List members will know by now of my growing fscination with Japanese "bespoke" framebuilders, about whom I know so little. So... it's very frustrating to be reading all your comments about this Hirose machine with its peculiar front and rear mechs etc and not to be able to find the Japanese site.
However to add my "ten pennyworth" of knowledge... about the black thing.. yes it is a type of "sling" made of rubber and stretched between two pegs, the intent being to stop the chain trawling along the chainstay. They were very common in France in the 50/60s, but the classier "haute couture" builders used to have them made in leather, often "tooled "decoratively, and bearing their name. I have seen them on fairly recent randonneurs too, built by one-man workshops. If you want t have that extra touch of class, it must be possible to fine a local craft leather-worker who could make one up for not too much money. I am lucky in this little Yorkshire town in having one of the very few surviving makers of wooden clogs working not more than 400 yards away. In the 80s particularly, when I was going through my Herse-Singer phase, I had him produce these "straps" individually with the company name "BESPOKE" tooled into the leather. An option was to have the owner's name tooled in instead of Bespoke. My shop, based in the six barrel-vaulted cellars of the old Shambles building - formerly a "walk-through" open butchers' market, looked out onto the Market Place. So strong was the gallic influence on my frames at the time that I conjured up the new brand "DUMARCHE", but fortunately had more sense than to launch it.
In later years.. and I still do it on the rare touring frames that I build these days I dispense with the leather strap, and replace it with three spokes held in place by a couple of brazed-on devices I file up for the job, one end taking the spoke heads and the other securing the spokes and nipples in place. This is a very functional way of keeping the chainstay clean and unmarked, and it provides an alternative home for the spare spokes. In the "old days" of bike pumps with conections, it was common practice when going on runs to stuff several spokes down the barrel.
I'm pretty sure that I picked up the spoke - chainstay protector idea off some French builder or other, possibly jean-Paul Routens of Grenoble.
Norris Lockley... wallowing in nostalgia.. Settle UK