining dreams or brilliant jewels when they were poor young. They gl ow up to be a man, they buy own dreams.
We Japanese can buy a Toei bicycle in the amount of $2K. $2K bicycle is slight ly poor than $5K. But with toei quality. I bought two Alex Singer Bicycles fro m Mr. Csuka in Levallois. He designed bicycle dimensions for me. The cost is a bout 26K France Franc (in 1995 and 1998). This is the same or inexpensive cost as special Toei bicycle. But Unfortunately, sipping cost (France to Japan) is very expensive.
Mr. Hirose is not young. He got serious sickness two year ago. He became to re cover today. But, no one knows that when he will give up his job.
Since I am poor about English language, I can not write of my opinion. Sorry.
Kenji Fusejima
Tokyo Japan