On 4/1/07, Chuck Schmidt <chuckschmidt@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> Sasha Eysymontt wrote:
>
> Yeah Sasha, I've seen some 70s/80s Nagasawas whose beauty almost
> brought tears to my eyes. I'd heard Nagasawa worked at DeRosa for a
> few years(?) and I was in love with his bikes. But the current ones
> with the cut and plug construction don't exhibit that mojo that his
> 70s/80s frames had. You're right... very sad when you've seen his
> early stuff
To get specifically back on topic, I've got a few pictures of a 1978
Nagasawa built for the Shimano team (one of 7 or 8 built for the team, and
now in the hands of another listee, as the damn bike was mismeasured and
vastly too small for me, sigh.) Forgive the poor quality of the photos, as
these are fairly on in my bike photography 'career' --
http://boxwood.subtle.org/
Nagasawa did work for Ugo De Rosa, and also spent time with Sante Pogliaghi in training. He spent 6 years in Italy starting in 1970 -- I'm not sure of the dates he spent at each -- but I personally think his building style is more De Rosa influenced than Pogliaghi, with his very restrained lugwork.
To answer Joel's question about the super steep angled keirin frames, the story I heard was that in the late 1990s/early 2000s there was a rider with /very/ strange physiognomy who rode with insanely steep seat tubes for comfort reasons -- to the tune of 80-81 degrees -- and won a number of races. Other riders (being like riders in any other sport) tried out the super-steep bikes, and finding them ridiculously uncomfortable and unworkable, ditched them for more 'normal' frames soon thereafter. Funny stuff.
sasha 'ganbatte!' eysymontt, nyc.
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,+'^'+ sasha eysymontt
sashae at gmail dot com - http://subtle.org/
`+,.,+` new york city.